Join The Black Parade: My Chemical Romance And The Politics Of Taste

October 23, 2016 2:45 PM

[T]o toast the 10th birthday of The Black Parade, I called up two black writers whose work I adore and whose taste I admire, to have the exchange of ideas I wish I'd known how to have way back when. Here's hoping it reaches a few brown kids still learning how to trust themselves. NPR Music's Daoud Tyler-Ameen offers up a 25m audio article and an accompanying article about being black and loving My Chemical Romance's mega-hit album, released on Oct 23, 2006.
posted by hippybear (13 comments total)

Nice. Never listened to these guys, but I'm willing to give it a try.
posted by evilDoug at 3:48 PM on October 23, 2016

The Black Parade (Full Album)
posted by hippybear at 3:51 PM on October 23, 2016 [1 favorite]

Sometimes you love a piece of art, but not what that love says about you — and the self-portrait you've so rigorously composed threatens to flake away.

This is a beautiful way to articulate something that I've always tried to say. I typically fell back on saying "Yeah I love that, but I'm not about it". And, on the other side, sometimes I'm about things that I do not love.

I am definitely about MCR more than I love, or even like them. I was in latter years in high school when the black parade came out and I'd need my friends' hands to help count how many of them loved this album. My current partner's mother died from cancer earlier that same year, and then this album came out close to her birthday.

I still don't care too much for the music. But my 13 year old niece wears their t-shirts, and my queer heart secretly thanks Gerard Way when she talks about "boys girls or neither".

I'm glad Daoud came back to the album and found something important. I'm glad we're in a time where black kids can talk to other black kids about this. Everyone loves different things for different reasons and the reason is just as important as the thing you love.
posted by FirstMateKate at 5:05 PM on October 23, 2016 [10 favorites]

Man, this takes me back. When I was deployed I used to go for runs while illicitly listening to music on my headphones, and for a few months it was almost always this album. Thanks for posting!
posted by _cave at 5:42 PM on October 23, 2016

It's about the only MCR song I know but I've always loved its OTT brilliance.
posted by GallonOfAlan at 10:54 PM on October 23, 2016 [1 favorite]

hehe. god I'm old. I just two nights ago introduced my girlfriend to the title track to illustrate different generations of emo ('here marks was the era of hot topic and record deals'). My music-snob-douche posturing is both delightfully childish AND pathetically aged. Time to go work on the lawn in a Bright Eyes shirt.
posted by es_de_bah at 4:02 AM on October 24, 2016 [4 favorites]

Hanif Willis-Abdurraqib is pretty much the only person that could get me to reconsider how much I hate MCR. Thanks for posting!
posted by Potomac Avenue at 7:02 AM on October 24, 2016

I didn't follow MCR when they were big, but I always thought this was just a damned fine rock'n'roll song.

Also, it saddens me that while it's become perfectly socially acceptable for white kids to be into black music, the reverse is not true, even today. That just plain sucks.
posted by tantrumthecat at 7:40 AM on October 24, 2016 [3 favorites]

Everyone loves different things for different reasons and the reason is just as important as the thing you love.

Previously on MeFi: Céline Dion is amazing! (For certain values of the word "amazing").
posted by non canadian guy at 9:58 AM on October 24, 2016

Since I'm too sensitive to "your music sux lol" I won't share enough about my musical tastes to validate this, but I'll say that I went through a period where The Black Parade was a very, very guilty pleasure. I'll even go so far as to say that it's in the discussion (in my head) for Last Great Rock 'N Roll Album.

The musicianship and production is legitimately tight, the showmanship is on point, I'm a sucker for concept albums (and it's not even proggy!), but most of all I hear an underlying sense of *commitment* in this album. They really sell out for it, and I mean "sell out" in the most positive sense. For 51:51, there is no shame in their game. Zero. Sure it's hokey and melodramatic and twee and shallow and overwrought and full of cheap teen 'emo' angst, but damn if it all doesn't just manage to synergize into weapons-grade rawknrow bombast. Freddie Mercury would be proud...

(Plus, I love the video for "Helena". I know it's not even on this album, but it's so great.)
posted by the painkiller at 10:12 AM on October 24, 2016 [3 favorites]

Sure it's hokey and melodramatic and twee and shallow and overwrought and full of cheap teen 'emo' angst, but damn if it all doesn't just manage to synergize into weapons-grade rawknrow bombast.

Surely here you're just plagiarizing a 40-year-old review of The Wall....
posted by hippybear at 10:22 AM on October 24, 2016 [2 favorites]

For 51:51, there is no shame in their game. Zero. Sure it's hokey and melodramatic and twee and shallow and overwrought and full of cheap teen 'emo' angst, but damn if it all doesn't just manage to synergize into weapons-grade rawknrow bombast.

A friend likes to compare it to Siamese Dream, another album which is all of those things and yet has so much heart and ambition and vision that all of those negatives turn into positives.
posted by naju at 11:19 AM on October 24, 2016

Also I have a lot of feels about using music as a way to explore identity and transgress/shatter preconceptions of what I think I am, or what people imagine me to be. I think it's a very powerful and harmless way for young people to explore some pretty heavy and complicated questions about themselves.
posted by naju at 11:22 AM on October 24, 2016