[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kDWgsQhbaqU]
Welcome to the second part of the My Chemical Retrospective. Today, we’re looking at what is probably the band’s most well known album, The Black Parade. And for good reason. It’s awesome!
I think I lied and said I didn’t like this album as much as I did, or I just ended up liking it more as I got older. Either way, this album sort of solidifies what My Chemical Romance is. They’re theatrical and a little weird, but awe-inspiring all the same.
If you’re not aware, The Black Parade is centered around a protagonist called The Patient as he looks back on his life after dying from cancer. The album literally starts at the end with a wonderful little Bowie ripoff called ‘The End.’ I laughed my ass off when I heard ‘Five Years’ for the first time like a year later and noticed how much the band aped from it.
![Such a simple cover for such a complex album. [pamhoran.deviantart.com]](http://nerdophiles.files.wordpress.com/2014/03/55432d60d7466c2be0d928cb70b02389-d6zkcrz.jpg?w=470)
I’m still forever sad I never got to see them perform as The Black Parade. I heard the early version of ‘Disenchanted’ when they did the final tour for Three Cheers, but it ended up being a very different song in the end.
Speaking of ‘Disenchanted,’ I think this album addresses the issue I had in my Three Cheers retrospective. I feel like I understand this album better now than when I was 16. I understand what Gerard is talking about on ‘Disenchanted’ about losing your heroes and feeling like you’re growing apart from your previous self. I couldn’t listen to ‘Cancer’ for nearly two years because it brought back too many painful memories of my great-grandmother and grandfather dying from the disease.
I always got ‘Teenagers’ though. Holy Hell.
![The album art from inside still blows me away. [creepmachine.com]](http://nerdophiles.files.wordpress.com/2014/03/mcr-parade17x41_jamesjean.jpg?w=470)
Unrelated, but how have I been in the Steampunk/Retrofuturism scene for nearly four years and never seen any of my friends swing dance to ‘House of Wolves’? THAT SONG IS MADE FOR SWINGING AND CARTOON WOLVES IN HELL. YOU DISAPPOINT ME, STEAMPUNKS.
At least I have Voltaire and Hellblinki singing ‘Blood.’ That song is cabaret as hell and I can’t wait to see the unreleased video when May Death Never Stop You comes out.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8bbTtPL1jRs]