Three 65, Day 38
My Chemical Romance, The Black Parade

A lot of people react strongly when presented with My Chemical Romance; it's almost like walking up to someone with a big, cheese-eating grin and a handful of dogshit in your hand. Before The Black Parade (and ever since, come to think of it) that's how I reacted, as well.

Don't get me wrong: My Chemical Romance is not, by any definition, a very good band. They are a rather boring band with one very good album. Said album is basically a flash in the pan, a fluke; it's a derivative statement whose only originality is in taking the exact right amounts of previous masterpieces and blending them together into an equally original whole.

What pieces? Well, the bombast of Pink Floyd's The Wall, for one; the theatricality of Queen's A Night At The Opera; the melodrama of Smashing Pumpkins' Mellon Collie; and the punchy fuck-you-ness of Marilyn Manson's Antichrist Superstar. A concept album about a dying young man riddled with cancer, Parade is emo at its finest, starting with the grand guignol dance number of "The End." which bleeds right into "Dead!" It sounds like musical theater as imagined by a bunch of 19-year-olds in black lipstick.

"The Sharpest Lives" is intense in its loathing, just as "Welcome To The Black Parade" is painfully poignant in its memories of a childhood lost. Then there's "Teenagers," wherein vocalist/lyricist Gerard Way admits to being terrified of his fanbase; and of course, who could forget "Mama," with its appearance of Liza Minnelli (which, by the way, actually works)?

Unfortunately, everything else in MCR's catalog is ultimately forgettable; their ability to craft this album must have come from some kind of Faustian pact with the devil. Which is disappointing, but not ultimately a surprise. My Chemical Romance are, after all, at heart an emo band, and if there's one genre that will never get its head out of its own ass (aside from reggaeton - and Latin music in general), it's emo.