7. Gerard Way of My Chemical Romance
In one sense, Way is a no-brainer; he's the closest thing to a goth rock star we've got these days, someone who dresses in skeleton-themed outfits and writes rock operas about death. But he also comes off a bit too much like the wholesome kid from New Jersey he probably really is to have any real mystique. And when the British press denounced his band and the emo movement as a whole as a "death cult that encourages kids to self-harm," Way vehemently disagreed with that assessment, which speaks well of him as a person, but kind of blows his P.O.D. credentials. Plus, the photo at left clearly states that he is a princess.

6. David Draiman of Disturbed
He's got creepy facial piercings, makes sounds like a rabid monkey when he sings, and fronts a hugely successful metal band. And yet, I have to admit, he still kind of comes off like a schlubby dork.

5. Rihanna
Three years ago, Rihanna was an adorable little Caribbean pop princess, but as she's gotten more successful, her image has unexpectedly evolved from long wavy hair to asymmetrical Aeon Flux bob, from summery booty shorts to leather dominatrix outfits. And you get the feeling that no one at Def Jam told her to look more androgynous or make videos like "Disturbia,". She just really wanted to make a creepy video full of zombies.

4. No. 8 of Slipknot
Just kidding! We all know that under the mask your name is Corey and you look like this.

3. Tony Iommi of Black Sabbath
Let's face it, even if Ozzy was the Prince of Darkness, it was Sabbath's guitarist who always exuded a much darker aura. C'mon, the guy looks like a freakin' supervillain.

2. Nick Cave
Sure, Cave is only moderately famous, and he has a bit less mystique now than he did in his Birthday Party days. But he's been on a roll lately, career-wise, and is as committed as ever to looking totally creepy.

1. Lil Wayne
Whether or not he ever becomes the guitar-slinging rock star he seems to want to be lately, Lil Wayne is perhaps the most archetypally kooky, drug-addled superstar in the Ozzy mode on this list, a guy who has tattoos all over his face and says increasingly bizarre shit every time there's a microphone in front of him. All he has to do to cement his title now is bite the head off of a bat. What is a goon to a goblin, anyway?

It's time to see what the most-played songs and artists on rock radio have been from January to June. And surprise, surprise, the drummer/singer/guitarist you can't get away from is in the top 5 of each list—twice. First, the top songs:

1. Seether, "Fake It"
2. Foo Fighters, "The Pretender"
3. Foo Fighters, "Long Road To Ruin"
4. Linkin Park, "Shadow Of The Day"
5. Puddle Of Mudd, "Psycho"
6. Bravery, "Believe"
7. Seether, "Rise Above This"
8. Finger Eleven, "Paralyzer"
9. Paramore, "CrushCrushCrush"
10. Rise Against, "The Good Left Undone"
11. Atreyu, "Falling Down"
12. Weezer, "Pork & Beans"
13. Three Days Grace, "Never Too Late"
14. Linkin Park, "Given Up"
15. Flobots, "Handlebars"
16. 3 Doors Down, "It's Not My Time"
17. Death Cab For Cutie, "I Will Possess Your Heart"
18. Jack Johnson, "If I Had Eyes"
19. Panic At The Disco, "Nine In The Afternoon"
20. Chevelle, "I Get It"

Almost every song here cracked the top 5 of Billboard's Hot Modern Rock Tracks chart, and the four that didn't—Rise Against, Jack Johnson, Death Cab and Panic—peaked elsewhere in the top 10. But these figures are all about longevity, songs that stay on playlists for months and months, not the ones that make a big splash and then quickly disappear. Therefore, we get plenty of the 2007 hits that refuse to die like "The Pretender," "Paralyzer," and "Never Too Late." And songs that broke in the spring and have been unavoidable ever since, like "Pork & Beans" and "Handlebars," will almost surely rate higher on the year-end list.

