My Chemical Romance

Essential Albums

  • The Black Parade
    The Black Parade
    The Black Parade

    The concept behind My Chemical Romance’s third album is simple: A young man on the edge of death passes into the afterlife. They’d done drama before—2004’s Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge, “Helena” especially—but this time they wanted to go big. The Wall big, Queen-in-the-’70s big, Smashing Pumpkins’ Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness big: soundtracks teenagers could pin their hearts on. It’s a tricky proposition: How do you dramatise something so grave without sounding slightly ridiculous? But the New Jersey punk outfit’s sense of humour and presentation serves them well here. Yes, they sing about being “soggy from the chemo” (“Cancer”) and how they deserve to be kicked like stray dogs (“House of Wolves”). But they also say that hell is mostly fine except for the smell (“Mama”) and bring in a horn section to jazz things up (“Dead!”). That death arrives in the form of a parade makes sense: It’s all a show, and they intend on hamming it up as much as makeup and wardrobe will allow (“Welcome to the Black Parade”). The album marked a moment of reconciliation between the scrappy, subcultural side of pop-punk and classic rock’s scale and ambition—a process that had started a couple of years earlier with Green Day’s American Idiot. But it also captured a lingering mood post-911, as a generation of young listeners tried to find humour in what felt like an increasingly doomed world, while still acknowledging the terror of it all. The band had an interest in the world of horror movies and comic books, where sweeping romantic tales are often told by self-consciously nerdy people playing out heroic fantasies through art. With The Black Parade, they tap-dance on the deck of the Titanic—and for all the talk about death, they play like a band squeezing each note for any bit of life it has to give.

  • Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge
    Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge
    Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge

    On their mainstream breakthrough, My Chemical Romance flash impressive hardcore, metal and goth-punk bona fides. Gnarly, thrashing riffs announce "Thank You for the Venom", while the mosh-fomenting "Give 'Em Hell, Kid" and "To the End" boast charred guitars and Gerard Way’s vocal desperation. Yet Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge shows an obsession with duality—lyrics contrast life and death, pleasure and pain, darkness and light. This adds thematic depth and gives mellower moments (like the Cure-esque grayscale moodiness in "The Ghost of You") room to flourish.

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About My Chemical Romance

In the 2000s, My Chemical Romance became leaders of emo's third wave by combining goth-leaning rock 'n' roll with dark, comic-book-inspired storytelling. Formed by vocalist Gerard Way in the wake of the September 11 terrorist attacks—his song "Skylines and Turnstiles" is a direct response to the tragedy—the Newark, New Jersey band cut their teeth locally, building a loyal online fanbase with their first album, 2002’s I Brought You My Bullets, You Brought Me Your Love. The group—which also includes guitarists Ray Toro and Frank Iero, and Way's brother Mikey on bass—charged their way into the mainstream with the singles “I’m Not Okay (I Promise)” and “Helena” from their 2004 major-label debut, Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge. It was 2006’s multiplatinum-certified The Black Parade, a rock opera indebted to Queen and David Bowie, that cemented the quintet as ambitious conceptual artists. On the subsequent world tour, the band wore black marching-band uniforms and used dramatic stage flourishes—for example, the shows began with Gerard Way rolled on to the stage in a hospital bed—for theatrical effect. Danger Days: The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys followed in 2010 with a dystopian plotline and nods to Britpop, New Wave and stomping glam. MCR split in 2013, but their celebrated 2019 reunion confirmed what longtime fans already suspected: their music continues to resonate with younger generations.

ORIGIN
Newark, NJ, United States
FORMED
12 September 2001
GENRE
Alternative

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