INTERNATIONAL MY CHEMICAL ROMANCE DAY

Although it may seem like it sometimes, I don't plan out world events just so that I can talk about them - they just happen. Today is one of those days where, as a music blogger, I feel I have no choice but to talk about them, as it is in fact International My Chemical Romance Day; the anniversary of the release of their very first album, I Brought You My Bullets, You Brought Me Your Love. So, to start off with, let's have a look at the song Vampires Will Never Hurt You;

They're so young in this! Gerard's got his short hair, Frank's got his dreads, it's all so new and dark and I love it, everyone loves it. Of course you do. I really like that the whispering on the end of this is repeated at the end of The World Is Ugly off Conventional Weapons 3.

This is a piece of MCR history if ever there was one. It's Skylines And Turnstiles, the very first My Chemical Romance song. Gerard wrote it, according to legend, when he got home after an unfinished trip into Manhattan to pitch an idea to Cartoon Network that was interrupted by the terrorist attack on the twin towers. This song was the very beginning.

The next album, my favourite album in the whole world, as you may have noticed at some point if you read this blog regularly (haha regular readers), is Three Cheers For Sweet Revenge. Its first track also happens to be my favourite song in the world, and that song is Helena (So Long And Goodnight).

I love the song because, even though they put so much feeling into everything they do, you can feel the emotion dripping out of this song, and at least to me it sounds a fair amount like the feeling of grief and losing someone (although I may have been subconsciously influenced by the fact that Gerard has said that the song is about dealing with the loss of his and Mikey's grandmother). Plus it sounds so awesome in general, and the music video is so beautiful and I just love everything about it.

Then, obviously, comes I'm Not Okay (I Promise). I often wonder how other bands in and around this genre feel, because as awesome as a song is, not all become anthems like this one. Maybe not everybody likes the song, but people who are into rock and punk and stuff, everybody knows it, that's the thing, everybody can stand up and sing the chorus. It's about being angry and disappointed and an outcast, and the general shittiness that comes with being a teenager that those who are condescending enough to believe they know everything pass off as 'hormones' (yeah, that's how all emotions work, and most mental illnesses are in some way influenced by or have influence on your hormones, doesn't mean you can dismiss their seriousness, can it?)

I do love Frank's bit in the middle.

But then, I must also bring up the song Cemetery Drive, the penultimate song off the album. It's not a cheery song, there's no denying that, but I love it so much.

The big album - admittedly Three Cheers was pretty big, but this is the one I first remember hearing on the radio - was The Black Parade. A whole new, much more polished style than their previous two albums, it's sleek and cold and dark where their older work is angry fire and colour.

The album has a story. It follows the (after)life of The Patient, the guy in the video, from his death into the unknown beyond. Gerard said that the idea for this comes from his belief that death will come for you in whatever way is easiest for you; for The Patient, it is The Black Parade, because his fondest memory is seeing a parade with his father (When I was a young boy/my father took me into the city/to see a marching band).

The rest of the songs, like I Don't Love You, are The Patient looking back over his life and what's happened in it. Since I'm trying to not just post all their released singles here, I'll add my favourite of the album tracks, The End:

My most favourite song off The Black Parade, however, is Famous Last Words. I remember when I was about thirteen, before I really knew who My Chemical Romance were, sitting in my room playing this song on repeat for hours. I have no idea how I knew about it, but I loved it, and I still do. I dyed my hair white-blonde in honour of this video.

The guitars sound awesome in this, Gerard's singing sounds awesome, everything is absolutely brilliant - although Bob Bryar, the drummer at the time, did end up getting his leg burned during filming and caught a staph infection from it. Also, I think Frank dive-tackled Gerard and damaged his foot. I also heard somewhere that he hit one of them in the head with his guitar . . . Frank's a dangerous one.

There were a lot of B-Sides that went along with this album as well, and my favourite of these has to be Heaven Help Us.

Then there was a quiet phase. The stress of endless touring and being cramped in together all the time, along with other underlying issues was straining the band, and they hid and worked on their own things for a while. Gerard did The Umbrella Academy, Frank did Leathermouth, Ray . . . I'm not sure what he did because nobody really knows what he's up to most of the time anyway, he's a secretive one.

Then, suddenly, in 2010, they reappeared. Smeared with paint and stood in the middle of the desert in the future being all rebellious, they threw Danger Days: The True Lives Of The Fabulous Killjoys at us.

This album has so much more than a mere story behind it. Actually, it's got a comic now, that Gerard did with Shaun Simon and Becky Cloonan, and I'm getting my hands on as soon as I have the money. It's set in California, 2019, after some kind of mysterious apocalypse desertifies the place. The people in control are Better Living Industries, better known as BL/Ind, who want to erase all traces of individuality and emotion to make people 'flawless'. They and their soldiers, the Dracs, are fighting off the rebel groups, known as Killjoys, the main four of which are Party Poison, Fun Ghoul, Jet Star and Kobra Kid, who are on the run and protecting The Girl.

Some people didn't like this album because they said it didn't have the same meaning that the others did. A lot had changed between this and The Black Parade, though. The members had overcome a lot of problems, were happy and stable and more mature. SING has a hell of a lot of meaning, I think. It's about standing up for yourself and standing up for other people who can't as well, especially against authority when they try to crush you and make you conform.

The song that got me into MCR in the first place was Planetary (GO!).

It's so awesome and jumpy and just amazing, I was hooked instantly, and I bought the album about a week later. I don't understand how anyone from any genre of music could dislike this song.

Then, another quiet phase. We knew they were up to something, because they told us they were building a studio. Then, all of a sudden, came the new logo on their website. Everyone went apeshit over some circles and letters. Gerard announced the existence of a future album, known publicly only as 'MCR 5', everyone went yet more apeshit.
Via their official website, through a blog post from Frank, we then learned late last year of Conventional Weapons. Made of ten of the songs that would have been on the album that MCR scrapped before making Danger Days, two a month were going to be released for five months.

The first of those songs was Boy Division, with that awesome metally breakdown in the middle. I will admit that I didn't exactly take to some of the Conventional Weapons stuff the way I have with all their other work, but it's still pretty brilliant. The World Is Ugly was hotly anticipated by fans, as it had been performed previously only as a live track, and the only listenable version was some grainy video on youtube.

While most people loved it (it made me cry in the night), there were one or two, if I recall, who wanted the song to remain exactly the same as in the live original.

Then, of course, the terrible happened. Gerard wrote us that letter. It all ended. I made a few posts on here about it, some angry ranting, some crying, it was all very terrible. I know some people who are still having a lot of trouble with it. I don't know how I'm managing myself - I think I've just blocked the trauma from my memory, because I've only ever known MCR to be away from the spotlight.
My Chemical Romance lives on, though. Nobody's going to forget them. Nobody can replace them. They've made such a difference to so many people and I'm not sure how to express that really.