"Nine In The Afternoon," which I predicted would be a flash in the pan airplay-wise, has turned out to have substantial legs based on its placement here. That's not to say I'm ready to halt my sophomore-slump schadenfreude for Panic At The Disco—their album Pretty. Odd. has still sold below expectations, and the slightly more tolerable follow-up single "That Green Gentleman" failed to chart at all, which may have helped clear the way for the long radio shelf life "Nine" has had.

Now, let's look at the 20 most-played artists on alternative radio so far in 2008:

1. Foo Fighters
2. Linkin Park
3. Red Hot Chili Peppers
4. Green Day
5. Nirvana
6. Seether
7. Weezer
8. Pearl Jam
9. Stone Temple Pilots
10. Smashing Pumpkins
11. Three Days Grace
12. Offspring
13. Sublime
14. Incubus
15. Nine Inch Nails
16. Puddle Of Mudd
17. Paramore
18. Beastie Boys
19. Alice In Chains
20. Killers

Again, no surprises at the top, where the Foos and Linkin Park take their predictable spots, dominating with multiple singles from their 2007 albums and a comfortable bedrock of earlier hits. And Seether's two big recent hits get them plenty far up, despite a relative lack of airplay for previous singles. But overall you've got an interesting cross-section here, one that demonstrates just how much older recurrents dominate alt-rock radio these days. Less than half of the artists—nine total, four in the top 10—have had new singles out in the last few months. Three of the bands haven't been together for more than a decade, and the fact that those bands are Nirvana, Sublime, and Alice In Chains, all of whom have deceased frontmen, is a little creepy.

Even some of the still-active older bands get a negligible amount of their chart placement from recent material: Smashing Pumpkins have eight songs in the top 500 most played songs of the year, but last year's underwhelming comeback single "Tarantula" is the least popular of those; all 10 of Pearl Jam's entries are from no later than 1994; and even if Stone Temple Pilots came home from their reunion tour
tomorrow and recorded a smash hit, it'd struggle to get as many spins as "Interstate Love Song." Meanwhile, Green Day, RHCP, Weezer and Nine Inch Nails get healthy spins for songs from the '90s as well as those from this decade.

The enduring popularity of first-wave grunge bands makes the presence of umpteenth-wavers like Three Days Grace and Puddle of Mudd unsurprising. But it's impressive that a relatively new band like Paramore has inched up so high on the list—especially since its two big hits were released in '07, and the one single the band released this year, the Idolator fave "That's What You Get," pretty much tanked, barely cracking the Modern Rock chart. And though The Killers' Sam's Town, released way back in 2006, was widely deemed a disappointment, enough of the band's singles, including that album's "When You Were Young," have remained in recurrent play enough to keep them high up on the list. In fact, they're up much higher than bands who achieved comparable success around the same time and haven't had alt-rock hits lately, like My Chemical Romance (59) and Fall Out Boy (74). FOB might wanna keep that "Mr. Brightside" cover in their set for a while, because it might eventually be more familiar to the casual fans in the crowd than any of their originals.

8/20, Orlando, FL (The Social)
8/22, Houston, TX (Warehouse Studio)
8/23, Austin, TX (Emo's)
8/25, Tempe, AZ (Clubhouse)
8/26, Hollywood, CA (Avalon)
8/27, San Luis Obispo, CA (SLO Brew)
8/28, San Francisco, CA (Bottom of the Hill)
8/29, Sparks, NV (New Oasis)
8/30, Salt Lake City, UT (Avalon Theater)
8/31, Denver, CO (Marquis Theater)
9/2, Minneapolis, MN (Triple Rock)
9/3, Chicago, IL (House of Blues)
9/4, Detroit, MI (The Magic Stick)
9/5, Pittsburgh, PA (Diesel)
9/6, Buffalo, NY (Club Inifinity)
9/7, New York, NY (Highline Ballroom)
9/9, Cambridge, MA (The Middle East Club)
9/10, Farmingdale, NY (Crazy Donkey)
9/11, Towson, MD (Recher Theatre)
9/12, Sayreville, NJ (Starland Ballroom)
9/13, Lancaster, PA (Chameleon Club)
9/14, Philadelphia, PA (The Fillmore at the TLA)

Reggie & The Full Effect - Mood 4 Luv (Live on IMX) [YouTube]
Reggie & The Full Effect Map Final Tour [SPIN]
Dwarf Invasion - Reggie & The Common Denominators [YouTube]

Sam was a fan of alternative rock bands such as the Foo Fighters and Slipknot, as well as so-called Emo music championed by bands such as Blink 182 and Good Charlotte.



