SOUNDTRACK: MY CHEMICAL ROMANCE-The Black Parade (2006).
I know that Green Day is derivative. It’s obvious that they aren’t the originators of any kind of punk anything, and yet, they seem to have been the catalyst for a new breed of poppy punk bands, and they make an excellent reference point for these snotty young kids who sing catchy choruses with brash guitars. My Chemical Romance follow in a Green Day footstep. I don’t know too much about their previous records, but this one garnered rave reviews, so I thought I’d check it out. It seems to be some kind of concept album.
It seems like every five years or so a “concept” album comes out that seems to strike a chord with the people of the time. Let’s see: Pink Floyd: The Wall (1979); Queensryche: Operation Mindcrime (1988); Nine Inch Nails: The Downward Spiral (1994); Green Day: American Idiot (2004). There are of course many more, but these seemed to really be popular at their time and beyond. So now we have this new post-Green Day concept album. The concept is of “the Patient” who is dying of cancer (which okay, after now two books and this CD, cancer is a bit too prolific on this blog, but I’m not yet ready to add a tag for it [UPDATE: tag added]). I haven’t delved too deeply into the concept of this concept album, but I can say that the songs are overall pretty catchy and singalongy which, aside from being weird for an album about cancer, makes for good listening.
The album may be a little too poppy for my tastes, but “The Teenager” is really an outstanding song (aside from the part that breaks down into only drums and vocals which is a bit too 80s metal for me) but the rest of the song is great. I’ll write an update if I get an opinion of the “concept” of the album at a later date.
[READ: June 19, 2007] The Invention of Hugo Cabret.
Speaking of concepts, this book has a great one. It is part novel, part graphic novel and part imagined biography of the classic filmmaker Georges Méliès. The book itself is really beautiful: it is designed to open flat so you can really enjoy the pictures which span two pages. There are some 280 original drawings, interspersed with fictional writing. The drawings themselves are quite astonishing. Selznick’s style is of a very thick pencil line, almost crosshatching style. He conveys realism very well, and the overall feel of the book is one of a cinematic experience, including zooms and fades to black. (more…)
I Just Read About That... 