Auditory Abominations: "Mama" - My Chemical Romance

Most of the songs I talk about on Auditory Abominations are singles, the songs that were released on their own to promote the album and to showcase the best it has to offer. I do this because those are often the songs that people recognize more and are more likely to acknowledge are good or bad. Barring that they should be recognized by both fans and casual listeners alike or at the very least have some kind of music video. This is quite possibly the only time I'm breaking that rule, because this song was not a single, and I am not really sure is anybody outside of the Chemical Romantics, which I will use as a collective term for MCR fans, really knows or even likes this song.

So this may be a stretch, but as I said, you have to be able to recognize failure just as much as you should recognize success. I actually think it's a good idea to recognize failure more than success because it not only gives us a better understanding of what we don't like to listen to, it also helps us analyze other songs to figure out the kind of songs we like. Aside from whatever is on the Pop Charts, there are plenty of songs I don't like that other people do and the same in reverse. I am not a big fan of groups like The Rolling Stones and Rod Stewart, but at the same time I also like groups like Black Veil Brides and Nickelback, so I can't really say my taste in music is really better than anybody else's.

But why this song in particular? Well, barring the fact that I am not as well versed in My Chemical Romance songs, I also picked something up about this song when I first heard it, and anybody who has read my album review of The Black Parade would definitely know why.

The song starts with a familiar guitar riff. How familiar? Gogol Bordello familiar, because this riff sounds almost exactly the same as "Start Wearing Purple", which was originally recorded in 1999. This album came out in 2006, and honestly this is a gripe I have with plenty of songs. Not when they borrow stuff from other songs, because let's face it we got a lot of good remixes and covers from just that, but when I feel as though it could have been done at least a bit less transparently, because if I noticed this, how can somebody else not?

A problem I also have with the band in particular is that I am not a huge fan of Gerard Way's voice when he uses it in softer songs. There is a list of vocalists who can not pull off softer tempo songs and topping that list is Chad Kroeger, but Gerard Way is on that list. The opening verses to me sound like typical slow emo rock, which irritates me because I know the band can do much better with this kind of tempo, I mean listen to "Welcome to the Black Parade" and tell me it doesn't sound better than this.

Also, is it me or does Gerard kind of sound like what would happen if Alice Cooper got his DNA mixed with Squidward? Just a minor complaint, but it really does bother me a bit.

You know the "4-chord pop song"? I'm fairly certain that this is using that kind of song structure, because for the life of me I can't count past four before the chords repeat themselves. Actually I take that back, I can't count past two before the chords repeat themselves.

Thankfully the chorus isn't too bad, in fact it is kind of a saving grace. I'd say this song almost borders on the edge of being an Auditory Abomination. It really is not a good song in my opinion, but there are some good elements in it, and the chorus' instrumentals are definitely one of them.

The lyrics are kind of both, I never was a big fan of these really hopeless kind of songs, with some exceptions they never really gave me the idea of why the singer sounds so hopeless, I mean with lyrics like "Mama, we all go to Hell" I have a good idea of what should sound hopeless, but I kind of feel like it's just being negative just because, which I could totally understand if it wasn't, but with these lyrics I really feel like there is heart behind them, but no real substance.

Really I think this song may have been one of the weaker songs on the album and is honestly my least favourite My Chemical Romance song, because it has all of these components and it still has very little flavour to it. It has similar chords to "Start Wearing Purple", a nostril as a singer and no real flavour to it, and I think I dislike flavourless songs more than anything.

I don't hate My Chemical Romance, but I'm not a huge fan either, they just don't appeal to me as much as a band like Vampire Weekend does. That doesn't however mean that I can't like or dislike any of there songs, there are My Chemical Romance songs I do enjoy. This was however, just an odd little distraction from the rest of the album.

I'm the Entity of Darkness, and my friends, start wearing purple.