The movement - whose name comes from the word 'emotional' - is a reference to the angst-ridden lyrics and melancholy themes of the music.



It has become increasingly popular with British teenagers since its inception in America two decades ago.



Followers see the genre as much a fashion as a style of music - with many dying their hair black as well as dressing in dark clothing.



Sam's sister, Emma, 22, said the year-nine pupil had also been bullied over his interest in the music at his school.



'He used to laugh about it when people mocked him over his dress sense and music taste so we didn't realise it was anything serious', she said.



'We saw him as always happy and smiling but we now think there has been some name calling about the whole Emo thing. We know some bullying has been going on and we are disgusted and angry about it."

And a genre's good name is restored. Way to avoid another one of these, Daily Mail!

Boy, 13, 'hanged himself after he was bullied on Bebo for being a fan of Emo music' [Daily Mail]
MCR / Emo protest in London against the daily mail [YouTube]

The Daily Mail has called the New Jersey-based band one of the foremost of the "suicide cult" groups forming part of the "emo" phenomenon. The paper described "emo" as a teenage trend that started in the US in the 1980s and was "characterised by depression, self-injury and suicide". Its followers, the tabloid said, wore tight jeans, studded belts and wristbands and had dyed-black hair and long fringes obscuring their faces.



The atmosphere at the protest was more carnival fairground than riot, with fans clutching balloons and soft toys and singing My Chemical Romance songs loudly and passionately - but not always tunefully. Lyrics included "teenagers scare the living shit out of me" and "I'm not afraid to keep on living".



The overwhelming majority of the crowd were young girls, bouncing with energy and shrieking with laughter as they rushed over to hug their friends or chanted: "Don't blame MCR!"



...One of the few boys to attend today's protest, Craig Goodwin, 17, from Upminster in Essex, said he was there with the blessing of his parents.



"They didn't mind - my dad used to do protests because he was a rocker back when it was mods and rockers, and my mum liked My Chemical Romance, so she didn't care, either," he said.

Here's hoping this protest will have made the Daily Mail realize that no one cares.

My Chemical Romance Protest at Marble Arch [YouTube]

Please don't bring signs which you hold above your head in a picketing protest (the standard ones which are on a wooden stick and have slogans on them). The reason for this is that there is a small chance we will could get in trouble with the law if we have these signs. Instead, we urge you to bring signs that you can hang around your neck (much like some people have 'free hugs' signs hanging around their neck on string at shows) with slogans like 'MCR SAVE LIVES' and 'MCR SAVED MY LIFE' (if they did, of course x]) or positive MCR lyrics such as 'I AM NOT AFRAID TO KEEP ON LIVING'. Remember guys, big and bold so that people can read it from far off. If you want to write your own slogan, that's fine, just please have it to the point and promotional of MCR, rather than insulting the Daily Mail. Remember, no curse words or derogatory insults. Keep things positive and legal, guys. x]



What to wear: As well as the signs, please consider dressing to suit the day. We've heard of people intending to deck themselves out in 'emo attire' for the day, please don't do that as - even though we know you are making fun of the Daily Mail - the general public won't. Please don't try to dress stereotypically.

Please consider wearing home-made shirts with positive slogans written on them in big letters (much like the famous 'MCR saved my life' shirt featured at the beginning of Life On The Murder Scene).
If you don't want to make a shirt, you can buy shirts with 'choose life' written on them here. It'd be awesome to see tons of you turn up in them.

No emo attire? The kids aren't going to dress up like little vampires and corpse brides? I'm a little scared that this outbreak of eyeliner-free peace and love in England might inspire the band to go nu-rave.

