361. My Chemical Romance, "The Black Parade"

 


Get ready to clown me mercilessly, because I kinda liked this album!  This is where most people stop reading, but I have promised to be honest in my posts and I will now live up to that, for good or ill.  

So I'm not sure what I was expecting.  I hadn't really heard much My Chemical Romance before.  I sort of had this mental image of them as a Hot Topic mall band that angsty teens loved.  Maybe they are that, I don't know, but this record is like if Queen decided to go in a pop-punk direction or a prog band listened to a lot of Green Day.  Some of the songs are just OK, some are not very good, and some are instantly catchy and earwormy.  Like "This Is How I Disappear":

See what I mean?  I would have rocked out to that so hard when I was 13.  The title track is also good in that bombastic Queen way, with a piano intro and overwrought singing and the whole nine.

I am given to understand that this is a concept album about death, which seems just about right for a band noted for their appeal to awful teens.  I'm not sure how the song "Teenagers" fits into that, but the chorus is hilarious ("They said 'All teenagers scare the living shit out of me/They could care less as long as someone'll bleed' ") so that's something.

OK, gotta go buy a studded belt and get a lip piercing, later.

Does this album deserve to be in the Top 500? Probably not, but it's kinda fun anyway.

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