My Chemical Romance - The Black Parade
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Free Music Notes for The Black Parade
Free Music Review: Easily In My Top 5 Albums of ALL Time
Hit: 5 Stars
Honestly regardless of what people summarize My Chemical Romances 'true' genre to be, one thing is for certain "The Black Parade" is amongst the top albums available. From production to intricacy, to the depth each song brings to the table, and lastly the high replay value the album fortifies.
I listen to everything, Jazz, Metal, Rock, Blues, Classical, Hardcore etc, and still this album remains a staple in my collection. Upon receiving it Oct,31,2006 I was hooked.
Starting off with reminiscence to Pink Floyd's "In The Flesh", "The End" is truly only the beginning. A all too sarcastic yet dark tone alerts one that this is going to be a conceptual album (as it connects so nicely with proceeding songs and lyrical content), the pulsing bleeps show signs of fading. Abruptly "Dead!" follows directly where "The End" left off with a flat lining monitor, now shifting to an oddly deranged upright beat. "Dead!" has a Beatles like outro, although they swap the friendly lyrics a Beatles tune would incorporate for chiming chants of life (and death). Next in line is the 'dark séance below' solemn yearning song "This Is How I Disappear". "Sharpest Lives" is amongst one of my favorites really bass heavy, cynical but redemptive taunting lyrics.
The contrast is great as "Welcome To The Black Parade" marches upon us with militant drums and the first sub hooking notes. The song takes on a Queen like quality which is phenomenal. As the song paints a picture it's
a ever progressing one at that. Combining a thematic intro with a pop-punk sound and making it sound marvelous is quite a feat. The mourning "I Don't Love You" feels cold, hollow, and upsetting. "House Of Wolves" is the hard rocker of the album. "Cancer" is the tearjerker of the album, focusing upon simplicity with piano to intently focus on the vocal and upsetting reality of the matter. "Mama" can be interpreted in so many different scenarios and perspectives even each of the band members see it differently. "Mama" is the epic, "Mama" is the nauseating disturbing song of the album.It plays with war like themes and factious carnival tones. The last minute is truly disturbing, from the siren like sounds, to the chorus in the back round. Screeching notes randomly jerking in and out and Liza Minelli's singing exports this to a higher realm of layering. After such a powerful song you get the slower repetitive "Sleep". "Teenagers" stirred a bit of controversy upon the time its music video was released, the controversy can easily be linked to the lyrical content. Probably not the best time to release a song a bout tormented gun wielding teens. The song is a chiseling tune, crisply power chord driven.
Reeling toward the end we get to the all too fatigued song "Disenchanted", sad song really. Revealing a burnt out persons views and tying it ironically to a nice radio single ready package. While the acoustic plucking the remaining notes feels like a true ending to an album it isn't in this case. MCR have made room for an upbeat ending "Famous Last Words". It's as thematic as "Welcome To The Black Parade" and is the final link to the stories resolution. Truly an inspiring song, one of the best sung endings I've ever herd.
While MCR are claimed to be emo listen to the lyrics, their is always a glimpse of light in the Black Parade. And through it all, the rise and fall MCR have created a conceptual masterpiece capable of ascending the ranks up their with "The Wall" and "Tommy". Great listen, highly worth price!
Free Music Review: The Black Parade: an extraordinary masterpiece
Hit: 5 Stars
I'll be the first to admit it: I was not a fan of My Chemical Romance. This was exactly the type of band I had taken to ignoring; it sounded like pop-punk, so it had to be worthless in my eyes. My Chemical Romance was nothing more than a derivative band with no identity, a group who were more interesting in vampires and selling T-Shirts than in crafting essential music. My disinterest was such that when told by a friend that the new single (the epic "Welcome to the Black Parade") was actually good, I distractedly listened to the first three minutes and said I liked them. After all, I couldn't be missing much, could I?
It turns out that I was missing a lot, and in writing this, I'm going to eat my words. It was easy to dismiss My Chemical Romance before, but now it will be impossible. With The Black Parade, an urgent, passionate, insane, awesome piece of music, this band has become essential to the musical landscape. This is an album for the ages.
The Black Parade is a concept album, and tells the story of a man known only as The Patient, a victim of cancer. The album starts with the Patient's death, spends its midsection ruminating on the life he left behind, and ends with his good-byes. It's a hugely ambitious work, and it would have been so easy for it to implode into a sloppy, incoherent mish-mash of "sensitive", junior high level poetry and forgettable power chords.
That's the kind of thing the old MCR would do. It's what characterized their first two albums, their Goth-oriented fashion sense, everything about them. But that's the thing about this album: more than anything, it's a coming out for the new My Chemical Romance--a glorious, unapologetically theatrical behemoth. The Black Parade of the title is as much a celebration of this new sound as it is a rite of passage for the deceased protagonist.