I Am Not Afraid To Keep On Living [Official site]

I'm an uncontrollable radio-flipper when I'm stuck in a car, and this weekend, during the approximately 30 hours that I spent being shuttled around Long Island's highways, the radio was playing an unrelenting mix of "No One," that Chris Brown/T-Pain song, "Apologize," and, for some reason, the entire Samantha Fox catalog. Not that the last selection wasn't a joy, but when you hear "Kiss Kiss" for the 5,875th time, you begin to want—nay, crave—the slightly different offerings served up by the all-Christmas stations on the dial. Anyway, it was somewhere between exits 58 and 59 on the LIE that I realized that I really, really liked one new holiday standard in particular: Mariah Carey's 1994 "All I Want For Christmas Is You," which, while full of longing, is not one of those "drinking myself to death at Christmas" songs that are so popular on these stations' playlists. (Seriously, WTF with that Dan Fogelberg track about people drinking beer in a car? Talk about giving people a reason to spike their egg nog with rubbing alcohol.) While I was looking for Mariah's "Christmas" video—which seems to have been filmed in and around the malls of my youth—I found the My Chemical Romance cover above, thus proving my suspicion that there was at least one emo band out there who'd realize that this track's mix of incessant boppiness and sad-sack lyrics was a perfect fit for its aesthetic.

All I Want For Christmas Is You - My Chemical Romance [YouTube]

Basically, it's never been accurate to describe us. Emo bands were being booked while we were touring with Christian metal bands because no one would book us on tours. I think emo is Fucking garbage, it's bullshit. I think there's bands that unfortunately we get lumped in with that are considered emo and by default that starts to make us emo. All I can say is anyone actually listening to the records, put the records next to each other and listen to them and there's actually no similarities. I think emo's a pile of shit.

This got me thinking: How would Gerard's hostility play out in the bandom universe? Here is my rough estimation:

Gerard: *Rolls over onto his side, annoyed."

William (from The Academy Is...): Was that good for you?

Gerard: Eh...

William: What's wrong, Gerard? Are you upset that Mikey's out with Brendon?

Gerard: No, that's not it.

William: Is it me? Was it the blowjob? Tell the truth.

Gerard: Goddamnit, William, for the last time, it wasn't the blowjob! I'm just going through some shit right now...it's hard to explain.

William: *Gently caresses Gerard's shoulder.* What can I do to help?

Gerard: Just...don't touch me.

My Chemical Romance talks to The 'Campus' [The Maine Campus]

Today's TRL had at No. 7 My Chemical Romance's "Teenagers," a track that we've sung the praises of in the past. But as is the case with much of the music that sees actual airtime on MTV, the song was pockmarked with bleeps. While some of the x-ed-out words were to be expected, tallying up which words were and weren't blocked by MTV's standards and practices department led to some odd results:

BLEEPED:
• murder
• shit
• "your shirt"
• pay

NOT BLEEPED:
• bleed
• violent

Now, it's understandable—sort of!—why "your shirt" and "pay" were bleeped; the verse in question is about whipping out a concealed weapon as revenge for high school kids' cruelty. But if you're going to get rid of those words and not also ding words that actually conjure up violent imagery, what's the point? As Dan pointed out over IM, MTV's bleeping of "shirt" may actually be a sop to the less-literate, more-reactionary audience members who watch TRL on mute:

GuestDan: sounds like shit
GuestDan: you can never be too sure
GuestDan: could be a close captioning nightmare

Which leaves us with only one conclusion: Watch out, "this." You're next.

My Chemical Romance Teenagers Lyrics [metrolyrics.com]

Above, the long-overdue video for My Chemical Romance's "Teenagers," a glammy stomp that, when all is said and done, should have been released as the second single from the band's most recent album, The Black Parade. While the song is all T. Rex swagger, though, the accompanying video—which drops MCR into a high-school auditorium—kept conjuring up images in our (admittedly notalgia-damaged) heads that were from a certain clip released 16 years ago. (And we weren't the only ones.) We'll probably get to see more of similarities shine through when "Weird Al" gives the MCR video/song the inevitable Green Acres-themed treatment, but for now, here's what we noticed:

Dreary High School Gathering Place
MCR: Auditorium.
Nirvana: Gym.

