#also sorry for it being so goddamn wordy i'm just very long-winded

[mothpawbs]

here's the rough draft of the mcr vs lord huron compare/contrast essay i'm doing for a college class bc i can't be stopped

it's under the read more, also i'm tagging the people who said in the tags of my last post about this that they'd like to read it, thanks for encouraging my chaos. enjoy :)

               There are many bands and musicians in the world. Because of this, there is bound to be some overlap and similarities between artists eventually. But while this is usually confined to artists of similar genres, occasionally there will be two bands from completely different scenes who are remarkably similar. My Chemical Romance and Lord Huron are two such bands. Quite popular within their own circles, but scarcely heard of beyond pop culture references outside of their fanbases, both have somehow filled the same oddly specific musical and cultural niche while never once interacting.

               One similarity they share is their origins, specifically of their respective founders. My Chemical Romance was founded in 2001 by New Jersey native Gerard Way, and Lord Huron was founded nine years later in 2010 by the Michigan-born Ben Schneider. Both dabbled in music from a young age, and eventually moved on to be educated as visual artists, something both would use later in the creation of album art and supplemental media for their music. Eventually, both ended up following their dreams of creating bands, with Way creating My Chemical Romance in response to witnessing the 9/11 attacks and Schneider forming Lord Huron simply because it was something he felt he needed to do.

A major difference between the two is their genre of choice. My Chemical Romance is a star of the alternative rock scene, with their heavy instrumentals and dramatic vocals, and has a sound and aesthetic inspired by the works of bands such as Queen, Misfits, Black Flags, The Smiths, and Ramones (La Bella, 2008). Lord Huron brightly contrasts that, with their classic indie folk twang and layered acoustics influenced by the likes of Bob Dylan, Leonard Cohen, and Kate Bush (Orlando, 2022). The closest they ever come in music style is Lord Huron’s third studio album Vide Noir, a vivid departure from their previous folk sound for a heavier, distinctively eerie and distorted garage rock vibe.

Likely the most striking similarity for their fans, both bands are well-known for their extensively narrative-driven concept albums, something which by itself could warrant its own essay. Both bands use their music to tell stories, with each having a surface-level meaning along with a deeper purpose within the overarching plot of an album, as opaque and those plots can sometimes be. My Chemical Romance tells fairly explicit tales, with the doomed murderous duo in I Brought You My Bullets, You Brought Me Your Love, the revenge-fueled mission to save a lost lover (likely the same from Bullets) in Three Cheers For Sweet Revenge, a cancer patient’s life, death, and subsequent trip to Hell in The Black Parade, and the Killjoys’ resistance against Better Living Industries in Danger Days: The True Lives Of The Fabulous Killjoys. Lord Huron, while having equally rich narratives, are much more vague with their storytelling. Lonesome Dreams tells of a man wandering the world alone, Strange Trails starts with a fast-paced and jaunty gang tale before diving into supernatural themes bordering on cryptid horror, Vide Noir is a bleak and psychotic search for a lost love influenced by drugs and cosmic horrors, and Long Lost seems to be the songs of radio ghosts who maybe don’t quite realize they’re ghosts. Both artists also have companion material for at least one album each, with the story of Danger Days continued through Way’s comic series Killjoys, and Lord Huron recently revealing the full story of Vide Noir with a feature-length film by the same name. Fans of both artists revel in analyzing every video, lyric, and promo piece for details on these stories, and it is the double meanings in their songs that keep many fans coming back for more.

Speaking of these double meanings, another major similarity the bands show is the themes often used in their songs. While their approaches may differ, both bands have one overarching theme that permeates most of their songs: death. My Chemical Romance approaches death from several angles: as a terrifying thing to fight against, and as something to ultimately be embraced. The best example of this is the narrative of The Black Parade, with almost the entire album beingdedicated to the experience and processing of death by the main character, known as the Patient. This is most apparent in the songs The End, Dead!, Cancer, and Famous Last Words. Lord Huron approaches this topic in a similar fashion, with death, as well as one’s memory fading and disappearing, cast as a somber inevitability. This is something the POV of a song is either avoiding (The Man Who Lives Forever, The Yawning Grave, Ancient Names (Parts I and II), and Not Dead Yet) or actively accepting and/or anticipating (The Ghost On The Shore, The Birds Are Singing At Night, Until The Night Turns, Way Out There, Wait By The River, and What Do It Mean). Schneider also adds a third angle, the horror of dying and coming back. This is explored most in the albums Strange Trails and Vide Noir, with songs like The World Ender, Meet Me In The Woods, The Balancer’s Eye, and Back From The Edge detailing what might happen if one dies and returns, for reasons of revenge, rejection by the powers that be, or maybe no reason at all. Another facet of death that both bands explore is death or disappearance of a loved one, with songs like My Chemical Romance’s Helena, The Ghost Of You, and Welcome To The Black Parade, and Lord Huron’s In The Wind, The Night We Met, and Drops In The Lake. In total, both bands have the topic of death covered on almost all fronts possible.

Despite the differences in their genres, influences, presences, and even statuses (with Lord Huron currently still a band and My Chemical Romance only becoming active again recently after an almost ten-year breakup), these two groups share a truly remarkable number of similarities in both their origins and approaches to writing songs and albums. Both explore similar topics, albeit in different ways, and use their chosen medium to process similar themes and bring their stories to audiences that can resonate with them. There is a non-negligible overlap of people who would consider themselves fans of both bands, which, though surprising at first, becomes less shocking when these similarities are weighed against their differences.

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