But I have never experienced anything like the last fortnight.
I've liked songs and played them over and over. I've had songs stuck in my head for days at a time. But I've never had THIS. For the last fortnight I've woken up with an MCR (My Chemical Romance) song stuck in my head - a different track every day and sometimes it'll change to another song after a few hours - blasting full volume!
Admittedly I love it but even "Helena" will drive you BSC (Bat-Shit Crazy) when it's on loop in your head for 5+ hours. This last week I'm supposed to have been studying A297 (Reading Classical Latin) for my OU (Open University) studies. I tell you, I've spent way more time studying MCR instead...
I bought the 2007 single "Teenagers", I'd seen several other videos but I somehow never got into MCR back then. My daughters came across them quite recently and, on September 20th my youngest got me to watch the video for "I'm Not Okay (I Promise)" on YouTube...and it was that simple. Addicted. My name is Heggie and I have an MCR addiction.
MCR get described as an Emo band a lot, which they dislike cos (a) who wants to be labelled as anything and (b) Emo has some nasty-ass negative connotations but this has been a crazy emotional fortnight for me. I've been reading up on 11 years of the band's history, their highs and lows and it's been pretty intense. For example, I found a story from 2008 where a British coroner blamed a 13 year old girl's suicide on her "obsession" with MCR, calling it a suicide cult band. For a seriously screwy story from four years ago I am flippin' furious!
- No one commits suicide because of music...unless they're really, really dumb.
- The CDs all come with parental advisory stickers; it may not be easy to control what your kids listen to but if I were worried I'd confiscate it all!
- Did the coroner know anything about MCR? If he only looked at the lyrics he'd get a pretty warped idea of what it was about (e.g. "Dead!" has the lines: Wouldn't it be great to take a pistol by the hand / and wouldn't it be great if we were dead. The song itself however is IRONIC, it's UPBEAT and it is FUNNY. I want it played at my funeral!)
I think it's especially nasty as lead singer Gerard Way has had some pretty bad problems with depression and addiction, he credits MCR with saving his life and he wants to help kids...and it would be daft to encourage your fans to kill themselves - not a good way to sell records or concert tickets!!!
Then there's all the Danger Days crap. Danger Days: The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys (2010) is MCR's 4th studio album and, until Conventional Weapons comes out any day now, their most recent. Unfortunately a lot of fans have a problem with it for sounding too different and too 'poppy' which I think is just nuts! I mean NKOTB have been around since 1984* and if you're still making the same songs nearly 30 years later what's the point? What have you achieved, how have you developed? People don't (generally) stay the same all their lives; they grow and change and mature. Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge (2004) is where they were then as twenty-somethings; Danger Days is where they are as thirty-somethings, all married and two have kids. You'd think the fans would grow up and change too.
* - Final line-up 1985; 1st single and album 1986
But mostly it's a lot of fun. I am so glad I recently got unlimited Broadband or this would be costing me a fortune...not that it isn't, buying an established band's entire back catalogue takes a while when you're on a tight budget even if HMV (His Master's Voice...but no one's called it that in a gazillion years) had anything in stock (grrrrr!).
