Ever get the feeling that modern rock is now all about one-upmanship? The Killers are reaching for Springsteen’s lofty heights. Panic! at the Disco is cramming its stage show with a veritable burlesque troupe. And emo heroes such as Taking Back Sunday are slapping on enough production gloss to kill Stock, Aitken, and Waterman. But in the process of reaching for bigger and better — and ostensibly more profound — things, these baby bands inevitably disappoint.

Take My Chemical Romance, whose first two albums were gloriously unhinged dark-punk masterpieces beholden to the Misfits, Sabbath, and AFI. Tragically, the New Jersey quintet’s latest, The Black Parade, is weighed down by so many ridiculous trappings — glammy piano, overblown power ballads, slick midtempo rockers — that it sounds bloated rather than triumphant, generic where it should be groundbreaking. Even worse, the group’s grandiose artistic statements and pop hooks recycle tired musical ideas: Aerosmith’s bluesy shambling (“House of Wolves”), Alkaline Trio’s darkness (“This Is How I Disappear”), and, as has been widely discussed, Queen’s bombast (“Welcome to the Black Parade”). Parade might have fared better not taking itself so seriously; just listen to “Teenagers,” a hilarious, catchy, Georgia Satellites-style (no, really) ditty about adolescence. Lead singer Gerard Way clearly enjoys bellowing, “Teenagers scare the living shit out of me.”

This article appears in Nov 1-7, 2006.

One reply on “My Chemical Romance”

  1. What a pile of generic rubbish! My Chem don’t take themselves that seriously, some of there songs are about very personal things, well alot of them are, and they have a right to be serious. Yet, they still have an element of fun to them, ‘Teenagers’ is just The Black Parades’ ‘Headfirst For Halos’ a song that infact started off as a joke. I appreciate that The Black Parade is different to what MCR usually produce however I feel that it should be approached with an open mind and a good knowlege of what they’re songs are actually about. I would like to see you get up there and do what they are doing, putting personal thoughts and their journeys out there for the public to hear, I doubt you would be able to do it. They do not write superficial or degrading lyrics that are so often displayed in popular music of our culture these days, which is a refreshing change. So many bands have the same sound right now and personally I see very little relation between MCR and these bands, they borrow ideas-sure- every artist does, thats what art is!. However they do not rip off another bands sound completely or even make an attempt to like so many processed pop groups do.

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