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The Black Parade
EMAILPRINTby My Chemical Romance
Generally favorable reviews
Based on 24 critic reviews
How did we calculate this?
Based on 321 votes
Read user comments
Rate this album >
Album Info
Label: Reprise
Release Date: 24 October 2006
Discs: 1 disc
Genre(s): Alternative, Rock, Emo
Summary
This highly-anticipated and highly-theatrical concept album follow's the New Jersey band's 2004 breakthrough hit 'Three Cheers For Sweet Revenge.'
Also On The Web: Official Artist Site
What The Critics Said
All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...
Alternative Press
The Black Parade is MCR's whole raison d'etre rolled up into one mega-decibel calling card. [Nov 2006, p.179]
Los Angeles Times
What makes "The Black Parade" so exciting isn't anything rock is quite used to.... My Chemical Romance expresses the next generation's quest by redrawing the boundaries of reality itself.
Read Full Review >Playlouder
For the first time in what seems like a long time, here is an album that is going to be deservedly huge.
Read Full Review >Entertainment Weekly
This album is not just the band's most adventurous but also its best.
Read Full Review >The New York Times
Simultaneously brutal and hilarious, and bristling with wake-up-call urgency, “The Black Parade” may prove to be the best rock record of the year.
Read Full Review >New Musical Express (NME)
This is one to file alongside 'American Idiot', 'Doolittle' and 'Nevermind' on your greatest US rock albums shelf.
Read Full Review >All Music Guide
It makes for a record that's their strongest, most cohesive yet, even if it isn't quite as weird or compelling as it should be given the group's lofty ambitions.
Read Full Review >Rolling Stone
The Black Parade... is the best mid-Seventies record of 2006, a rabid, ingenious paraphrasing of echoes and kitsch from rock's golden age of bombast.
Read Full Review >Dot Music
"The Black Parade" is a big, fat, obnoxious, difficult, overbaked concept record and it's all the more exciting for it.
Read Full Review >Uncut
[It] sees them break out of the subculture in spectacular style. [Nov 2006, p.123]
Hartford Courant
It's a compelling record in the same way as Green Day's "American Idiot" was: Each shows a band pushing itself to grow, and succeeding far more than anyone could have reasonably expected.
Read Full Review >Spin
It's a savage, heartfelt, at times hilarious goth-mosh emopera. [Nov 2006, p.95]
ShakingThrough.net
As with many concept albums, the concept itself gets buried beneath the show-off virtuosity, the band's ringing need to not only impress but bedazzle the listener.
Read Full Review >Q Magazine
Fans will be baffled, but this is magnificently deranged stuff. [Nov 2006, p.147]
NOW Magazine
They've succeeded at making a good big-dumb-rock record, but you get the sense they didn't mean for it to be quite this dumb.
Read Full Review >PopMatters
Tight as a unit, and apparently determined to create music that will, in one way or another, appeal to everyone, My Chemical Romance are in danger of forgetting that hooks, riffs, and yes, aggression, are also needed to stay on top of their game.
Read Full Review >Mojo
Despite its bleak outlook, this is a record big on nagging choruses and arm-punching emo punk that--more often than not--aims for the mainstream artery. [Dec 2006, p.110]
Stylus Magazine
This is a goofy record of bubblegum punk, with Queen lapping at its edges and enough good tracks to justify the smattering of empty screamfests.
Read Full Review >Village Voice
For all that sonic triumph, the lyrics feel like an empty gesture, sub–Trapper Keeper woe-mongering that'll thrill suburban teens but sounds odd coming from guys old enough to know better.
Read Full Review >cokemachineglow
These songs contain all the accoutrements of anguish and despair: he sings the words, he screams the words. So why does it all sound so fake?
Read Full Review >What Our Users Said
The average user rating for this album is 7.7 (out of 10) based on 321 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.
will J gave it a10:
Amazing. Pure genius. The best album of the decade and the best band to emerge in the past twenty years.
Caitlin R. gave it a7:
Not their best album...but their other albums didn't have gems such as the hidden track and "Mama" on it.
rotflsryrae couldnthelpbutsendspam gave it a10:
I think this band is the most amazing thing created in music history. Though that is my personal belief, many people worship them as much as I do. I do not believe this band will save your life however, it only pushes you towards the fact that you are special, and nobody else is better or worse. My Chemical Romance has great feeling and it speaks its mind. It is a big FREAK YOU to the preps. ~love a 14 year old MCRmy troop
Rigoberto R gave it a0:
Terrible music, pretentious and awful record.
Miss R gave it a10:
Different to the previous one, but it's fantastic. If It was exactly the same, then it woldn't be good. all the songs are great, and gerard's brash voice matches the songs perfectly, and the theme is united as well. It's an experience of listening to someone's story though music.
Mike R gave it a1:
This album fails from the first song. The music feels manufactured and is a huge cliche for the Emo genre.
[Anonymous] gave it a0:
Emo rock sucks yet they can't even do it right so they should go crawl in a ditch and freaking die they are a waste of space and a sad attempt at human life.
