"My Chemical Romance is this generation's Nirvana"

Now, I don't mean this as a knock against MCR. I like "Helena" and I think that frankly, MCR are targeting a significantly different audience than the one I am part of. But I also think that comparing MCR to Nirvana is considerably hyperbolic, if not in an artistic sense, than definitely in a sense of cultural impact. Nirvana altered the playing field, changing the rules of the game for at least a decade (for better or for worse, as undoubtedly many of you will argue). MCR, by comparison, is not an abberation in today's pop landscape, but a clear continuation of a phenomenon that was already thriving before they emerged onto the scene.

For some people, MCR may fulfill the role that Nirvana did for others a decade ago in their youth. This point is ultimately inarguable. However, I don't think that MCR have had nearly the broad-based cultural impact on this generation that Nirvana did in their time. I could be wrong, but with siblings at the age in question, I certainly don't notice a perceptible trend.

"yeah man by the time I was 6 I was already through with most of ornette coleman's ideas, and it wasn't until about 9 that I really got into atonal as a concept"

i don't think i'd subscribe to that angle, but i'm glad i've shifted my taste! if only for the people around me (whom i am certain are ALSO very glad!!!).
MCR just isn't the 'phenom' that nirvana was. it's just that simple.
i still see more kids touting Misfits gear than any MCR stuff! and the Misfits have been done since '84 (well, technically i guess)!

i'll gladly suffer thru some 'crap music' but, damned if MCR is something i can sit thru...
bring on that Mclusky 3 disc, and git wit it.

In 2006, I am obviously older, but I listen to a lot more current music. My kids are music-obsessed older teenagers with similar friends; eventually if they or their friends like something I tend to hear it. I have yet to hear note #1 of My Chemical Romance, or to meet any teenager (and I talk regularly to dozens of 15-20 year-olds) who cares enough about them, one way or another, to mention them. Ever. I did see a picture in Newsweek or something, and recently discussions of this Ultragrrl thing; otherwise I would not know they existed.

Which is not to say that they are good, bad, or whatever. Only that there are quantum-levels of difference between this band's general social presence and that of Nirvana in its prime, and that if it is the signature band of this generation someone forgot to tell my kids and everyone they hang out and go to shows with. And by "someone", I mean Pitchfork, which is their main media source for music tips, etc. Which I don't think is dominated by 35+ muso types.

So I don't get what this is about, except for a self-promotional kid playing the age card because it's what she's got to play.

As a pre-teen, my friends and I just thought Nirvana was really catchy and rocked, and there was no shock as if we had never heard anything like it. Everyone's discman would either have one of the Use Your Illusions or Nevermind, with no consciosness of the gap between them, which is less musical than cultural and therefore irrelevant to an eleven-year old's mind.

-- Vornado (joh...), April 21st, 2006."

OTfuckinM!!!
but, i'm guessin this is what ultragrrrrrrrrrrrrl wanted, right?
some reactionary thoughts...

Now, MY CHEMICAL ROMANCE (thanks for the venom)
Preach all you want but who's gonna save me?
I keep a gun on the book you gave me, hallelujah, lock and load
Black is the kiss, the touch of the serpent son
It ain't the mark or the scar that makes you one

It may just be me, but the MCR's lyrics are way better than Nirvana. Sometimes you need good lyrics to go with the songs, and MCR is on the money. Nirvana was..well...yeah

kid, some real from-the-heart advice here. you're right about nirvana! but you should also put down the mcr rekkids, and go and listen to CIARA.

i can't help that i had awesome taste back then.

-- 25 yr old slacker cokehead (miltonpinsk...), April 27th, 2006."

so did i! and then i aged+changed. as did my music.

some may say...they'd be wrong, tho. I would say it's still pretty alright, maybe not by a 16 yr old me's standpoint, but that guy was too wasted and young to know the difference, so fuck that guy!
he just HAD to learn the hard way how wrong he was.
good thing he's not around anymore...

Oh baby let me in
Oh baby let me in
I'm knocking let me in
Oh baby let me in
Oh baby let me in
I'm knocking let me in
Oh baby let me in
Oh baby let me in

-Some crappy My Chemical Romance song

Look up small sample size in an encyclopaedia.

http://www.vmix.com/vidthumbs/0ef1ac9c4eda96832ae9124040763564_1.jpg

YOU GOT SERVED!!!

http://image.com.com/tv/images/story/voltron.jpg

IS BETTER THAN singing about insects and health abnormalities!
eg.!
A mulatto
An albino
A mosquito
My libido

I mean, Elvis Costello wipes these douches out when it comes to lyrical prowess; Bob Dylan and Ghostface Killah to boot. Hell, go read some fucking T.S. Eliot to music if you want to be deep and meaningful. However, if you wanna rock (and I know you do baby) then you don't need to have your stem wound any tighter than

DO YOU KNOW WHERE YOU ARE?
YOU'RE IN THE JUNGLE BABY
YOU'RE GONNA DIEEEEEE!

