As a kid who grew up predominantly in the ‘90s, the early ‘00s were the time when you started experimenting with who you could be and how you could be it. Jack Johnson soundtracked my could-be-a-surfer period, John Mayer made me think I could play guitar, Missy Elliott taught me hip-hop and Death Cab For Cutie made me embrace my alternative side.
Thankfully, none of these stuck but there was a phase that nearly every kid born in the early ‘80s and early ‘90s can relate to - the emo stage. A generation of musicians who slapped on mascara, wore black and sung with feels pouring out of them, provided a voice for pubescent teens. As a 14 year-old boy, that period was the middle finger to the rest of the world that every angsty teen needs at some point. It was a combustion of over-emotional thoughts that were harnessed pop-punk rockers everywhere who usually carried over-exaggerated American voices and held mic stands like they were gripping the edge of a cliff.
As silly as it may sound looking back on it now, in many ways, that period was when I loved music the most. It’s possible that my testosterone level are too stable now to react to music in the same way but there’s a nostalgia that’s stronger than most memories I carry from being a teen that returns me to one record from that period over and over again - My Chemical Romance’s 2006 opus The Black Parade.
Beginning an album with a song called The End is one of the most dramatic starts to a record in recent memory but that’s the very essence of why The Black Parade excelled. It left no emotional stone unturned. Within the first 40 seconds we’re already introduced to swelling, anthemic guitars that at the time provided a darker alternative to the euphoric stadium-ready rock that older bands like U2 were manufacturing.
“If you look in the mirror and don’t like what you see you can find out first hand what it’s like to be me,” frontman Gerard Way sings in The End, simultaneously and immediately connecting with a generation of delinquent youths.
If Kanye’s Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy was about finding heaven, this was a beautiful dark twisted fantasy of the opposite type. This is a record that finds euphoria in the monotony and misery of everyday life. It says everything around us is crumbling but, fuck it, we’re going to celebrate anyway. It sounds miserable but in many ways it’s what nearly every pop song does today. Throw down a drink, put your hands up in the air, live your life like tonight’s your last. These are all sentiments that acknowledge life’s far from perfect while focussing on the euphoric present.
The difference with The Black Parade is it created that same sense of delusional joy by focussing more on what’s crumbling around us. Listening to the title track now is still a goosebump-worthy experience. Those lone keys ricochet around my head at the beginning, the howling guitars, the punk tempo change at the end - these are all things that still stir 10 years later.
For a record so desolate and angry, there was a sense of community in the whole thing which made plenty of black skinny jean wearing teens that they were included in some way, part of the black parade. Way sings about “we” throught the whole title track. He’s singing about “a world that sends you reeling from decimated dreams,” and yet his parting words are “we’ll carry on”. It’s the same thing that Twenty One Pilots are doing now for a whole new generation of young emos, not that they use that term anymore. Stressed Out is full of “we”. “We’re stressed out,” they sing, giving this non-tangible community to kids sitting at home listening by themselves.
The Black Parade came two years after American Idiot and both records were similar in terms of their grandiose punk aesthetics. Where they differ though is American Idiot directed its anger at the government while MCR directed their anger at the world in general. As a 14 year old, you don’t want to be angry at the government. You don’t know why you’re angry. You just are and there’s nothing better than blaming an unspecified entity.
The record isn’t as simple as that for the band. At its core it has ambitious ideas about death and how when you die the reaper comes in the form of your most vivid. Most teenagers don’t have the attention span to read into it that far. We just wanted lines like “darken your clothes and strike a violent pose” (Teenagers) howled over crunching guitars and rollicking drums. We wanted ambitious rhetorical questions like “you wanna see how far down I can sink?” (This Is How I Disappear).
It may sound like I’m simplifying the record but that’s only because I’m looking at it through the eyes of a 14 year-old. Listen to the album now, the genius of it really reveals itself. MCR took the emo-punk aesthetic and made it bigger than any of the other bands in that sphere (Fall Out Boy, The Used). It’s grittier, more grandiose and far more ambitious than any records by those other bands. Way was a frontman who genuinely bled everything he was saying and while nearly every statement is hyperbolic, he committed one hundred percent.
From the sarcasm of Dead to the desolation of Cancer, The Black Parade is a rollercoaster of emotion that always returns to that concept of “we”. These are choruses that were intended to be screamed by the masses. I Don’t Love You, Teenagers and Famous Last Words are all examples of phenomenal pop writing that soar and manage to create a sense of euphoria in the most miserable of places.
That was really what The Black Parade was about for me 10 years ago. It was about finding a community that told you it was ok to be a bit different, challenge authority and yell your feelings. I’m unlikely to pull those same things from listening to it today but that’s what I loved so much about it back then. It provided an outlet to harness anger and redistribute it as individuality.
It also helps that it’s a masterpiece that sounds just as good now as it did then. Even out of a pubescent state.
The 10th Anniversary Edition of The Black Parade is out 23rd September. It includes 11 unreleased demos. Peep the deets here.
