Although it's not necessarily high praise in and of itself, My Chemical Romance's last album, Sweet Cheers For Sweet Revenge and particularly its first two singles, "I'm Not Okay (I Promise)" and "Helena," are easily some of my favorite music to have come out of the punk-pop/goth-emo sweepstakes that the last half decade of alt-rock radio has become. I'm still not sure if my anticipation for the follow-up, The Black Parade, due out next month, has deflated much since hearing the disappointing first single, "Welcome To The Black Parade," though. There's a 40-minute collage of excerpts from new songs and interviews with the band about the album that comes bundled with an iTunes purchase of the single, and even after listening to that, the quick snippets haven't really told me much about how I'll like the whole thing. In the interview, they cite a lot of grandiose classic rock albums as influences (The Wall, Sgt. Pepper's, A Night At The Opera), but what's more telling is the interview in their MTV2 "$2 Bill" special where they talk about how their last album was their Siamese Dream and this album is going to be their Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness. A lot of people have thrown around Smashing Pumpkins comparisons, but I don't think I really bought it until Gerard Way showed up on the VMA pre-show singing "Welcome To The Black Parade" with short bleach blonde hair, which seemed right out of the Corgan playbook from when he debuted the shaved head look on Saturday Night Live. Still, even Corgan had the sense not to release something as schmaltzy as "Tonight, Tonight" as the first single, which is essentially what MCR are doing with "Welcome To The Black Parade."

One of the more intriguing things My Chemical Romance say in that interview is this: "the last record was about aggression and maybe violence and dealing with things in an angst way, whereas this record, we wanted people to get over that and stop being upset and really carry on through anything bad that happened." So, even though it's essentially a concept album about death, they're really going for an uplifting vibe, and it should be interesting to see how that plays out. I don't wanna come off as, like, someone who blamed Marilyn Manson for Columbine or whatever, but I have to admit there is something refreshing about a band whose breakthrough album was all about violent revenge fantasies turning around and trying to tell the kids that listen to them that there's better ways to get through life than being pissed off all the time. Lately a lot of peppy rock bands have gotten one platinum album under their belts and decided that their audience would stay with them through a "dark" album and saw a sharp and immediate sales decline (Good Charlotte, Yellowcard, probably The Killers next (I'd say Fall Out Boy too, but I get the feeling that they'll stick to the winning formula on their next album while the videos will become bigger and bigger spectacles of Pete Wentz self-worship)). MCR were pretty dark to begin with, so hopefully this album won't alienate their fans too much, but it's probably important to remember that Green Day were the definition of "workmanlike" for a decade before managing to sell their audience on a big pompous rock opera.

This entry was posted on Sunday, September 24, 2006 at 6:03 PM. You can skip to the end and leave a response.