Hesitant Alien takes that obsession even farther, and the words “Britpop” and “revival” are getting thrown around in early reviews. Instead, that album broadcast a fascination with Blur, which, given Way’s classicism and popularity in England, shouldn’t have surprised anybody.
By Danger Days: The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys, there was almost no resemblance between the music My Chemical Romance was making and garden-variety emo-pop. If most of non-music-obsessed America understood emo only as a fashion statement (if the understanding was even that coherent), well, here was a guy who looked and acted the part, and never mind if the songs he was writing were more like “November Rain” than Saves the Day. That was Way in the “I’m Not Okay” video with the kohl around his eyes, right? To be fair, he has always had catholic tastes - Bowie to Bon Jovi to Broadway kitsch - and more than anything about his music, it was his penchant for melodrama that made an impression on casual listeners. Even as he sang on In Defense of the Genre (the title track, no less), Way called emo “a pile of shit,” which probably struck fans and foes alike as protesting too much. Genre: During the ’00s, no mainstream band in America was more regularly called “emo” than My Chemical Romance, and nobody rejected the designation any more vigorously than Gerard Way. The main musical accomplice on this set is Ian Fowles from the Aquabats, a California ska-punk group famous for goofing around in matching costumes. Frank Iero and Ray Toro do not show up on Hesitant Alien, and brother Mikey Way limits his contributions to a single backing vocal. So this isn’t like one of those Yes-member spinoff albums where Bill Bruford plays the drums and Jon Anderson gets a writing credit on the single and Roger Dean paints the cover. Hesitant Alien is Way’s first solo album since My Chemical Romance broke up, and it’s an attempt to establish a musical identity for him outside the context of a group about which most music listeners have a definite and concrete opinion. Commercial success made Way a citizen of the globe, and let’s just say it’s been awhile since he was eligible to run for Congress in the eighth district.įormat: Eleven-track LP.
Early on, My Chemical Romance fit the profile of a striving local band: the combo played basement parties along with all the other punk rock shlubs. Former My Chemical Romance frontman Gerard Way has released his first solo album, Hesitant Alien.įrom: Gerard Way grew up in Belleville and was living in Hudson County at the time of the formation of the act that would make him famous.