"Edgy" Accessory Flaunted By Cheerleaders
MCR: Gas masks, gun-looking objects.
Nirvana: Armpit hair, anarchy symbols.

Semi-Synchronized Gesture That Indicates Crowd Approval
MCR: Saluting.
Nirvana: Headbanging.

Crowd-Storming-Stage-Scene?
MCR: Yes—and the cheerleaders look scared.
Nirvana: Yes—and the cheerleaders hold their own, even though the possibility of crowd-surfers clocking them in the head with a steel-toed boot is high.

Solitary Figure At Clip's End
MCR: Hotline for "reaching out" if you're feeling violent. (Wait, what about working out your aggressions in the pit?)
Nirvana: Tied-up guy in a dunce cap—who, no doubt, would love to "reach out," given the chance.

My Chemical Romance - Teenagers (real music video) [YouTube]
Nirvana - Smells Like Teen Spirit [YouTube]
Here We Are Now: My Chemical Romance "Teenagers" [Obtusity]

Anyway, the Mets have decided to open voting on this matter to the fans, listing 60 songs that will eventually be narrowed down to a final four. While some of the candidates are almost as horrific as "Our Team, Our Time," we came up with a four-pack that'll serve David through the season's doggiest days, and threw in a write-in for good measure:

Cassie - Me & U
WHAT IT IS: Chilly, almost-robotic track from Diddy protege.
WHY IT SHOULD GET THE NOD: Icy, barely-there beat will sound amazin' on blast, even coming from Shea Stadium's decrepit speakers.

M.I.A. - Galang
WHAT IT IS: Purple-hazy club banger.
WHY IT SHOULD GET THE NOD: The closest thing to "Buffalo Stance" on the list. Also, every person we showed this list to immediately replied, "WTF, 'Galang'?"

Nas - New York State Of Mind
WHAT IT IS: Not the Billy Joel song.
WHY IT SHOULD GET THE NOD: Yes, it's fierce, but imagine the hilarity that will ensue when it becomes obvious that this song was only chosen for its title.

My Chemical Romance - Welcome To The Black Parade
WHAT IT IS: Gloomy, glammy epic that'll get many fists a-pumping.
WHY IT SHOULD GET THE NOD: Song about cancer infinitely preferable to presence of clubhouse cancer.

Super Mario Bros. Theme
WHAT IT IS: An 8-bit favorite that now serves as a ringtone for half of the cell-phone-owning population.
WHY IT SHOULD GET THE NOD: Will conjure up mental images of opposing teams actually being made up of Koopa Paratroopas.

Mets fans take swing for David Wright's at-bat songs at Shea [mets.com; hat tip to Jon Solomon]

This new My Chemical Romance clip may be pretty standard, but it does raise two questions. One: Was the whole standing-in-front-of-flames look so cool that it was worth roasting the drummer? (Our answer: Not so much.) And two: Why, oh why, didn't they release "Teenagers" as a single instead of this song, which never fails to make us hit "skip" during our Black Parade listening sessions?

My Chemical Romance - Teenagers [MP3, link expired]
My Chemical Romance - Famous Last Words (New Video) [YouTube]

From today's front page. Tomorrow: The Beverly Hillbillies and Rascal Flatts.

