I was happy. The music was good, like I'd expected. And it was loud too, which was fun because every once in a while my mom would get all pissed off and tell me to 'turn off your satanic rock and roll!'. And I'd get a cotton candy widget of satisfaction. It was loud and she hated it- more to the point she thought it was satanic. And as a kind of cherry on top my little sister liked it too. I didn't think about it too thoroughly, but I was sure this was a good first step in weening her off of Hannah Montana.
The second week that I had the music, I was thoroughly infatuated. The only problem was that I didn't know the names, i just kind of had 'Bob' floating in a corner of my brain but didn't know who it belonged to. I thought the lead singer was cute though. But he should have had longer hair like that other guy, not the one with curly hair and not the base guitarist. I also knew the lead singer had a brother, but I was also kind of stumped there.
For all my profound laziness, however, I managed to learn 'The Black Parade,' in record time. But I loved it, I adored, worshipped and bowed in its unending light. I thought it was the best thing. And until that point music had become something of a dull ache at the back of my mind, it was all Usher and Ciarra. I didn't like it, but I had no choice but to stand it because everyone else in my class was into that sort of thing. It seemed like a millenia ago that 'Bring Me To Life' had come out, the song that'd made music real to me. After evanesence it'd all quitened down. Linkin Park had been good for a while, but their prospenssity towards hip hop unnerved me a little. And I didn't know good Charlotte. And as for Sum 41, it had been my friends band and like a boyfriend no one else likes, I couldn't take to it the same way. I did spend a little time wondering about Simple Plan, time which, it turned out, could have been better spent watching paint dry.
I had My Chemical Romance (a long name) now. And I sang The Black Parade with all the vim and vigour of a drunk sailor back on the harbour after years and years away. I sang it everywhere, to everyone. And they probably hated it. But I have a good voice so I'd like to think I gave them something beautiful to cherish forever until they die. It took some time longer to learn the rest of the songs because the lead singer clearly had some kind of an enunciating problem. Even with the lyrics sheet I had trouble keeping up. Still, I loved it enough to keep perceveiring. Unlike every other album or song ever, even though I couldn't hear very well what he was saying, I didn't just give up and move on to the next thing. I mumbled my own nonsense version right along.
This marked the beginning of an important era. The beginning of a closeness my sister and I share that would have been completely impossible without the Black Parade. We started singing together. Leanig over the sink, despondently washing dishes, we belted out everything from The End to Blood. We got close. And became fangirls (our transformation was not complete though, our fangirl fangs had yet to grasp the Bandslash universe to which we are now neatly attached, we were still relatively innocent and pure in our love).
And suddenly as if out of nowhere emo erupted. It was somehow something we were miracolously a part of without even asking or trying very hard. It was all angsty and terribly upset about everything which proved blissflully convinient because we were all angsty and terribly upset about everything too. Well my sister wasn't yet, but she would be soon enough.
Like this: Panic! At the disco, Fall Out Boy, P!nk (as in since I was nine) 30 Seconds to Mars, The Parlotones (you'd be lucky to know them kids, they're from our continent and not yours) Evanescence, Green Day (as in since I can remember because they came out when I was just 2), Avril Lavigne (in patches anyway-she was blonde now) AFI, Blue October, Tokio Hotel, Muse.
There was such an innundation of good music all at once that we did not forsee the great music depression of 2009, when Soldier Boy and Sean Kingston would murderously scratch their nails along the black board of good music and leave that indellible mark and a permanent ring in our ears. But that was the future. For now the music was good. Even the music we didn't listen to was good. I'll be the first to say with utmoust confidence that the rap was good, the hiphop-classic- and Rnb still had traces of Rythm and Blues.
