My Chemical Romance

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My Chemical Romance is an American rock band, often used (and mocked) as a prime example of the Emo genre. However, the lead singer (and much of the band) would be rather annoyed by the comparison. Gerard Way, the lead singer, has been known to dislike the genre, calling emo "a pile of shit". They have on occasion referred to themselves as "what-else-you-got emo" and "violent pop". They have also been described as "vampire and zombie rock". Their music is best defined as hardcore, yet melodic, and in some instances anthemic. They formed in New Jersey around 2002 with their first song, Skylines and Turnstiles. The band claims that the theme and style of their music was initially inspired by their feelings during the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.

The band has a notoriously bad Broken Base and a very Unpleasable Fanbase, rampant with Fan Dumb and Hate Dumb. Enter at your own risk. The band is very popular with Emo Teens, despite not wanting to be. Their latest album, Danger Days: The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys divided the fanbase, but is their most popular with everybody else, and made My Chemical Romance more respectable among the general population.

Please don't confuse them with My Bloody Valentine, who are a British Shoegazing band who similarly have nothing to do with them.

Members are:

• Gerard Way, lead singer.
• Ray Toro, lead guitar, backing vocals.
• Frank Iero, rhythm guitar.
• Mikey Way, bass.
• Currently, there's no permanent drummer (formerly Matt Pelissier, then Bob Bryar, then Michael Pedicone as a touring drummer until September 2nd, whose replacement is now Jarrod Alexander).

Discography:

Albums:

• I Brought You My Bullets, You Brought Me Your Love (2002)
• Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge (2004)
• The Black Parade (2006)
• Danger Days: The True Lives of The Fabulous Killjoys (2010)

Documentaries/Live Concerts

• Life on the Murder Scene (2006)
• The Black Parade is Dead (2008)

My Chemical Romance provides examples of the following tropes:

• Adorkable
• Aerith and Bob: Gerard and Mikey Way.
• Afraid of Needles: Gerard.
• Arena Rock: The Black Parade seems to be their attempt at this.
• Atomic F-Bomb: Whenever Gerard opens his mouth on stage. Frank drops some as well.
• Auto-Tune: In the bridge of 'The Jetset Life Is Gonna Kill You'. Also used much more subtly in 'Cancer'.
• Badass: They certainly know how to turn it on when the moment calls for it.
• Badass Beard: Bob.
• Badass Spaniard: Though technically, Ray is a Badass Puerto Rican.
• Bishonen: The entire band, depending on who you ask.
• Blood-Splattered Wedding Dress: The cover of Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge and Life on the Murder Scene. It's a lot easier to tell that it's a wedding dress on the latter.
• Camp: Gerard. And then some.
• Character Blog: The mysterious Twitter accounts for Dr. Death Defying, Agent Cherri Cola, News A Go Go, and Tommy Chow Mein. We think.
• Clothing Damage: Gerard's pants. Just...Gerard's pants.
  • And now, his shirt.
• Cloudcuckoolander: Gerard is the most obvious one, but in little ways, all the boys seem to be from another planet.
  • Frank is pretty damn out there sometimes.
• Cluster F-Bomb: "Our Lady of Sorrows." Full Stop.
• Concept Album: Each of their albums have an intricate back-story and concept behind it.
• Cover Version: The band has done several of these. Examples include:
  • Bob Dylan's "Desolation Row" for the Watchmen soundtrack.
  • The Misfits' "Astro Zombies".
  • Pulp's "Common People".
  • Blur's "Song 2".
  • Morrissey's "Jack The Ripper".
  • Mariah Carey's "All I Want For Christmas Is You".
• Deus Ex Nukina: Possibly part of the plot or universe of the next album.
• Dies Wide Open: Mikey in the music video for "The Ghost of You".
• Documentary Episode: Life on the Murder Scene.
• Dye or Be Recognized at Comic Con. Apparently, the blonde hair at the 2010 SDCC was Gerard's "costume" so he could buy He-Man action figures in peace.
• Eerie Pale-Skinned Brunette: Gerard when he isn't busy dyeing his hair white or some ridiculous shade of pink.
  • Also Frank.
  • Don't forget Mikey...
• Emo: Although the band would disagree, they do have alot in common with classic/post-harcore emo. While snobby punks will claim otherwise, they aren't really scene emo since they have to much of a Hardcore Punk influence to really be an emo pop band. In addition they were an important band in the early 2000's post-hardcore scene along with Thursday and AFI.
• Everything's Deader with Zombies: "Early Sunsets Over Monroeville", which doubles as a Shout-Out to Dawn of the Dead.
• Fan Service: In spades.
  • Word of God says a lot of that (such as the "Frerard" gimmick) is done to piss people off.
• Funny Afro: Ray Toro, the Man with the Plan, the Torosaurus, has a positively EPIC afro. Over the years, his is the only hairstyle that has remained relatively constant, only darkening in color and deflating somewhat during The Black Parade and Danger Days. It even has a (fake) blog.
• Genki Girl: Gerard is a Western male example on stage.
• The Glasses Gotta Go: Once again, Mikey Way, except he decided they had to go (and got Lasik).
• Guyliner
• Hammerspace Hair: Possibly Ray's 'fro.
  • He knows everything about everyone! That's why his hair is so big, it's full of secrets.
• Hollywood Pudgy: Gerard is the most obvious carrier of this trope within the band. Ray and Bob may also qualify, though Bob is no longer part of the band.
  • NME claims that Ray is now "getting fat" and has "doughy lovehandles". In actuality, he's completely normal.
• Iconic Item: Feathered boas, striped ties, the leather jacket (that'll turn your stomach), the bat belt buckle from Life on the Murder Scene... Coffee and cigarettes might even count with this band.
  • Mikey's now-departed glasses.
• Improvised Weapon: Towards the end of the "I'm Not Okay (I Promise)" video, the band is squaring off against the jocks. Their weapon of choice? Croquet mallets.
  • Nintendo Power Gloves and Zappers are the weapon of choice in 2019.
• Iris Out: Welcome to the Black Parade contains a rather persistent one, which keeps on trying to end the video.
• Jerk Jock: The apparent "enemy" in the "I'm Not Okay (I Promise)" video.
• Joisey: With the exception of Bob Bryar, everybody is from New Jersey.
• Jump Physics: A live show will make you wonder if they've harnessed some kind of ability to alter this.
• Large Ham: Gerard owns this trope and then some. If he were an actor, he'd constantly have a belly full of scenery.
• Lyrical Dissonance: The songs that aren't Tear Jerkers have Crazy Awesome music that you can't get out of your head, set to lyrics that often induce Squick when you actually listen.
  • Example: Headfirst for Halos. A rather upbeat song until you listen to the lyrics. "I think I've blown my brains against the ceiling. And as the fragments of my skull begin to fall, fall on your tongue, like pixie dust..."
  • One of Gerard's quotes are:

