10 Bands That Stole Another Band's Sound

My Chemical Romance got a lot of hate thrown at them in their early years based on their looks. Regardless of the musical talent these guys possessed, many people thought they were just prettyboys who threw on some eyeliner and tried to appeal to the emo crowd. Even when people started taking them seriously with the Black Parade, the band still couldn’t shake off the cries of plagiarism.

While the band’s influences in the early days were very much indebted to the heavier side of rock like hardcore and punk, The Black Parade was a sprawling rock epic of mammoth proportions, with orchestral guitar parts and stratospheric vocals. The goth opera idea ended up being just ridiculous enough to actually work, but the band ended up being criticized for just pulling from Queen. The members had no shame in citing Freddie Mercury and co. as an influence, but the crux of the record pulls from all kinds of rock and roll, from metallic gloom to Southern rock to blues to theatrical balladry.

If anything, the band’s costumes of military men owe themselves more to the Beatles in the Sgt. Pepper’s era than to the ones who brought you “Bohemian Rhapsody.” Sure, some of the tunes may have looked similar on the surface, but the Black Parade ended up being a completely different beast whose musical power could even equal some of Freddie Mercury’s finest moments.