Review Summary: "Be Here Now" for the latter-day generation.
I'm old enough to remember when Oasis were big in the 1990s. In fact, everywhere you went, you were guaranteed to hear "Wonderwall" or "Champagne Supernova" playing over the radio. I was just a wee lad back then, but I still remember not being able to not hear the words
Be Here Now in huge months leading up to said album' release. And I remember when the album was released, everyone was wondering what the hype was all about. Critics had reviewed it and hyped it up like it was the second coming of Jesus H. Christ himself; that it was "album of the century" and all that other glittery nonsense, yet I even remember my cousin ranting about how awful it was, compared to
What's the Story, which defined a generation. This caused a general hype backlash, mostly because the band had rode out on the success of their previous album for so long, that people expected it to be as good.
I make this comparison, because My Chemical Romance's downfall is similar, and was caused by the exact same thing happening. Their 2006 album
The Black Parade saw tons of critical and commercial success, several songs that it was impossible not to at least hum along to! the memorable image of white-and-black parade gear, and TV/movie trailers with a rather ubiquitous fancy for the song "Mama" (
The Sopranos,
Smokin' Aces to name a few) in addition to an overblown concert tour that involved the whole album played in its entirety. And in 2010, a huge ego-trip lead to a promotional campaign almost reminiscent of Arcade Fire's newest disc, and a new album called
Danger Days. Only one problem: despite the huge amount of hype, nobody gave two shits about My Chemical Romance anymore. Their commercial popularity had Ben reduced to small clubs and the people who still cared about them weren't sure what to think of the fact that they were even returning.
Unfortunately,
Danger Days is what happens when you walk into the studio with a Tetsuo-sized ego, given a sizable boost from the world tour you've embarked on, and think that you could do just anything and everyone will like it. While others on this site have noted that it goes dangerously back-to-basics, immediately off the heels of their previous Pink Floyd-Queen love child type-album too, it's also extremely scatterbrained, and brings in several ideas that even Between The Buried and Me would have thought twice about before putting it to sheet music. Indecisiveness is offensive enough in this type of music, but considering that you can't help but feel as if you're hearing them declare themselves to be the next Pink Floyd or The Who from just the music alone, it'll leave you raged and confused. As I mentioned before, the ego is alive and well on this disc. Worse yet, it's hard to tell who the target audience for this album is; it meanders back and forth between "for the fans who have stuck with us the whole time!" and "we need new fans".
Still, there are a few good moments to be found here. Despite the annoying spoken-word intro (and laughable title to boot), the first track "Na Na Na (Na Na Na Na Na Na Na Na Na)" (just how many "na"s do you need in a song title?!) is a fun track that starts the album off on a fast and full-speed ahead note. Sure, the chorus is super screechy and annoying, but its lightning-fast pace is enough to make up for it, stupid lyrics notwithstanding. "SING" is a decent tune, even if you ignore the fact that musically it sounds like Snow Patrol and lyrically is a rehash of "Dream On" by Aerosmith. There's also "Bulletproof Heart", which despite being a bit too chorus-driven, is a fun song, but that's about it. Once you hear the mess of synthesizers that constitutes the intro to "Planetary", it's almost like your brain turns your attention ability off completely. It's an awful song enough, that's scatterbrained, like the band had no idea what to sound like. There's also "Party Poison" which is essentially mostly screaming from an annoying Asian girl. The rest of the tracks go through the ears completely without making much of an impression, and that's sadly the most that can be said about the album.
Then there's the ultra-stupid concept about a group of punks in the year 2019, in an apocalyptic desert wasteland. Yep, it's every bit as stupid as it sounds. While nobody will argue the concept behind
The Black Parade was particularly great, about a man on his deathbed musing over the various major events in his life, it at least worked. And while nobody will argue that Gerard is a good lyricist, the tongue-in-cheek!sarcastic tone his lyrics offer do add a sense of admirable cynicism, whereas here they're fucking unbearable, such as this particularly Dickenseque stanza: "
1-2-3-4/3-2-1, we came to fuck/Everybody party till the gasman comes/Sparkle like Bowie in the morning sun". I'll just leave it at that. Musically, the band aren't too bad. I mean, sure, it's obvious that Way is hardly the singer he once was, but there's some good drum work and guitar riffs, here. There's enough catchiness to sort of dull the horrible lyrics.
Yet, when all is said and done, even the band cannot save the album, and it's sad that this album had to be the band's swan song. It was fun while it lasted, but this mistake even goes as far back as the band riding out on the success of
The Black Parade for too long. And while nobody expected something like that magnificent chorus in "Cemetery Drive", the terrifying jaunt that is "Mama", or the beautifully intense "I Never Told You What I Do For a Living" with how the song climaxes over and over, people did expect quality, and sadly it had as much quality as an Uwe Boll film. Alright, even that's a bit harsh. But these types of albums kill careers, and while we can all hope for a reunion someday, let's hope should they indeed reunite, it sounds nothing like this, and they've gotten off their high horses.