"That's what happens when you're all borderline psychotic and therein lies the beauty of this band - our duality. There's a duality to each band member too. There's a desire to have this constant conflict. If we write a write a song and it turns out really poppy, we have to make the lyrics really fucked up. There's psychosis to everything we do for sure. One day we're probably gonna write this number one pop tune that will be about a massacre!"

• Mad Artist: Some people consider Gerard to be a not-so-villainous version of this.
• Mind Screw: The video for "I Don't Love You", but Your Mileage May Vary.
• Mood Whiplash: More common in the live shows and the actual albums, although The Black Parade comes to mind as an offender. "House of Wolves" is followed by "Cancer" is followed by "Mama".
• Motor Mouth
• Must Have Caffeine: The Way Brothers function on massive amounts on coffee, which probably explains why Gerard can be such a Genki Guy.

Gerard: Cawfee, cawfee, goin' to get cawfee!

• Myth Arc: The Black Parade
• Nerd Glasses: Mikey Way wore 'em. Though when combined with Mikey's perpetual apathetic expression, comes off as Four Eyes, Zero Soul.
• Nightmare Fuel Station Attendant
• One-Woman Song: Helena.
  • "Mama" might also qualify.
• Only Sane Man: Bob was this before leaving compared to the rest of the guys along with Mikey. With his departure, it seems Mikey's taken this over a little.
• Our Vampires Are Different: "Vampires Will Never Hurt You". Might contain a bit of The Dead Can Dance, as one verse refers to the vampires hanging out at a nightclub.
  • Draculoids! Which are not really vampires. Just Mooks in Halloween masks. "Vampire Money" is also a...subversion? Aversion?
  • It's a Take That at Twilight, which is even better.
• Precision F-Strike: Played straight in the case of Three Cheers of Sweet Revenge, where "fuck" is only heard twice in the whole album. (It still got a Parental Warning sticker.)
  • Also happens in individual songs, like Save Yourself, I'll Hold Them Back, which has one loud F-bomb in the middle.
• Porn Stache: Frank sports one sometimes. Makes him look like Mario.
• Prison Rape: "You Know What They Do to Guys Like Us In Prison", which seems to be a subversion of Double Standard Rape (Male on Male). The laughter at the end is the singer going insane and threatening to burn down a hotel.
• Real Trailer, Fake Movie: The basic theme of the "I'm Not Okay (I Promise)" video.
• Rock Opera: The Black Parade.
• Shiny Midnight Black: Gerard's hair, which is naturally a shade of brown.
• Ship Tease: Tended to be a staple of live shows. Became most prevalent during the 2007 Projekt Revolution tour.
• Shout-Out: A fair number of their songs contain references to other things.
  • "Vampire Money" is gosh darn full of it. The song was written in response to the band's choice to not write a song for the Twilight movies, David Bowie and Mark Bolan get a Name Drop and the opening is almost a perfect copy of "Ballroom Blitz" by Sweet.
• Slouch of Villainy: Averted. Gerard just has really bad posture, but he's far from villainous.
• So My Kids Can Watch: Their appearance on Yo Gabba Gabba! performing "Every Snowflake is Different" might be this.
• Take That: As mentioned above, "Vampire Money" is a pretty snarky one directed at Twilight.
• Teens Are Monsters: "Teenagers".
• Title-Only Chorus: DESTROYA, DESTROYA, DESTROYA, DESTROYA...
• White-Haired Pretty Boy: Gerard when he had bleached his hair right before the release of The Black Parade.
• What Measure Is a Mook?: Gerard killing a Draculoid in the 'SING!' video, having a 'wait a second I just killed that guy moment' (because he removed the Drac's mask) and this leads to Gerard getting killed - it's seen even better in The Directors Cut.
• When He Smiles: Ray Toro, the lead guitarist with the 'fro, is not considered as good-looking as his pretty-boy bandmates (*coughcough* Bishonen), but with his full lips and million-dollar smile, everything seems to light up. Ray of sunshine, indeed.
  • For further consideration, pause at 3:31. It's contagious.
• Whole-Plot Reference: Their Music Video for their song "Honey, This Mirror Isn't Big Enough for the Two of Us" recounts the plot of the movie Audition, interspersed with clips of them playing.
• World War II: "The Ghost of You" video is themed this.