Those were the (danger) days

Since I spent the weekend revisiting some of the 2000s culture, and with the recent release of The Umbrella Academy fourth and final season, I started Monday eager for some My Chemical Romance. More specifically, for their glorious farewell, Danger Days. Its singer, Gerard Way, wrote the comics whose Netflix series is based upon.

His music had long been intertwined with his interest in visual storytelling. So is the case with this conceptual album. Even its promotional videos were narratives depicting a revolutionary coloured-emo resistance against the rich ruling class and its minimalistic grey aesthetics. So, you see, fifteen years on, both the music and the videos still slap hard, with important things to say.

When that album came out, it was all the rage amongst my Internet friends. “It’s their best effort to date, a perfect CD”, I would often observe. “I can barely wait for the next release, see where this artistic growth is headed.” Foolish wishful thinking. There’s never been another record. The band moved on to other projects soon after.

Either way, Danger Days: the True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys still stands as one of my all-time favourite long-plays. It’s a lesson in cohesive storytelling, an energic display of pop punk’s best qualities, a humoristic critique of USian politics. Those are some of the musicians’ top performances. Heck, its tunes flow flawlessly one after the other. There’s no skipping here. It’s an overall irreproachable media.

Look alive, sunshine!