Here we see MCR dipping their toe into all sorts of musical styles. "Mama" starts out as a baroque number reminiscent of The Decemberists, before evolving into an exuberantly nasty cabaret number (complete with a cameo by Liza Minelli). "Teenagers" is a throwback to some of the best punk rock of the 70's. The lyrics may not exactly be poetry, but they don't have to be. The juxtaposition between the bombastic grandiosity of the musical arrangements themselves and the direct, bruising quality of the lyrics (Cancer's icky "I'm soggy from the chemo" sticks in the mind) make for a sort of abrasive splendor; this is possibly the most triumphant album about death and dying that has ever been recorded.
None of this would matter of course, if the music itself wasn't up to snuff. Here, frontman Gerard Way reveals a previously untapped musicianship, an ability to make the hugeness of The Black Parade's sound remain fresh through the use of diverse instrumentation and irresistible hooks (something The Killers failed to do in their similarly anthemic but overcooked sophomore album). It isn't every band that manages not only to stick a tra-la-la sing-along at the end of a song song, but dare you not to sing along with it.
And now, as the Patient joins his Black Parade, as the hype dies down, as the implications of this astounding achievement make themselves known, questions arise: was it a fluke? Did My Chemical Romance always have this untapped potential? And, perhaps most importantly: what's next? All I have to say is this: Gerard, the ball is in your court.
10/10
Free Music Review: Raise Your Glass High For Tomorrow We Die
Hit: 5 Stars
My Chemical Romance frontman Gerard Way could be described as hypersensitive. When he's happy, his jubilant shouts and nasal la-la-la's bubble over with joyful glee, but when he's sad, his tormented cries evoke a pit of despair so bleak that he sounds like he must be drowning in anguish. It is that heightened sense of conviction and sincerity that resonates throughout The Black Parade, giving the anthemic choruses more bombast, the understated ballads more feeling, and the deranged freak-outs more ferocity. The end result is a collection of songs that are far more accessible than one would expect from such an extravagant and over-the-top spectacle, drawing influence from punk, metal, Broadway, and everywhere in between.
The album starts with "The End," featuring an acoustic storyteller vibe punctuated by Brian Wilson-esque oohs, pitted against adjacent slabs of majestic-but-vicious arena rock. Together the halves create an overture that channels a more twisted version of Queen, instantly memorable in just under two minutes. The other 12 songs are equally conflicted and effective, quickly bouncing from the explosive goth dance/rock of "The Sharpest Lives" to the energetic blues/punk shuffle of "House Of Wolves," while still finding time to squeeze in Beatles-infected powerpop, in "Cancer."
The most adventurous song would have to be "Mama," which sets the stage with an uneasily brooding polka, but after the straight up rock feel of the sing-along chorus lulls you into a false sense of security, all hell breaks loose. Way conjures Mike Patton's tortured screams over an apocalyptic metal breakdown, only to give way to a demonic waltz, featuring a guest spot from Liza Minnelli as Mother War. By the time the song's coda reaches its ending cadence with machine gun palm-muted guitars, the remaining fiddle and accordion figure feels very much like the aftermath of a bloody war.
Lyrically, the album focuses mainly on the theme of death, which is examined in several different ways. In "Dead!" Way gleefully muses about how great it would be to die, even affecting a fake British accent in the character of a doctor who has discovered a heart defect and estimates that his patient has two weeks to live, all over a rollicking, bouncy beat behind a brass band. Meanwhile "Welcome To The Black Parade" and "Famous Last Words" deal more with the inevitability of death and the struggle to persevere through loss, perhaps suggesting that Way and company take ironic and insensitive jabs at death, not for shock effect, but because it actually scares them.
Though the band largely plays to their strengths, there are occasional low points. "I Don't Love You" is too straight-forward a power ballad for its own good, and the undeniable energy of "Teenagers" doesn't make up for its inherent lack of depth, nor can the catchy chorus compensate for the ill-advised inclusion of a cowbell. But the flaws are few, and the infectious quirkiness hinted at from the beginning of "The End" remains a constant throughout the album. A huge step forward from their previous disc, The Black Parade is the sound of a band finally afforded the liberty of being able to experiment, and the result is hopefully a sign of things to come.
Free Music Review: Beautiful.
Hit: 5 Stars
(Note: Copy and pasted from my review on the limited edition. I figured this is the CD people will be looking at mostly, since it's the less expensive version. I have both versions, though, and, let me say, the limited edition is well worth the money. Feel free to ask me any questions you may have about it if you need to. I've pretty much examined the entire thing about a gazillion times by now, lol.)
