The Black Parade, Joe

Dwyer: New Coldplay!
Joe: Listened to it this morning. It was fine. Probably not good enough to download. But good though!
Dwyer: I was actually trolling lol. Thought you hated them.
—text exchange, 11/22/19

I don't want to be that guy anymore. I know that I haven't been that guy for a few years now, but the reputation lingers. I used to be the guy who would hate music without giving it a chance. Rejecting something is easy; opening your heart and trying to understand something is hard.

A mid-'00s emo rock opera was a pretty easy target for a past cynical self. A bunch of black-painted-fingernailed kids playing Roger Waters dress-up (seriously, the references and homages to The Wall are frequent and explicit) seemed preposterous to me.

But the key thing to remember is that "emo" is short for "emotional," and I usually am drawn to the music with heart on sleeve. The Black Parade is that. Everything is big and bold and in your face. I like that kind of music. It was so stupid to hate something that was so up my alley.

Also, I tend to be drawn to albums that really "go for it," usually meaning that it is ambitious and stretches boundaries for the band. I'm not even saying that the ambition has to necessarily be successful; just the attempt is good enough to earn kudos from me. The Black Parade is that too. Like most rock operas, it doesn't make complete sense, but MCR is really fucking going for it here. Gerard Way doesn't want to just be the love interest in the best Harry Potter fan-fiction of all time. He wants to create ART. An emo rock opera about death is fucking ART.

I mean, yeah, like I said, it definitely follows the ancient rock opera tradition of telling a muddled and somewhat nonsensical story. The protagonist is dying, I guess? The grim reaper comes to him in the form of a parade? And he is flashing back to some memories from childhood? Sure, good enough for me. Like the Beatles, Floyd, and Bowie, there's even an alter ego. My Chemical Romance becomes the Black Parade in concert, and, I dunno, play around Gerard Way as he lays in a coffin...? Let's not get too deep into the weeds here. It's just a silly, fun thing, and that shit appeals to me.

The songs, like the album's themes, are all over the place. Most of it is guitar-mashing theatrical emo at its finest. Honestly, this is the most fun I've ever had with goths in my life. There are some stinkers, sure. E.g. "Teenagers," which I had completely forgotten about until this week. I think my brain had deleted it in a PSTD sort of way. I hated it in 2006 on the radio, and I still fucking hate it now.

But it evens out with the almost title track, "Welcome to the Black Parade," which I've always loved, but I think after the many spins it got this week, I'm convinced that it might be one of the best songs of all time. Seriously.

The rest of the songs are not as good as "Welcome to the Black Parade," but they are at least closer to that in terms of quality than they are "Teenagers." Particular stand-outs are probably "Dead!," which makes death sound like a goddamn party, "The Sharpest Lives," which is perfectly captures that impending sense of doom in a classic '00s emo fashion, and "Famous Last Words," which ends the rock opera on a somewhat optimistic note.

Like I keep saying, not everything works. "Mama" is an homage to the goofiest song on The Wall, "The Trial," and doesn't do much to make it any less silly. "Cancer" apes the soggiest parts of rock opera ballads a la Green Day, and lets it lie there lamely.

With all these concept-heavy albums, you take the good with the bad. I'm more willing to forgive long fly ball outs if the band is trying to smash homers with every swing.

High school Joe wouldn't agree with any of this, but only because he didn't want to. I want to be open to good music, even if it's ludicrous in the way The Black Parade is ludicrous. This is a strange album, and it's fucking wonderful, warts and all. Go fuck yourself, high school Joe.

GRADE: 4 pukes out of 5