My Chemical Romance celebrated the release of The Black Parade with a show at New York City's Webster Hall last night, and bloggers were there—although not all of them were 100% won over by the not-quite-full show:

- Over on MySpace, the kids are happy and filled with exclamation points. [Cassandra's MySpace blog | Dan's MySpace blog]
- Lesson learned: It's okay for post-adolescents to full-on adore Gerard Way and company. We feel so much better now, really. [the simple mission]
- This entry is more about living the VIP life than the show itself, but we're putting it here because we totally sympathize with its author's quandary. [britnstereo]
- So they're the biggest band in the world right now ... but where was everyone? [Pop Is Dead - College radio that cares!]
- One way to kill a show's mood: Thank a label president. And then a street team. Wait, are we agreeing with the Rolling Stone blog? What? [Rolling Stone Rock Daily]

We were pretty excited when we heard that My Chemical Romance was set to play Saturday Night Live—but alas, their performance on Saturday's show was somewhat lacking. Playing in the audienceless vacuum that is the SNL set didn't help matters, but picking the downtempo "Cancer" as their second song proved to be their downfall—if any band should not go the traditional rocker-then-ballad singles-release route, it's these guys, who derive about 90% of their strength from speeding up, and turning up, the most over-the-top aspects of rock and roll.

SNL - MCR: Cancer [YouTube]
SNL - MCR: Welcome To The Black Parade [YouTube]
Previously: Idolator's Breathless Anticipation Of My Chemical Romance's The Black Parade

We're still digesting the white-powdered pomp that's all over this album, but we do know one thing: It's a shame that the stomping, shaking "Teenagers" wasn't around when we did the T. Rex Cover-Song Showcase Showdown a few weeks back. It would have killed.

My Chemical Romance - Teenagers [MP3, link expired]
Previously: Leak Of The Week Day: My Chemical Romance's "Mama" Issues

My Chemical Romance - Mama [MP3, link expired]

The pictures look like arse, but for those of you wondering what muse played a role in My Chemical Romance's new Sgt. Pepper-patrols-Hot Topic look, we muckrakingly point you in the direction of Def Leppard's 1992 "Let's Get Rocked" video. Too bad MCR didn't also cop that clip's woefully outdated CGI sound-stage and floating violins.

So let's be clear on one thing: For all our suspicions about MCR in the past—that they were too whiney, that they were emotive, that they needed to stop reading weird manga collections and go outside and get some air—we love this song. In fact, when pressed, we'll admit that even though we wrote the band off a few years ago, a lot of the songs on Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge turned out to be amazing. "Parade" may be the best thing they've ever done, and if you want to laugh at that, fine—but we're hoping that this is just the beginning of a whole year of MCR flip-flopping.

That said, their videos are still fucking annoying.

My Chemical Romance - Welcome To The Black Parade (Single Edit) [MP3, link expired]

Pete Wentz, Fall Out Boy (left):

Because Nirvana didn't really come out of nowhere — they came from [the late-'80s indie-rock] scene that was integral to them coming out. The same can be said with Fall Out Boy or Panic! at the Disco. So I think that, if anything, it's even more possible that another band will rise like Nirvana did, especially with the creation of these online communities and the globalization of music.

Ryan Ross, Panic! At The Disco:

I don't think it's impossible that we'll see another Nirvana in our lifetime. [Panic] were doing something different, and we've sort of sparked something in people. And I think a band like [Seattle quartet and Panic's labelmates] Forgive Durden could be the next really big thing.

Sarah "Ultragrrrl" Lewitinn, Stolen Transmission Records:

For me, it was always about their melodies, not their lyrics, and I think there are a lot of bands today that are really aggressive but in a melodic kind of way, and that's why kids relate to them — bands like My Chemical Romance, who I took a lot of heat for when I said they were this generation's Nirvana on my blog.

Could There Be Another Nirvana? [MTV]

Just out of curiosity, we have to wonder why these guys always look so damn solemn. These are crapped-out times, indeed, but come on now, Chem-Ro! The goth-punks love you, the frat-kids are slowly jumping on the bandwagon, and your band name is searched more frequently on MySpace than the word "photos" (seriously). Buy a few Hawaiian shirts, adopt some puggles...lighten up a bit. You're way too young to start acting like this guy.

"My Chemical Romance - Welcome to the Black Parade VMA" [YouTube]

From last night's MCR show in London. Somebody stop the insanity!