The Black Parade by My Chemical Romance

The Black Parade, My Chemical Romance's third album, came out on Reprise on October 23, 2006, and it's a full-blown rock opera about death, told through a man called "The Patient" as terminal cancer carries him toward the end. Gerard Way wanted a concept record to follow Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge, and the band made it with Rob Cavallo, recording from April to August 2006 while holed up in the Paramour Mansion. The isolation took its toll, especially on bassist Mikey Way, and those struggles bled into some of the songs.

It sounds like a marching band crashing a punk show at the opera house: Gerard Way's voice bellowing and cracking, Ray Toro and Frank Iero's guitars blazing with glam flash, Mikey Way and Bob Bryar driving the procession. "Welcome to the Black Parade" marches like a funeral procession that turned into a stadium anthem, "Famous Last Words" roars, "Teenagers" struts with a sneer, and "I Don't Love You" is a heartsick power ballad.

It debuted at number two in both the US and the UK, went four times platinum in the US, Canada and the UK, and "Welcome to the Black Parade" became the band's first UK number one. The Black Parade World Tour ran from February 2007 to May 2008. It has since come to be seen as the defining record of emo and of the band itself, with a reach into fashion, film soundtracks and alternative culture, and Rolling Stone ranked it at 361 on its 2020 list of the 500 greatest albums.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.