Just giving in.

I gotta admit one thing: as much as it is my job, my responsibility as a music journalist to be up to speed with what’s new and now and happening in the music world…I suck at it. My mp3 player is a 90s flashback complete with Mr. Big, Guns and Roses and Temple of the mother fucking Dog. I’m a grunge kid, probably will die one. Therefore, every time I find myself investigating the newest big thing, I almost always do so with major apprehension.

Point in case, My Chemical Romance. Everyone has seen the video for Helena and can’t deny the cool factor. Not just the air of Rocky Horror present, more so the sheer breath of something fresh and unseen in the rock spectacle these days was mainly its allure. So I admitted that I loved that song but still couldn’t get over what I still think is a horrendous cover of Under Pressure and also that it was done by a collaboration of two bands that I thought may as well have been the same band. Come on. Gerard Way and Bert McCracken are the same guy. It’s a conspiracy.

But now, with Teenagers, their newest, bratty and cleverly energetic single on the radio every fucking time I turn it on, I am officially swaying in their favor…but it doesn’t mean I need to be happy about it! Welcome to the Black Parade still makes me wanna jab two fingers into my right eye socket.

Moral of the story, I live for when bands do this to me. Like in real life, instant loves are few and far between. Most often, we can only really hope for a band that will make us think, give us time to chew on them and not just work their way into our brains like a tapeworm fueled solely on catchiness. I hate that most of all: songs you can’t stand but can’t stop listening to. What kind of cruel joke is that (I’m looking at you, 30 Seconds to Mars)?



-Briana Hernandez