My Chemical Romance – The Only Hope For Me Is You

Just buy the damn album.

Tom: Just buy the damn “Danger Days” album.

Tim: Oh, is that your view? I wasn’t aware.

Tom: Look, we both have bands and artists we like. If Hera Bjork was bringing out singles, you’d be all over them. At least give me this one.

Tim: Fair point. Plug away, my friend, because you’re right, it is a good album.

Tom: And yes, I know I said “just buy the album” last time, but it’s the first album in a long time that I’ve found that I can just keep listening to – it’s one of those that will help me work. It reliably gives me about an hour of concentrated focus and flow. Then – finishing with the American national anthem and a track sort-of mocking ‘Twilight’ and the Sweet’s ‘Ballroom Blitz’ at the same time – it leaves me uplifted and enthused, with a load of work done and the time having passed easily.

Tom: This version suffers a bit from YouTube compression, but ignore it. In fact, the album’s a fiver. Just get it. Some day, these guys will put out a duff album: but this isn’t it.

My Chemical Romance – Bulletproof Heart

Just get the damn album, it’s brilliant.

Tom: My Chemical Romance are one of the best bands performing in the world today. Who else does seriously good concept albums to enormous critical and popular appeal?

They’re still bringing out singles from the fantastic Danger Days, and with good justification. YouTube compression doesn’t do justice to the track, but nevertheless:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=–0XPGid7JY

Tom: Listen to that, damn it. For a band that started as ’emo’ – even if they denied it themselves – they’ve basically become a modern glam rock band. And they’re good. How is that even possible? Just get the damn album, it’s brilliant and it’s only about a fiver now.

Tim: You know, there’s not much for me to add there.

My Chemical Romance – SING

They keep producing bloody good music.

Tom: I shouldn’t like My Chemical Romance, but I do. The overblown videos, the concept albums, the teenage demographic… I should be rolling my eyes and trying to get the damn kids off my lawn. But, inconveniently, they keep producing bloody good music.

Tom: This is the second single off Danger Days: The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys, the second concept album. If you actually care about the concept, Wikipedia (of course) has a decent write-up.

Tim: I don’t normally like concept albums – they only really work if all the songs are quite good, or at least listenable, and often they’re not. Fortunately, though, My Chemical Romance don’t seem to have a problem making this so. Hurrah! This track in particular, I like a lot – it’s not quite Famous Last Words good, but it’s on a par with Welcome to the Black Parade, the song that first got me into them.

Tom: The video is, of course, part of the whole mythos they’ve invented. The plot will almost certainly never attain any kind of coherency.

Tim: No, but then it’s not really meant to – just needs to fit in with the rest. And actually, I love it. I am slightly wondering how the next video will work, though, given that they’ve killed off the lead singer.

Tom: With laser gun battles and Stormtrooper-quality aiming in this one? A resurrection’s almost certainly on the cards.

Talk about your rousing choruses, though. They’ll play arena shows, and everyone there will be chanting this chorus along with them. It’s not catchy, tinny Europop, but it doesn’t have to be: this is music that teenagers are going to listen to in their bedrooms while they write bad poetry and pine over unrequited love. If you don’t feel your fists clench a little on the final chorus, you have no soul.