My Chemical Romance - The Black Parade

The Black Parade is an attempt at a grandiose, operatic concept album; an emo epic. Or is it?

The problem with emo is that everyone claims to hate it but no one seems to know what it actually is. Everyone can identify an "emo kid" by his dopey haircut and the extreme angle of his myspace photo, but the only characteristic of the subgenre they can think of is a predilection for suicidal lyrics. These ad hominem attacks rarely identify specific bands, instead relying on generic joke ones like Rip My Heart To Shreds or something. One of the more commonly cited actual bands is My Chemical Romance, although their singer Gerard Way himself declares that his band is not emo, and he hates the music himself. This begs the question: what are these bands creating all this music that everybody hates? In the end, it doesn't matter what you want to label the makers of The Black Parade. It is entertaining in parts and a little boring in others. There's a lot of simple chord progression. There are some ventures into older styles of rock, including noticeable influence from Queen. There's a story in there somewhere about someone dying of cancer and what he leaves behind. Most of the more interesting parts are a little over-the-top and perhaps beyond the honest reach of the band's abilities. But if you can stomach the eccentricities, it's not a bad modern rock album.

The first track is "The End." It mixes soft strumming with loud parts as Way sings or shrieks as appropriate. "Dead!" is a more normal song in line with what they've done before, although you see some of that influence from recent decades past. "The Sharpest Lives" has a sharp, repetitive baseline that adds a bit of a metal feel while Way growls a bit to fit the mood. Just a bit. "Welcome to the Black Parade" is pretty outlandish, a typical pop-punk song wrapped inside a minimalistic piano ballad. "I Don't Love You" delves more into their strength at writing simple but effective songs in their genre. "Cancer" is a softer song that hits you over the head a bit before "Mama", another song that's perhaps artificially odd, with a calculated strangeness and a guest appearance by Liza Minnelli. "Teenagers" is the purest retro track, and kind of doesn't fit in. "Famous Last Words" has one last sweeping chorus before the hidden track "Blood", which is, again, a bit silly. If you think you won't like this, you won't. But there are some fun songs.