Length 39:36 Artist My Chemical Romance Producer Howard Benson | Label Reprise Release date 8 June 2004 | |
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Released June 8, 2004 (2004-06-08) Recorded October 2003 – January 2004 Studio Bay 7 Studios, Valley Village / Sparky Dark Studio, Calabasas, California Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge
(2004) Warped Tour Bootleg Series
(2005) Genres Emo, Rock music, Punk rock, Alternative rock, Pop punk, Post-hardcore, Indie rock Awards Kerrang! Award for Best Album Similar My Chemical Romance albums, Emo albums | ||
Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge is the second studio album by American rock band My Chemical Romance, released on June 8, 2004. It is My Chemical Romance's first release through Reprise. Their first and previous album, I Brought You My Bullets, You Brought Me Your Love, was released through Eyeball Records. It is the band's final release to feature drummer Matt Pelissier, who would later be replaced by Bob Bryar. The album was certified platinum in less than a year from its release. The album has sold over one million copies in the United States.
Contents
In Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge, My Chemical Romance produced a cleaner sound than that of what they produced in I Brought You My Bullets, You Brought Me Your Love. The album was a success for both the band and the label, although it did meet with mixed reception. The album lifted the popularity for My Chemical Romance more than I Brought You My Bullets, You Brought Me Your Love had. Gerard Way has described the album as a "pseudo-conceptual horror story". The album's concept is described as "A story of a man, a woman, and the corpses of 1000 evil men" on the back cover of the album. Way has stated that "The concept for the record Three Cheers For Sweet Revenge, was the story of a man and a woman who are separated by death in a gunfight and he goes to hell only to realize by the devil telling him that she’s still alive. The devil says he can be with her again if he brings the devil the souls of a thousand evil men and the man agrees to do it, and so the devil hands him a gun. That was the idea behind the concept, the record ended up being much more about loss and real life than anything, so I would say it’s a good split."
The four released singles from the record included "I'm Not Okay (I Promise)", "Helena", "The Ghost of You", and in the United Kingdom, "Thank You for the Venom". The non-single tracks on the album have been praised as some of the album's "bests" as well, such as "Hang 'Em High" and "The Jetset Life is Gonna Kill You".
Gerard Way, the lead singer of the band, drew the album's cover artwork himself.
Music
While I Brought You My Bullets, You Brought Me Your Love was considered "a particularly strident entry in that shifty genre of bands tortuously slamming together elements of emo, hardcore, and even metal", Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge "both showcased their songwriting skills and gave them much-deserved attention". Moving away from the "screamo parts" and "the more complicated structures" of their first record in favor of a sound that "skirts the line between pop punk and edgy, theatrical, emo" while being "strongly influenced by hardcore punk". Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge has been variously compared to The Misfits, AFI, and Thursday.
Lead singer Gerard Way has referred to the first single "I'm Not Okay (I Promise)" as a "self help pop song" while also being called "a surging piece of emo-pop with a hook as ridiculously catchy as it was ridiculous" and a "moving anthem for the young and depressed" by Allmusic and Rolling Stone respectively. This single went on to be nominated for the Kerrang! award for best single and reached #86 on the US Billboard Hot 100.
Album opener "Helena" has been referred to as an "album highlight and smash hit". Gerard has claimed that the song "shaped what the album is about" and "revealed their darkside" in comparison to the first single. Its lyrics mourn the loss of Gerard and Mikey's grandmother, Elena Lee Rush, and was their first entry into the top 40.
Reception
Johnny Loftus of AllMusic wrote that "with the aid of production major-leaguer Howard Benson, they've edited the slight rookie excesses of I Brought You My Bullets You Brought Me Your Love, resulting in a rewarding, pretty damn relentless product." Andy Greenwald of Blender noted Way's integration of elements of his life into the songs on the album and remarked that his "gulping, gasping whine turns stompers like 'I’m Not Okay (I Promise)' into after-school poetry". Ian Mathers of Stylus Magazine felt that the album contained "twelve near-flawless songs and an interlude in thirty-nine minutes" and that "even when it lets up, [it] doesn’t let up", while Kirk Miller of Rolling Stone described it as "a hell of a good time." IGN critic JR was more reserved in his praise, calling Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge "a good album" that nonetheless "isn't nearly as varied or daring as it could have been". In The Village Voice, Robert Christgau gave it a "dud" rating.
Legacy
NME listed the album as one of "20 Emo Albums That Have Resolutely Stood The Test Of Time". The album was ranked at number 260 on Spin's "The 300 Best Albums of the Past 30 Years (1985–2014)" list. Rock Sound wrote that the album is "an era-defining release", striking " a nerve both musically and emotionally with millions around the world."
In 2016 Rolling Stone declared Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge the tenth greatest Emo Album out of 40, saying that "Three Cheers wasn't just a concept record, it was a concept sequel, expanding the small-screen story of 2002's I Brought You My Bullets, You Brought Me Your Love into a big-budget production, complete with ruminations on life and death ("Helena") biting kiss-offs ("I'm Not Okay") and a series of dramatic music videos that made them MTV darlings."
Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge has sold over one million copies to date in the United States and has been certified platinum by the RIAA. By February 2006, the album had sold over 1,356,000 copies in the U.S. It has also been certified Double Platinum in Canada, Platinum in the UK and Gold in Ireland, Chile and Argentina.
Track listing
All tracks written by My Chemical Romance.
Personnel
Production
Songs
1Helena3:23
2Give 'Em Hell - Kid2:19
3To the End3:01