There comes a time in every Fall Out Boy’s life when he realizes it is time to become a Fall Out Man. For Pete Wentz, this is not the time.

Wentz—ambitious son of a lawyer and the Chicago suburbs, not necessarily in that order, a showman and exhibitionist who has taken to the limelight like algae takes to the sunlight—is l�iving the dream and in no hurry to make big changes. No matter how tormented or conflicted his lyrics, he always covers his tracks by treating rock stardom as some kind of class prank. Therein lies his greatness. With his Joan Collins slabs of eyeliner and his what, me worry? grin, looking uncannily like an emo version of Guy Smiley from Sesame Street, Wentz always seems to be having a blast, even when he’s stuck on MTV interviewing Heidi Montag and Spencer Pratt. He loves the show-biz hustle, whether covering Michael Jackson’s “Beat It” with John Mayer or walking red carpets with wife Ashlee Simpson.

Nobody should expect Wentz to start getting mature on Folie à Deux. And who would ever want him to? Now that he’s married and fatherhood looms, this is the brightest, breeziest, giddiest record Fall Out Boy have ever made. Wentz still comes up with ripe puns about teenage angst, set to sunny pop melodies and fleshed out by Patrick Stump’s gritty-as-Lubriderm vocals. The guitars still have rock momentum, yet every song seems to come with harmonies straight from a collegiate a cappella society. Even when they’re revisiting the self-involved adolescent malaise of “I Don’t Care,” they burst into a chorus of defiant Wentzfulness: “The best of us can find happiness in misery.”

Fall Out Boy have been talking up Folie à Deux as their big political statement (it was originally scheduled to come out on Election Day). Maybe your neighborhood Wentz�ologist can elucidate the political significance of “She’s My Winona” or explain how they critique the subprime-credit collapse in “Headfirst Slide Into Cooperstown on a Bad Bet.” It sounds more like they’re playing around in the studio, constructing tracks out of stream-of-Twitter-feed song ideas and stacking up vocal overdubs into Electric Light Orchestra or Queen territory. (Panic at the Disco’s Brendon Urie adds vocals and keyboards to the not-very-adultly-titled “20 Dollar Nose Bleed.”) FOB pile on celebrity cameos like there’s no tomorrow, passing the mic with the zeal of an old-school Hollywood talk-show host. Lil Wayne raps a few barely audible words in “Tiffany Blews,” and Pharrell hams it up on the luxuriantly squishy Neptunes production “w.a.m.s.” Blondie singer Debbie Harry supposedly appears on “West Coast Smoker,” though if you can find her in the mix, you are probably with Scotland Yard.

The unlikely highlight is the piano ballad, “What a Catch, Donnie,” where Stump shows off his R&B vocal chops on some of Wentz’s most over-the-top lyrics. (“What a catch” rhymes with “I’ve got troubled thoughts and the self-esteem to match.”) A backup choir features members of Panic at the Disco, Gym Class Heroes and The Academy Is … , and just when you think the song is over, Elvis Costello comes in to sing one line. Ridiculous? Very. Which makes it a very Fall Out Boy moment.

DOWNLOAD “I Don’t Care,” “What a Catch, Donnie,” “(Coffee’s for Closers)”

Tales from the Studio: Fall Out Boy