One of the most contentious threads I can remember on ILX was over a blogpost by Ultragrrrl claiming that My Chemical Romance were “this generation’s Nirvana”. OK, the thread was contentious more because Ultragrrrl herself was a divisive figure than because of what she was saying, but it resonated with me. In MCR — and Fall Out Boy, Taking Back Sunday, and the raging rest of “mall-emo” — you had a kind of music which was angry, teen-approved, popular, guitar-driven… and a lot of major critical voices basically refused to take it seriously. For instance, there was plenty of expectation and enthusiasm for Fall Out Boy’s Folie A Deux among some Pitchfork writers, but the site didn’t cover it, and wasn’t alone. The sites and magazines that DID go for this music — like Britain’s Kerrang! — tended to do rather well out of it. But for more credible sources, the stuff seemed to be kryptonite. Why?
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