In this world we live in today, music has been drowned out and dulled. It has been taken over by the industry and no longer comes from the artist’s heart. Nowadays most songs are either stereotypical love songs or songs telling you to get “Turnt Up”. However, occasionally you have artists or bands who continue to write their songs from themselves. One such music group is the rock band, My Chemical Romance.

The band My Chemical Romance was formed in the early 2000s. They soon released their first album, “I Brought You My Bullets, You Brought Me Your Love” in 2002. This album, while good was met with mixed to positive reviews. However, it did begin to build the band a cult like following. Their next album released in 2004, “Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge” was critically praised with songs getting extensive radio play and the band finally hitting mainstream. The songs on this album focussed a lot on the lives of teenagers and touched on some very dark but real-life topics.  Their next album, “Welcome to the Black Parade” was released in 2006. This album was met with critical praise and is to date, their most popular and bestselling album. Hits such as “Welcome to the Black Parade”, and “Teenagers” were extremely popular in both the mainstream and cult circles. This album touched on more of a combination of vaguely religious philosophical content but also the theme of “Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge”. That theme being in essence, teenagers. At this point in time the band was at the top of their musical game and toured extensively building an even bigger fanbase. Their last album released was Danger Days: The Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys. This album was released in 2010 to once again critical praise with songs like “Na Na Na”, and “Sing” being highly radio played and gaining much attention. This album, as mentioned in the songs and music videos has an overarching story of a post apocalyptic world and the story of a group of heroes known as the Killjoys who are fighting against an overbearing company that rules the world. After the album’s release a comic series that served as an epilogue for the series was released by Dark Horse comics. Before the release of this album, the band was also offered to do a song for the Twilight movie franchise however they declined saying in basicity that they didn’t want to make music just for money. They even released a song on “Danger Days” entitled “Vampire Money” about this. Sadly, it was around this time that the band began to drift apart and evidently, broke up. However, individually the band members continue to make music.

In the beginning, at their roots My Chemical Romance is a punk rock band. That being said they had clear influence from bands such as Nirvana and to an extent Joy Division. Though they had a somewhat stereotypical sound in their first album, their other albums have been innovative and inspirational. The band My Chemical Romance is now a widely known name internationally and are praised by many. The members are known as not just being talented musicians but also good people. They are quite liberal and support LGBT rights, etcetera. They have a clear message similar to that of Hip-Hop collective Odd Future in that they believe everyone should be themselves. That is why they should be praised. That and the fact that they express themselves. That’s what art is; self expression. Are painters given what they have to paint laid out on a sheet of paper? No, (unless it’s a portrait) they use their imagination or scenery around them to create something new. The industry may be filling the music with pop-culture icons whose talent is being harnessed for money instead of self expression but bands such as My Chemical Romance fight against this by creating original music. Their music has helped many people out of some tough times. Like any good band, they have happy songs and they have depressing songs but the fact of the matter is, people can relate to them. The largest consumer of music, teenagers can relate to their lyrics especially. They’re encouraging these young people to be themselves and just go out and do what they want to do with their lives. Unlike people such as Justin Beiber, they are not in it for the fame and money as clearly evidenced by their decline to the Twilight film franchise to make a music piece for them.

The band My Chemical Romance has changed countless lives with their amazing, deep, and in some cases inspirational music. Their music and lyrics have helped a lot of people going through tough times. They’re music comes from the artists. It’s written by them for the people. Their music is them expressing themselves which is more than can be said by most other artists these days. While basically everyone on the radio is just someone who gets paid to sing pre-made, unoriginal songs; bands like My Chemical Romance are a refreshing splash of red paint on the mostly white and blank canvas of the music industry.