Podcast week! Kicking off with a deep dive into My Chemical Romance...

As I've been searching for a new job over the last couple of weeks, I've managed to catch up with all my regular podcast subscriptions, so I started hunting for new shows to listen to while I was at the gym.* Most of them have been self-contained runs I can just binge, or one-off episodes about subjects that intrigue me. So I figured this week would be a fine time to share a few of these lesser-known treasures to help enhance your listening pleasure (and possible education).

The first podcast I'd like to highlight is the My Chemical Romance-focused My Chemical Fancast, because it is a fantastic undiscovered gem.

First, a little background about my own relationship with My Chemical Romance. I've loved the band for years and years, but my relationship with them has been strictly musical. Even though they rose to prominence during my days as an editor at Chicagoist, I never really wrote about them. I just bought their albums and enjoyed the music. In retrospect it seems odd, since I would usually instinctively do a deep dives into a band whose work I bought religiously, but their background was a blind spot to me. I'd play "Teenagers" when DJing at 4 a.m. / 5 a.m. bars and had no idea it was even a single from the band, much less a hit. And I had no idea Gerard Way had pursuits outside the band until The Umbrella Academy premiered on Netflix and I read the press around it. That is just how intellectually incurious I was about the band outside their actual musical output.

Again, I don't know why this was. Maybe since I just assumed they were part of the emo revival of the aughts, and I avoided most writing about that scene since it was mostly either blindly fawning or fiercely combative and trolling, and therefore missed learning of the band's background.**

So a few weeks ago I decided to see if there were any podcasts out there that might fill in my lack of knowledge and holy moly did I hit the motherlode with My Chemical Fancast. It's hosted by friends Kat and Hallie, who have both been massive fans of the band since their teenage years (and earlier?). They go through the band's entire catalog, song by song, including a wealth of background knowledge and detail that could only be supplied by folks with a deep passion for MCR's music.

But this ain't just a podcast with fans fawning, no! They both appear to have a solid musical background so while they discuss the stories behind the music, they're also adept at picking the actual music apart, focusing your attention on the tiniest of details that really helps the band's catalog blossom with new possibilities.

And the duo is so entertaining and easy to listen to: I blew through the first 25 episodes in less than a week (which means I spent over a full day with their critical evaluations in my head) and never got bored.

My Chemical Fancast has covered all the band's original catalog, and they are currently dissecting the Conventional Weapons releases that were recorded before but released after Danger Days (right, I think? I'm still learning!), so you can binge the whole thing or dole it out as you see fit. However, if you enjoy MCR at all, this is a great way to appreciate just how deep their history and musical acumen runs.

Here's the first episode, but I really recommend just using the app of your choice to subscribe to the whole thing. And, oh yeah, I went through all the old episodes at 2X speed and it sounded just fine, just in case you're the type that likes to pack as much content into as short a period of time as possible.




*Podcasts long ago replaced music as my listening content of choice while working out. I'm not sure why, but it might have something to do with my cognizance of song length and constantly using that to track the time I'm running or doing aerobic work, while spoken podcasts allow me to get more lost in the zone. I dunno, works for me!

**Aside from the knowledge that an acquaintance of mine went to high school with Way and was MCR's first manager.