For the past few years, Rob Cavallo has been the Sean Payton of the pop music world. Much like Payton\u2019s work with the New Orleans Saints, Cavallo has been known for seeing talent in players that have been all but ignored by others. And like Payton, Cavallo has a knack for tapping into this talent and producing surprising results. <\/p>\n
In 2004, Cavallo worked a miracle for Green Day with American Idiot<\/i>. Even though he was a longtime producer for Green Day, American Idiot<\/i> was an unexpected commercial and artistic smash. With that album, Cavallo helped\u00a0Green Day develop into an angry, politically charged band that seemed perfectly at home performing with U2 at the Saints’ home opener this year (which they won). Now, Cavallo can be credited for helping turn a pop-goth band from New Jersey into a *gulp* mature band that may have created the most miserably fun hard rock album of the year. <\/p>\n
My Chemical Romance toured with Green Day during the band\u2019s American Idiot<\/i> tour. And possibly taking inspiration from that album, My Chemical Romance\u2019s latest album The Black Parade<\/i> is a loosely-based concept album about death, alienation, broken families and cancer. It\u2019s also one of the most sample-heavy albums to come around since the Beastie Boys\u2019 Paul\u2019s Boutique<\/i>. True, it\u2019s not a direct lift from previous songs, but there are enough moments that one thinks the band should pay royalties to its heroes (namely, Queen, Pink Floyd and a ton of \u201880s hard rock and metal). So, for those with little to no accounting backgrounds, here\u2019s what the royalty breakdown would be like: <\/p>\n
Song 1 \u2013 \u201cThe End\u201d
The album kicks off with the main character in the hospital, which is a perfect setting for over-the-top, bitter drama. Frank Iero\u2019s and Ray Toro\u2019s jarring, acoustic introduction sound like something from Bright Eyes before Bob Bryar\u2019s percussion kicks the song into the \u201cIn The Flesh\u201d Pink Floyd realm of The Wall<\/i>.\u00a0 The verdict: 10 percent of the sales from this song should go to Conor Oberst and 25 percent to Pink Floyd.<\/p>\n
Song 3 \u2013 \u201cThis is How I Disappear\u201d
For all of the \u201care they goth or are they emo?\u201d debate, it\u2019s odd that the chorus of this song could easily be at home on an early-’80s Pat Benatar song. The verdict: 35 percent of the sales should go to Benatar. <\/p>\n
Song 4 \u2013 \u201cThe Sharpest Lives\u201d
Since Bon Jovi came from the same state as My Chemical Romance, I will cut some slack to the band. It could have been subliminal, but somehow the chorus sounds like Bon Jovi\u2019s \u201cRunaway\u201d with better lyrics. The verdict: 20 percent of the sales should go to Bon Jovi. <\/p>\n
Song 6 \u2013 \u201cI Don\u2019t Love You\u201d and Song 8 \u2013 \u201cCancer\u201d
The power ballads from MCR, and because of the band\u2019s edgier roots and Way\u2019s dead-on wails, this is not your typical sappy ballad. Think Skid Row, not Cinderella. Not to be content with totally reveling in the \u201880s, \u201cI Don\u2019t Love You\u201d\u2019s features a guitar riff that\u2019s vaguely similar to the intro of Coldplay\u2019s \u201cYellow.\u201d The verdict: 50 percent to Sebastian Bach and 5 percent of the sales from \u201cI Don\u2019t Love You\u201d to Coldplay. <\/p>\n
Song 9 \u2013 \u201cMama\u201d
Taking cue from the Gorillaz\u2019s casting coups from Demon Days<\/i> (Ike Turner, anyone?), MCR enlists Liza Minelli \u2013 and it actually works. And taking another cue from Pink Floyd, mother issues are all over this one. The verdict: 5 percent to Gorillaz and 20 percent should go to Pink Floyd. <\/p>\n
Song 12 \u2013 \u201cDisenchanted\u201d
Actually, this is the most original song by the band. Probably without coincidence, it\u2019s the least interesting song on the album. The verdict: 100 percent of the proceeds of this song should go to the band. <\/p>\n
Hidden track – “?”
Needless to say, the hidden track is too funny to reveal. Without giving much away, let\u2019s just say that 30 percent of the sales from this track need to go to Tim Burton and about 5 percent to The Simpsons\u2019 songwriting team during their \u201cTreehouse Of Horror\u201d specials. <\/p>\n
For those that are worried about whether My Chemical Romance is to goth music what The Darkness is to heavy metal, fear not — the band is dead serious in their message, even though some of their best songs have firm tongue-in-cheek humor. And sometimes a song with a chorus like \u201cTeenagers scare the living shit out of me\u201d (bonus points to the band for including the cowbell in the song) is more immediate and vital than a bookish, off-tune chorus by Sufjan Stevens. Drop your cynicism for 45 minutes and turn your car stereo up: your morose, self-pitying, video-game worshipping, comic-book reading, A Nightmare Before Christmas<\/i>-worshipping inner teenage child has just found its soundtrack for 2006. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":28550,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[7843],"rating":[5617],"class_list":["post-40016","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-my-chemical-romance","rating-rating-b-plus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/40016","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40016"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/40016\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/28550"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40016"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=40016"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=40016"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}