Oh baby let me in
Oh baby let me in
I'm knocking let me in
Oh baby let me in
Oh baby let me in
I'm knocking let me in
Oh baby let me in
Oh baby let me in

vs.

CAN'T YOU HEAR ME KNOCKING
AT YOUR WINDOW?
CAN'T YOU HEAR ME KNOCKING
AT YOUR DOOO-OOOOOR?

Nope. Kids were doing that when I was in high school, back in 1992.

Every generation likes to believe that they've discovered something new (sex, drugs, rock'n'roll, self-destruction), but they're really just part of a continuum.

And you know what? That's perfectly okay.

So I have no idea what I'd like now.

So, even though there were four slots and only four bands tried out, they only accepted three--us not being one of them. According to the members of 'R0ckaholics Anonymous,' we were creative and could pull it off, but we wouldn't appeal to high schoolers (despite the fact that instead of students, the judges are somewhat respectable figures in the local music world). It's too bad; I wanted to scare my classmates by performing some lascivious Serge Gainsbourg cover (they're afraid of other cultures).

they have *CHANGED* Music and wil lbe remem*BERED*.

they *DSERVE* to be talked about, to theexlucusion of *TOEHR BGANDS.**

HAHAA!!! does that mean MCR are going to be playing the York Town Fair then?!!

how about this, MCR=this generation's MCR? seems fair.

"hello, i am teenager with a 4.0, and an IQ of 120 and i love my chemical romance."
well, hello teenager w/a 4.0 and IQ of 120.
i'm not so sure how that makes any difference as to music, but good on ya! keep them grades up and stay off the drugs/cutting/alcohol/pre-martial sex/etc.
emo=emotional?!!! ZOUNDS.

-- eedd (e...), April 28th, 2006.

Exactly. Which is why I said he would have spit them out of his ass, like throwaway lyrics. But your'e right about the content.

I'm pretty sure most people who like music are gonna know what "emo" stands for, it just seems like the kids today have no clue that it started before they were born. To all those emo kids out there, DO SOME HOMEWORK! YOU'LL FIND SOME GOOD STUFF!!
And no, there is nothing wrong with liking mcr. Just like how it's not wrong to like whatever band you like. It's just totally ridiculous to think they are even in the same league as Nirvana.

http://www.pgcps.pg.k12.md.us/~pointer/images/teacher.gif

so what youre saying is, musicians have a responsibility to play the role of guidance counselor?

even though im sitting in seattle, home of this so-called nirvana, and despite how early it is, this statement has to be the most ridiculous thing i've heard all day.

regardless of how meaningful music is in my life, i'd never let an entertainer have that much sway over my life.

I wasn't in the Nirvana generation and therefore have no clue how a band goes about being a generation's Nirvana - to me Nirvana were this cultural albatross around our necks, something you had to like whether your heart was in it or not, something you had to treat as a cultural touchstone. They was nothing exciting about them; they were part of the 'alternative canon', like the Sex Pistols or the Doors or even the Stone Roses, and liking them didn't even give you any sort of identity since every single person you knew would know and recognise and no doubt like their hits. There must have been a brief period when I liked Nirvana as Nirvana, surely, but mostly it was just that you had to-- you had to own the albums and say 'In Utero' was better than 'Nevermind' and have read Kurt Cobain's suicide note (and put him in your (im)personal pantheon of Doomed Idols, sid vicious brian jones kurt cobain richey manic whoever). As far as I could tell, Nirvana were the Oasis of a few years previously, that same cultural position. I'm so, so glad to be old enough now that I don't have to act like Nirvana mean anything to me; maybe if they hadn't been forced down my neck from an early age I'd care? or maybe i wouldn't have recognised how important they were supposed to be without everyone telling me so.

So I hope MCR don't occupy that position, and I don't think they will. They seem more... smashing pumpkins levels of popularity, influence? They're not doing anything new - it's gothy pop-punk, basically, isn't it? and songs like 'I'm not okay' are really exciting, thrilling to listen to, but they're never going to dominate a whole scene. They'll be massively important to some people's lives, though. And sneering about people using music, and pop lyrics, as an emotional support is pretty fucking sad; I'm sorry, what do you use music for? A lifestyle accessory? You were never fifteen and miserable? I'd hate to be someone who had never had that emotional capacity.

Or, to talk about MCR another way, MCR=Bombast. To repurpose an old zinger: Wagner is the MCR of music.

I'm trying to remember what it was in my generation that you "had" to like. I actually had to think about it before coming up with U2 / R.E.M. although the kind of obsessiveness described there still sounds kind of foreign.

As far as the roots of emo: i thihnk your point is obviously correct musically, but what I'm too lazy to do is trace "emo" lyrically, where there comparisons may be more accurate. (Not that I've listened to Fugazi.) MCR couldn't have existed without Husker Du or the Smashing Pumpkins, it seems.

Most on the mark post. But then, I've only read the first and last 5 posts of the thread...