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I hung posters on my walls and magazine photos in my locker. They were my absolute favorite band in the world, and I was their quintessential fangirl. My love for My Chemical Romance went beyond liking one or two of their songs. For me, My Chemical Romance totally doesn’t belong in the throwaway bin of my high school memories. It’s like the longer I go without listening to them, the more I forget just how awesome their music really was.
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And sure, their lyrics toed the line of emo sometimes (I'm looking at you, "I Don't Love You"), but with MCR's heavy Queen and David Bowie influences and hard rock instrumentation, Bright Eyes was a far better example of emo music than My Chemical Romance could ever be (no offense, Bright Eyes, we love you).Įvery couple of years, I sort of “rediscover” My Chemical Romance, and every single time I’m shocked at myself for not listening to them more often. They didn't sound like the pop punk bands, because they weren't a pop punk band. I constantly argued with the people who lumped My Chemical Romance into the category of whiny boy bands who only played in drop D because they weren't capable of playing real barre chords, trying to tell them that MCR was actually a really great band musically. With almost Rolling Stones-like guitar riffs and a clearly blues-influenced solo, "Teenagers" is the song you could sneak onto your classic rock playlist and probably get away with without any questions. Let's remember that MCR really didn't like being labelled an emo band, they wanted to be known as a rock band. Speaking of "Teenagers," that is a really awesome rock song. There are plenty uses of alternate voices and accents, sort of portraying characters, on "Three Cheers," and I don't think anyone can deny that the music videos for "Helena" and "The Ghost of You" are actually more theatrical than a few of their "Black Parade" counterparts like "Famous Last Words," "I Don't Love You," and "Teenagers." And yes, "The Black Parade" is incredibly theatrical, so much so that Liza Minelli herself makes a cameo appearance, but I'm not so sure that "Three Cheers" wasn't theatrical. The drums are just plain better than on the previous albums. There were still plenty of fantastic guitar solos. The lyrics spanned everything from cutting to kitschy. While "Three Cheers" was the angry, angsty album, and "The Black Parade" was the more somber, thoughtful album, it still had all the key elements of work by My Chemical Romance. For what many might consider to be too many theatrics, too much production, or too big a shift in genre, I don't see such a huge difference. But through it all (“the rise and fall”.sorry, I had to), My Chemical Romance was there to say, we hear you, we understand you, here is your anthem.Įverybody's proclaimed favorite MCR album, "Three Cheers For Sweet Revenge," is also great, but it didn't seem as mature as "The Black Parade." I think a lot of people listened to "Welcome to the Black Parade" and stopped there, not giving the other songs a chance. We were the kids who rejected the norm, risking our position in the high school social hierarchy. We were the ones who were not afraid to think and question, who somehow managed to be both open and closed off at the same time. We were the last of the great dwindling emo generation, the ones who held onto our black and red clothing and angsty music with all our might when the “scene kid” fad started catching on. The generation that shopped exclusively at Hot Topic, that sported black nail polish and questionable shades of eyeshadow, and that embraced uniqueness (though in retrospect, I’m not sure how unique we really were if we all were doing this). Arguably the signature album of My Chemical Romance (although perhaps not everyone’s favorite), “The Black Parade” was not only a collection of songs, but a symbol of a generation. “The Black Parade” celebrated its tenth anniversary on October 23, 2016.
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Apparently, My Chemical Romance’s “The Black Parade” would be turning ten-years-old in a matter of weeks. And then I noticed the caption that went along with this post, and immediately felt really old. I clicked play and let the wave of nostalgia hit me, and felt a big goofy smile cross my face as I took the four and a half minute trip down memory lane. Recently, one of my Facebook friends shared a video that I hadn’t seen in years: My Chemical Romance’s music video for “Famous Last Words.” This was my freshman year jam, the song that was the soundtrack to my morning bus rides, the first song I ever taught myself to play.