During the 2000’s, after the traumatic events of 9/11, a 24 year old Gerard Way, soon to be the lead singer of the band My Chemical Romance described his firsthand witness of the twin towers as the “end of the world…like an apocalypse.” Soon with the bassist Mikey Way, guitarist Frank Lero and rhythm guitarist Ray Toro they were set to release their first album ‘Bullets’.
Though the band had originally started out as a niche rock band within the early 2000’s, by the time the ‘Black Parade’ album and ‘Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge’ album would debut, they had reached their peak popularity.
But why is this?
The early 2000’s was the era where the 90’s genre of grunge was on the verge of falling. Over the course of several decades, youth culture was centered around music-the 70’s brought in heavy metal and progressive music, the 80’s was centered around punk goth, and the 90’s was when grunge music-Pearl Jam and Nirvana became big hits.
As the next era brought in a massive decline in said bands, commercialization companies needed a ‘new look’ for the youth to involve themselves in. “Although the term ‘emo’-short for emotional hardcore was originally a term coined in the 1980’s as an offshoot of punk-the first emo band being Rites of Spring-the word officially became popularized amongst millennials. Even though the nowaday person considers emo as the sad, angsty attire which consists of skin-tight jeans and side swooped hair, emo was always considered a music-based subculture; and even though My Chemical Romance which fell into the similar angsty category of dramatic eyeliner and black attire, the rock band-despite common misconception is not considered ‘emo’ but a genre called pop punk/post hardcore-a category that the majority of the bands of the 2000’s are-not ‘emo’ in actuality, yet were marketed and branded as such in order to appeal as ‘hip to the kids’. This branding was powered through social media apps such as MySpace in order to further push the popularity of the band (Siegrist, 2024).
The band already had an outward appeal which were considered attractive to teens at the time-and spoke of themes that were often confessional and dark- ‘Mama’ spoke of times in war and ‘You Know What They Do to Guys Like Us In Prison’ tackled themes of the vulnerable person within a morbid prison setting. Arguably their most well-known song, ‘Welcome to the Black Parade’ became what is jokingly known as My Chemical Romance’s national anthem, and fandom spaces tease each other with the iconic G note which plays at the beginning of the song (Dehaven, 2024).
The band had released four albums in total-and even though members of the bandom grieved over their disbandment in 2013, they have often reunited in order to tour various countries together, still active in performances as of this day.
Despite the new eras that come and go, and although rock music became less influential to the youth of today, one thing remains clear-it is thanks to the bands from over the course of several years that they have left a powerful impact towards mass audiences.
As always, in the words of Gerard Way, ‘we’ll carry on’.
