The Black Parade is over

“This is the way the world ends, this is the way the world ends, this is the way the world ends, not with a bang but a whimper.”

That, for the philistines amongst you, is the first stanza of T.S Eliot’s 1925 poem ‘The Hollow Men’. Now of course when Eliot wrote these words he was referring to World War I, or the Gunpowder Plot or something, but I am going to use it to make a point about the demise of alternative rock band and favorite sons of the Noughties “emo” subculture, My Chemical Romance. I just hope the old chap can forgive me for it.

After twelve years together MCR have announced that they’re throwing in the towel. Like so many bands, these New Jersey alt rockers did not heed Eliot’s warning, and now find themselves bowing out to such glowing testimonials as “Oh yeah those guys, I remember them, they were those pale fellas in the marching band outfits right?” and even then, they might still be confusing them for The Libertines.

Some people like me, who once sported long, dyed black hair, vans and brightly coloured skinny jeans for a spell during the more angsty period of their childhoods will always have a certain place in their hearts for My Chemical Romance, albeit somewhat belatedly. For many of us the music of The Black Parade was a gateway drug which led us to immerse ourselves in the wider “alternative” subculture. I would try and make a point here about exactly what drew me to that sort of thing, but to be honest, I’ll be buggered if I know.

However, MCR were not simply a niche band enjoyed by a hardcore fan base of alternative-y types, but experienced mainstream chart success and popularity. It’s sometimes easy to forget when The Black Parade was released just how popular it was, from sports players to computer geeks, every pre-pubescent kid worth their Yu-gi-oh cards liked My Chemical Romance back in 2006. Seminal MCR tracks like ‘Teenagers’ encapsulated perfectly the feeling of rebellion against nothing in particular and angst about, you know, like, stuff.

The Black Parade, like other rock albums of the mid to late noughties which achieved mainstream success, such as Green Day’s American Idiot in 2004 and Fall Out Boy’s Infinity on High in 2007 were the flagships of that decade’s youth in revolt subculture, although the fairly tame nature of this particular musical movement proved to be a telling sign of the times. The Swinging 60s signaled a rebellion against conservative social norms, the Punk 70s an expression of anger against a society which seemed on the verge of collapse. The Noughties counter culture on the other hand was an expression of brattish outrage by the youth of the suburbs about their lack of pocket money and early bedtimes. In many ways it was an encouraging sign, proof of how far we had come over the course of the 21^st century, of how good we had it, but for a teenager growing up in it, you could have been forgiven for perhaps looking back in history and thinking it was you who’d drawn the short straw.

After their initial success with The Black Parade, the band, like many of their contemporaries, struggled to replicate anything like the same success again. MyChem, Green Day, Fall Out Boy and the rest seemed to represent a moment in time, they were the soundtrack of one generation’s initial awakening into the early teenage world of loitering in parks, drinking alcohol and generally making a nuisance of one’s self. Their message was that of autonomy, of poking your head above the parapet of your parental nest for the first time and promptly having a slew of bullets fly past your head. But after a few years that generation had moved on, either fully committing themselves to the alternative lifestyle and moving onto to the more hardcore exponents of the genre, or shrugging off their brief dalliance listening to the music of grown men who wore makeup as if it had never happened.

My Chemical Romance’s final album, released in 2010, was the band’s attempt to reinvent themselves, although god only knows what as. Danger Days: The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys appears to have been something bordering on a Rock Opera set in a Phillip K. Dick style dystopian, near-future California.  Although well reviewed and giving the band a measure of mainstream success once more with ‘Sing’, an uplifting power anthem and answer to Green Day’s ’21 Guns’, the album ultimately failed to re-include the band in the forefront of the teenage zeitgeist, and three years later they finally called it quits. Not with a bang, but with a whimper.