My Chemical Romance - Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge


Christgau is just wrong about the sophomore album from My Chemical Romance. Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge is phenomenal. The concept for the album was the demolition lovers from the first album are killed in a gunfight, but the devil tells the one who looks like Gerard that Helena is still alive and they can be reunited if he harvests 1,000 souls or whatever, but then their grandma died (hence calling the first song Helena) and it sort of devolved into more general loss and depression than proper narrative. It's emo with a self-deprecating sense of humor, what more do you want?

It's also a non-stop aural assault that can only be described as cinematic. Every track is a self contained scene in this weird horror fantasy western crime dramedy. Even the credits are laid out like a movie poster. Best of all it's 39 minutes, with more meaningful content than any of the 50 to 70 minute monstrosities i've been constantly complaining about. This is a serious contender for best all around album of all time, whether you like it or not. 

I love it. My only complaint is the mispronunciation of ephedrine, but since there's no way to rewrite the entire song to pronounce it properly, i will deal with it like a big boy.

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