Rock Music - For All the People I Wish I Could Be

Rock music is great. Really great. Like many of the person (sic) who might read this, I have my own ideas about what I think makes it great, and believe myself to be right. And, of course, everyone has an equal claim on holding the correct opinion; that is to say, no one has the correct opinion, because there's no such thing as an absolute truth in art.

And that's a fact that I enjoy immensely. There's a brilliant, chaotic, anarchic freedom to knowing that nobody can ever, definitively, argue that Guns N' Roses are any better than Boyzone, Steps, or 5ive (should I be ashamed for having spelt correctly?). For the record, I'd almost always choose those bands over Guns N' Roses, without particularly liking any of them. But that's because, in my opinion, 1980s cock rock is absolutely rubbish.

Just realised I've been a bit British in my examples, so if you happen to be one of my many international readers(!), then instead of Boyzone, Steps and 5ive, read 3T or Aaron Carter (or, if you're French, 2 Be 3 or Worlds Apart). Before my knowledge of the World's boybands becomes too creepy, I'll move on (perhaps too late, I fear).

Let's move away from boybands and back to rock. More precisely, to my favourite rock band and the man pictured at the top, Gerard Way. He's the lead singer of My Chemical Romance. They've been my favourite band for five or six years now, and throughout that time I've wondered why. Their normal fanbase is thought to be sixteen year-olds (more female than male), although I suspect that's a bit of an inaccurate generalisation. Either way, though, there are plenty of similar bands around that I don't remotely like, so quite why I love them as much as I do has been a mystery to me.

Having bought, and loved, each of their first three albums a little more than the last, it was only when they brought out their fourth "Danger Days: The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys" that it dawned on me. It's not exactly a profound realisation, but what this band is for me (and, I suspect, a few other fans) is pure escapism. They - along with the personas they adopt in this album - are everything I sometimes wish I could be, but know I never could.

Before I properly qualify that statement, a quick word on the music. In "Danger Days", MCR have produced what I think is the best rock album of the year, and probably for a lot longer than that. It's incredibly varied, which I like, and hints at many influences, without seemeing particularly derivative of any. It's a bit less hard than fans might have come to expect from previous albums, or indeed than the unitiated might imagine. And yet it still has their characteristic edge, largely thanks to Gerard's voice, and its fantastic, outskirts-of-sanity feel. I genuinely believe he has one of the most fertile minds in popular culture today.

I've embedded (at the bottom) the album's lead single, Na Na Na (Na Na Na Na Na Na Na Na Na), to give you a feel of what it's like. The video also introduces the concept that drives the album - a gang of outlaws on the run in a post-apocalyptic America, where "The Aftermath is Secondary".

And this brings me back to my realisation, that what makes me love this band, and this album, so much is that they live out an attitude and way of living that I'd love to hold, but never could.

Trust me, I would love to go through life thinking that the aftermath is secondary. Of course, literally it is - but not in terms of its importance (come on, you know what I mean!). I'm just too guilty to think like that. To quote Mark Corrigan in Peep Show:

"I feel guilty about everything, from the pollution caused by Chinese industrialisation, to not wearing some pairs of boxers as much as others."

So that's why I find MCR, and the characters they create, so alluring. Much of my mind longs to go through life with an attitude of "f**k it all" defiance, in true rock and roll fashion. But, deep down, I know that if I ever want to do my bit to make the world better, especially with its survival, as we know it, in doubt in the coming century, that attitude has to stay confined to my fantasies.

So, MCR, thanks for the escape!