This ran parallel with the resurgence of the next generation of emo fans who started to sport the flat, black straight hair look with black kohl-lined eyes, skinny pants and tight tees. With their third album, The Black Parade, the band showcases a world where emo, alternative rock, post-hardcore and punk rock of the 2000s find their roots in influences from 1970s classic rock, glam rock, pop, and gothic rock. The brooding sense of existence is projected in the moody, emotionally tense songwriting and the vocal screaming only heightens the fundamentals of the genre. Yet with prog rock’s predisposition for unorthodox song structures and extreme shifts in sonic style, emo was literally a band and its instrument wearing their hearts on their sleeves. Heartfelt emotional lyrics that combined introspection and admission, held together by the robust guitaring of punk seeing an interplay of hard and soft elements of the genre forms a distinct nature of emo. Starting out with the rawness of a rock band that’s eager to break the then contemporary emo-meets-post punk mould, MCR attained worldwide acclaim with Three Cheers, an album that exuded everything that the emo movement stood for.
Their immensely popular Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge was a turning point in the way the band was perceived.
Harnessing elements of funk, pop, hard rock, goth and alternative rock, MCR has been unique in taking intimate, confessional lyrics and giving them a more theatrical vocalisation under Gerard Way’s command. Way has been dismissive of emo as a rock music genre itself, preferring to highlight the rock operatic nature of their songwriting and compositions. While vocalist Gerard Way has doggedly denied the band’s emo shades, fans of MCR are united in their appreciation for the music that delves deeply into emotional expression. In short, the perfect breeding ground for the manifestation of a new generation of the emo experience.
After announcing their comeback gig in 2019, their plans-much likes ours-hadn’t factored a pandemic that forced people to stay home, lose jobs, home-school their children and grapple with a spiralling sense of hopelessness. Returning to a post-lockdown world that is embroiled in multiple hues of personal transformations, MCR’s postponed reunion tour couldn’t have been timed better. My Chemical Romance’s delayed comeback is, in fact, a blessing in disguise. In #TheMusicThatMadeUs, senior journalist Lakshmi Govindrajan Javeri chronicles the impact that musicians and their art have on our lives, how they mould the industry by rewriting its rules and how they shape us into the people we become: their greatest legacies
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