Art Inhuman: Dan Schenker Creates A.I.-generated Artwork Inspired By My Chemical Romance Song Titles & Lyrics Coinciding with 2022 Reunion Tour (Plus, Updated Spotify Playlist)
Art Inhuman is a collaborative effort between Artificial Intelligence (A.I.) artist Dan Schenker and writer Matt Horowitz. Dan takes band names, lyrics, and song names and with the help of A.I., manipulates them into what he feels best represents them visually. If you have a suggestion for an upcoming addition to this series, Tweet Matt at @SharpChedder856 and/or Dan at @heydanschenker and Tag the band or artist you'd like us to feature next. This project spawned from Dan's decades-long love of music. Dan had been a fan of the band FOLLY since early high school—for the blend of Punk, Ska, and Hardcore they seamlessly wove, for the energy their music made him feel, and for the almost disproportionately poetic lyrics and topics they covered. So, when Dan thought to input some of his favorite FOLLY lyrics, song titles, and album titles into Midjourney, the results were staggering. He posted them to Facebook, which caught the attention of the band, who were fascinated by the project. After the band asked to re-post Dan's work, he connected with music journalist Matt Horowitz (TheWitzard.com, NOECHO.net, IDIOTEQ.com, and more) and Art Inhuman, their semi-regular project making A.I.-generated art for some of their favorite bands, was born.
Notoriously formed following and heavily influenced by the traigic day that will forever be known as 9/11 on American soil, My Chemical Romance was founded on September 12, 2001 and active until 2013. My Chemical Romance (often, affectionately known as MCR and/or My Chem) boasted a core line-up of mastermind and frontman Gerard Way, his brother and bassist Mikey Way, lead guitarist Ray Toro, and rhythm guitarist Frank Iero. MCR featred a rotating cast of drummers, including Matt Pelissier (2001-04,) Bob Bryar (2004-10,) and Jarrod Alexander (2011-13,) as well as James Dewees from Reggie & The Full Effect and The Get Up Kids providing keyboards, percussion, and backing vocals. My Chem released four full-length albums in-between 2002-10, I Brought You My Bullets, You Brought Me Your Love, Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge, The Black Parade, and Danger Days: The True Lives of The Fabulous Killjoys on Eyeball/Reprise Records.
MCR additionally dropped a series of EP's, live albums, compilation albums, and singles, including a series of five two-song singles released in 20012-13 later re-collected as Conventional Weapons. My Chem got together for a reunion tour first announced in 2019, but because of COVID-19 restictions and limitations, didn't properly kick off until earlier this year. MCR's still-ongoing triumphant comeback tour features drummer Jarrod Alexander (American Nightmare, The Hope Conspiracy, Lisa Loeb,) as well as openers Badflower, Devil Master, Dilly Dally, Ghösh, Kimya Dawson, Meg Myers, Midtown, NOTHING, Shannon & The Clams, SOUL GLO, Surtbort, Taking Back Sunday, The Bouncing Souls, The Homeless Gospel Choir, The Lemon Twigs, Thursday, TURNSTILE, Waterparks, and Youth Code. To paraphrase their own "Welcome to The Black Parade," My Chemical Romance are without a doubt "the savior of the broken, the beaten, and the damned" and, we can fully attest, it shows through the multitude of generations and subsects of society in attendance at their recent run of shows.
