It's easy to pick out what repells me from this band of unhappy screamo-goths. Their lyrics are terrible, their singer is awful, they appeal to the lowest common demoniator and their music is annoying, often aggressively so.
So why do I find them so fascinating? I don't know. Their singer/songwriter Gerard Way appears earnest, but the guy's 30 years old and still writing songs about teenage angst, so if he does mean what he says, it's more sad than anything else. But it's more likely that he just knows what sells.
I think what attracts me to this band is how over-the-top everything is. Gerard Way, before he was annoying parents and indulging 14-year-olds' self-loathing, wrote comic books. You can tell in his lyrics. He doesn't just write songs about breaking up with his girlfriend. He writes songs about being an undead protector of his girlfriend, having gunfights with vampires, and dying a thousand deaths. It's cheesy as hell, but I find it incredibly endearing.
And, as shitty as his voice is, he really does sell it all with the kind of conviction you don't see too often, if ever. It's a conviction that's misplaced, to be sure, but he screams every word like it was his life on the line. It's simultaneously captivating and, when you realise that this guy is indeed way too old to be dedicating his life to this kind of ridiculousness, sad. There's something charming about watching a My Chemical Romance video. Just look at the video for Helena: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WcwweoJDkV0 . They get everything so wrong it's right, from the wild gesticulations to the pouting faces to the PLEASE LET THIS REMIND YOU OF TIM BURTON sense of black (though in this case, joyless) humor.
Gerard would like you to know that he is not pleased.
Gerard shows off some "this world has broken my spirit" fingers.
If that doesn't define over-the-top goth cheese, I don't know what does. Especially when you consider the lyrics make NO sense at all:
Long ago
Just like the hearse you die to get in again
We are
So far from you
Burning on,
Just like the match you strike to
Incinerate...
The lives
Of everyone you knew
And what's the worst to take? (worst you take)
From every heart you break (heart you break)
And like a blade you stain (blade you stain)
Well, I've been holding on tonight
What's the worst that I could say?
Things are better if i stay
So long and goodnight
So long not goodnight
Came a time
When every star fall brought you to tears again
We are,
The very hurt you sold
And what's the worst to take? (worst you take)
From every heart you break (heart you break)
And like a blade you stain (blade you stain)
Well, I've been holding on tonight
What's the worst that I could say?
Things are better if I STAY
So long and goodnight
So long not goodnight
Well if you carry on this way
Things are better if I STAY
So long and goodnight
So long not goodnight
Can you hear me?
Are you near me?
Can we pretend to leave then
we'll meet again
When both our cars collide
What's the worst that I could say?
Things are better if I STAY
So long and goodnight
So long and goodnight
Well if you carry on this way
Things are better if I STAY
So long and goodnight
So long not goodnight
What the glum? It's like he wrote a line, walked away, came back the next day, lost his train of thought, made up a new line, walked away, etc. He gets so flustered with trying to capture the bombast that he forgets to make the imagery coherent. And that's awesome. To think, I can hardly read those lines without giggling. He's able to shout them til he's near the point of tears.
Even if it's all a ploy to grab a teenage market that don't know any better (not to mention those 16 year old girls that think pale morose boys are TOTALLY HOT*), it's not often we see bands fail on such a grand level. Shit like Nickelback or The Fray sucks on such a small scale. They're aggrevating voyages across the deserts of mediocrity. My Chemical Romance seems to understand that, if you're going to suck, you might as well suck big. And no one, not even Linda Lovelace, sucks as big as My Chemical Romance.
*Call me.
So why do I find them so fascinating? I don't know. Their singer/songwriter Gerard Way appears earnest, but the guy's 30 years old and still writing songs about teenage angst, so if he does mean what he says, it's more sad than anything else. But it's more likely that he just knows what sells.
I think what attracts me to this band is how over-the-top everything is. Gerard Way, before he was annoying parents and indulging 14-year-olds' self-loathing, wrote comic books. You can tell in his lyrics. He doesn't just write songs about breaking up with his girlfriend. He writes songs about being an undead protector of his girlfriend, having gunfights with vampires, and dying a thousand deaths. It's cheesy as hell, but I find it incredibly endearing.
And, as shitty as his voice is, he really does sell it all with the kind of conviction you don't see too often, if ever. It's a conviction that's misplaced, to be sure, but he screams every word like it was his life on the line. It's simultaneously captivating and, when you realise that this guy is indeed way too old to be dedicating his life to this kind of ridiculousness, sad. There's something charming about watching a My Chemical Romance video. Just look at the video for Helena: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WcwweoJDkV0 . They get everything so wrong it's right, from the wild gesticulations to the pouting faces to the PLEASE LET THIS REMIND YOU OF TIM BURTON sense of black (though in this case, joyless) humor.
Gerard would like you to know that he is not pleased.
Gerard shows off some "this world has broken my spirit" fingers.
If that doesn't define over-the-top goth cheese, I don't know what does. Especially when you consider the lyrics make NO sense at all:
Long ago
Just like the hearse you die to get in again
We are
So far from you
Burning on,
Just like the match you strike to
Incinerate...
The lives
Of everyone you knew
And what's the worst to take? (worst you take)
From every heart you break (heart you break)
And like a blade you stain (blade you stain)
Well, I've been holding on tonight
What's the worst that I could say?
Things are better if i stay
So long and goodnight
So long not goodnight
Came a time
When every star fall brought you to tears again
We are,
The very hurt you sold
And what's the worst to take? (worst you take)
From every heart you break (heart you break)
And like a blade you stain (blade you stain)
Well, I've been holding on tonight
What's the worst that I could say?
Things are better if I STAY
So long and goodnight
So long not goodnight
Well if you carry on this way
Things are better if I STAY
So long and goodnight
So long not goodnight
Can you hear me?
Are you near me?
Can we pretend to leave then
we'll meet again
When both our cars collide
What's the worst that I could say?
Things are better if I STAY
So long and goodnight
So long and goodnight
Well if you carry on this way
Things are better if I STAY
So long and goodnight
So long not goodnight
What the glum? It's like he wrote a line, walked away, came back the next day, lost his train of thought, made up a new line, walked away, etc. He gets so flustered with trying to capture the bombast that he forgets to make the imagery coherent. And that's awesome. To think, I can hardly read those lines without giggling. He's able to shout them til he's near the point of tears.
Even if it's all a ploy to grab a teenage market that don't know any better (not to mention those 16 year old girls that think pale morose boys are TOTALLY HOT*), it's not often we see bands fail on such a grand level. Shit like Nickelback or The Fray sucks on such a small scale. They're aggrevating voyages across the deserts of mediocrity. My Chemical Romance seems to understand that, if you're going to suck, you might as well suck big. And no one, not even Linda Lovelace, sucks as big as My Chemical Romance.
*Call me.
