Some people listen to emotionally complex music, such as the songs of Fall Out Boy, to feel sadder or madder.  Usually this is a harmless form of stress release.

Howerver, there are certainly clinically depressed individuals who will fixate on particularly dark songs in order to dive further into the depths of gloom and doom.

Fall Out Boy bassist Pete Wentz understands this impulse.  He has been there.  But he does not want you, or some catastrophically mopey person you know, to drop into a state of sad paralysis that leads to self harm.

Wentz, along with Mary J. Blige, Nelly Furtado and Max Bemis of Say Anything, has thrown in with MTVu and the Jed Foundation's "Half of Us" campaign to raise awareness of depression as a treatable illness and to prevent suicide on college campuses.  Help is here.

Doesn't it make you happy to read about Pete's empathy for the bummed-out among us rather than being forced to endure another story of him dating Ashlee Simpson?




Black Flag "Depression"