Every My Chemical Romance album ranked

Few bands from the Myspace era can proudly say they’ve survived two decades and managed to become more popular and relevant with every release like My Chemical Romance can. MCR are more than a band — it’s a movement, an aesthetic, a name that summons the importance of a whole scene and subculture of music. 

The emo titans were formed by frontman Gerard Way and the band’s first drummer Matt Pelissier in New Jersey after Way witnessed the 9/11 attacks and put aside his young career in comic books and visual arts. Along with his brother Mikey Way, Frank Iero and Ray Toro (with Bob Bryar and James Dewees part of the band at different points), My Chemical Romance united rock kids of different stripes with their camp, funny high drama and desperately, painfully sad music. 

Read more: Our favorite moments from When We Were Young Festival, the most emo event of the year

Not only did rock-loving teenagers around at the time of their debut and following album become obsessed with MCR, but the next cohort of alt-music listeners picked up where others outgrew them and became adults. When MCR went on hiatus for nearly a decade, another next generation joined the party, worshipping the music of a group they were too young to see play live. 

Every My Chemical Romance album ranked

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4. Danger Days: The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys (2010)

Back in 2011, Gerard told NME that MCR “needed a new mission." With that, MCR left their misery and black and red (or white) attire behind and took a jump into the future. No longer could this be a band for whom Gerard had to go deep into the dark crevices of his mind to create an album, as he had for Three Cheers and The Black Parade to the detriment of his mental health. This had to be made in a careful, quick and healthy way. The result is a collection of songs about a post-apocalyptic wasteland of pop culture. Album highlight “Na Na Na” is top-tier MCR canon now, its triumphant and bratty sing-along chorus a highlight at stadium shows. Danger Days was exactly that: a period of dangerous divisiveness. Older fans who had stuck around weren’t universally sold on this explosion of color and bright sound. That’s understandable in some ways — this was a fun, hopeful and completely different MCR, and their final swan song before their hiatus.

Eyeball

3. I Brought You My Bullets, You Brought Me Your Love (2002)

Produced by Thursday’s Geoff Rickly, Bullets is a hint at what MCR would become. This debut album brought them a major-label deal with Reprise Records to release their second LP, Three Cheers For Sweet Revenge. The tracks are nothing entirely game-changing but are still firmly ambitious, always that bit more interesting than the hardcore punk of the time, thanks to the amalgamation of prog and pop-punk influences. Their storytelling strengths were clear: songs plainly showed that this band were a direct response to the attacks of 9/11. The first song Gerard ever wrote, “Skylines and Turnstiles,” is anxious and full of existential dread (“After seeing what we saw/Can we still reclaim our innocence”). It’s rough and ready and frequently touted as a favorite album by original fans.

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2. Three Cheers For Sweet Revenge (2004)

Punk-rock anthems? Done. Visuals? Unique. Dramatic concept? Nailed. This album was self-serious and lofty but rich in black comedy. The idea was a pair of star-crossed lovers who have to bring the devil the souls of 1,000 evil men to be reunited after death. Did that really matter when the songs were this good? Not particularly. “Helena” was a tribute to the Way’s late grandmother, Elena, who died while the band were touring Bullets. Gerard’s guttural vocals set the scene at the opening of the track, and by his call of “so long and goodnight,” MCR had made a top 10 all-time emo anthem. This was topped only by “I’m Not Okay (I Promise),” a cry for help that could be placed in a mausoleum for centuries as the one song to explain what mainstream emo was and could be. The intimate ballad “The Ghost of You” topped the U.K. Rock and Metal singles chart and showed their full range. It was everything MCR believed in being: emotive, heartbreaking, honest and defiant. 

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1. The Black Parade (2006)

Few would argue that this isn’t My Chemical Romance’s masterpiece and them at the height of their powers, executing an all-encompassing, thrilling concept album about a young man teetering on the very edge of death who passes on into the afterlife. You’ll cry when they sing about feeling “soggy from the chemo” (“Cancer”), laugh when Liza Minelli makes an appearance (“Mama”) and punch in the air at full roaring sing-along sections (“Dead!”). This is the album that made The Daily Mail call MCR a “suicide cult” and demonize the teens who clapped back with the honest retort that “MCR SAVED OUR LIVES.” It made mainstream critics realize that this was a rock act with pop writing ability and generation-defining status. It’s the album that unites and delights MCR lovers across the fandom, the one they point the curious listener to when telling them why this band matter.