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New album from My Chemical Romance is a great guilty
pleasure
By David Connell
November 13, 2006 | I gotta fever, and the only prescription
is MORE COWBELL!
The quote from a famous Will Ferrell sketch in Saturday
Night Live in which Blue Oyster Cult is trying to record
"Don't Fear the Reaper" is probably eerily similar to
the way My Chemical Romance recorded their latest album,
"Welcome to the Black Parade." Only replace the cowbell
with blood. It's borderline comical, I can imagine a
SNL sketch of the band sitting around writing the songs
and throwing out ideas like "Hey! Lets make the chorus
about blood, just like A LOT of blood, and then a verse
about Vampires, yea that's a good one." But nobody ever
claimed that the New Jersey quartet set out to make
Sgt. Pepper's. One thing is for sure: This thing is
gonna sell millions of copies.
When a band makes a follow up record to their first
commercial success it's almost a lose-lose situation.
On one hand if they make an album similar to their breakthrough,
they are labeled a one trick pony and on the other,
everyone who buys (or downloads these days) the album
expects the music to be derivative of their previous.
My Chemical Romance clearly shows they aren't afraid
to take chances, and not just because they are grown
men who wear mascara. With the band's follow up to the
platinum selling "Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge" the
group breaks molds by recreating their straightforward
pop-punk sound to a punk high school musical. Can you
imagine if the Goth kids from your high school had wrestled
away creative control from the timid blonde director?
You can picture them coming up with all sorts of choreographed
dance that described them as individuals. This album
might be more genius than I will give it credit.
The first track is titled "The End" which is a cheap
way of making the song order seem ironic. The album
produced by Rob Cavallo, who has worked with acts such
as Jewel and Green Day, is a concept album that deals
with death, love and addiction. The title track "Welcome
to the Black Parade" is about a struggle with addiction
and whether he can defeat it, or be doomed by the demons
that control him. These guys must have read comics when
they were kids.
The songs, written by the front man Gerard Way are
hard to take seriously sometimes, and I have to wonder
if they are purposefully sardonic in nature or they
are just unintentionally funny when they say "Teenagers
scare the s--- outta me" during the track "Teenagers."
You have to wonder if, with this song, they are taking
a thinly-veiled swing at their core demographic. Gutsy.
"I don't love you," which is a pale-faced man's version
of "I love you more today than yesterday' by Stevie
Wonder, even includes a riff blatantly ripping off Queen's
"Bohemian Rhapsody." In addition, during "House of Wolves"
I thought for a moment that if Freddie Mercury lived
in New Jersey and looked a bit more like an ecstasy
dealer this would be the album Queen would release.
Although there is no narrative, the album builds to
a crescendo during the last track "Famous Last Words"
which includes a string section.
It is a bit over-the-top and dramatic but overall,
it's not half bad. Guess what? I like this album even
though it's a bit of a guilty pleasure. (You know, the
albums that everybody secretly likes but nobody will
ever throw on when they have friends over. This is why
Sublime gets so much play. I've never met anyone with
the onions to say Sublime sucks.) It's by no means genius,
but it really doesn't have to be. As long as the lyrics
are dark and talk about blood every couple songs, it
will have parents constantly wondering if their children
are stable. This is what I assume emo kids are most
concerned with.
To its credit, or maybe to my discredit, it's going
on the iPod, and I'm gonna sing along with it just as
long as nobody is around. I mean it.
NW
RB |