Okay, I'll be the first to admit... I had my hopes that this album would be amazing, but at the same time I couldn't bring myself to believe that My Chemical Romance could possibly exceed both of their previous albums. After I heard the rumors that the new CD's title would be "The Rise and Fall of My Chemical Romance", my hopes kind of fell into a rather large hole. You'd be amazed to know how something as small as a CD title can affect my brain--it seems silly, but I began to not expect much from them.
Finally, I heard about The Black Parade... my hopes skyrocketted because I started hearing more and more good things about the album. And upon purchasing it yesterday, it has not left my home, car, and work CD player. It's on constant repeat. I'm so, so, so happy to say that I was not disappointed by MCR. This album has only served to increase my absolute love of this band.
Okay. They've changed their sound. The music isn't as dark... but the LYRICS. The lyrics are still MCR. They still scream bloody murder WE. ARE. MY. CHEMICAL. ROMANCE. Even if the music or Gerard's voice are both different from their first two albums, who cares? The band is growing. I happen to like Three Cheers and Bullets equally. I don't think MCR would want to sound the same time after time after time... To me, an album is an expression of where you are in life at that particular moment. The lyrics and music SHOULD reflect this, and it shouldn't matter if it's creating a different sound or not. MCR's music is just about as much for them as it is for their fans, if not more. We should remember this as fans of their music and not write them off as complete has-beens because they've been featured on MTV one too many times. Just because they have a new sound DOES NOT mean they've sold out.
I digress. The effort put into this album is apparent from the very beginning as you tear off the wrapping and take your first glimpse at the album's enchantingly beautiful artwork. The amount of work that went into creating this concept must've been brilliant--it just looks perfect. The music itself gives off this air of being reborn, or that no matter what situation you're in, there's always hope for you. That death (The Black Parade?) is something to never fear because it's only the beginning of something new. The lyrics still speak to us of death and darkness and blood, but, again, they give us faith. We'll make it through this thing we call life. Death isn't as scary as you think. Don't worry anymore.
I just want to say, this album is a great way to start off as an MCR fan. If you've never listened to them before, or only heard one or two songs off their other albums--now's your chance to hear one of the best things they've ever done. You won't be disappointed. I promise.
Free Music Review: Transcendent view of life, death and redemption
Hit: 5 Stars
`The Black Parade' is the third album by Jersey band My Chemical Romance. While most of you are aware of what it is about, let me provide a brief overview for those who may not: It's a song cycle about cancer, death and liberation.
Please! Do not be turned off by the topic. It is not as sordid and ugly as the adultery and child molestation in `Tommy' to name one other in this genre. In fact, I am going to state my firm conviction that - while likely to appeal to a more narrow audience - this visionary, incandescent work is so full of strength, determination, commitment and heart-felt joy that folks should be prepared to buy two so that a replacement is available when the first wears out!
About eight years ago, a coworker was diagnosed with a particularly rapid form of breast cancer. Upon receiving her diagnosis, she immediately scheduled radical mastectomy surgery and a rigorous chemo regimen. There were many days she could not make it to the office. On the days she did, she often could be found on the floor exhausted. Five years later, my wife and I attended her anniversary of being cancer free.
In May of last year, I was diagnosed with prostate cancer. Upon receiving my diagnosis, I asked myself, "What would X do?" and, knowing the answer, scheduled my surgery.
The two of us met about ten months ago at a different place of employment. As we shared our mutual stories, I realized that we were engaged in a rarified conversation in which both of us had arrived at a place that could only be reached by traveling a route that was difficult and deadly. The joy we both felt foe ourselves and each other was borne of that trip.
I tell you this because `The Black Parade' will provide you with a near-approximation of what we felt that day. This 14 song album explores each and every nuance of what one faces and goes through when one's life is at peril. And, even more so, it describes in beautifully exquisite sound and lyrics that emotional roller-coaster and the rush of shooting off into the rapture of peace with oneself.
In a standard review, I'd be addressing the individual tracks at this point. I'm not going to do that because the beauty and nature of this work both allows and requires that it be taken as a single entity that is everything and nothing at once. The aural texture this work is like an ongoing set of rapids. The music and concepts swirl and interact with each other remaining part of a larger consistent and glorious whole.
Few bands would try this sort of music; fewer would succeed.
First, a band must be metal-influenced to do this. As I've gotten older (and maybe wiser), I have come to see, realize and respect the cold honesty of metal. It has a purity of purpose and direction that result in candor.
Second, you have got to be talented and visonary; make no mistake about it, MCR has ample amounts of both. The progression across the band's three albums is amazing.
So, buy this album and listen to it over and over. It will become part of your action plan for the rest of your life!