The Black Parade

This is a concept album built around the story of a man with terminal cancer, known as The Patient, as he nears the end of his life. The band produced it with Rob Cavallo. Work began early in 2006 and recording ran from April to August, during which they shut themselves away in the Paramour Mansion; in that self-imposed isolation several members, the bassist Mikey Way in particular, faced mental health problems that affected the production and shaped some of the songs. After the success of Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge in 2004, the band worried that it had been a flash in the pan. There was a good deal of scrutiny and some open hope that they would fail, and Gerard Way was concerned their image would stay permanently attached to that record and its themes. The starting point for the follow-up was a set of demos written in a makeshift studio while touring in 2005, which became "Dead!", "Disenchanted" and "I Don't Love You". It entered both the Billboard 200 and the UK Albums Chart at number two and has been certified four times platinum in the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom. Four singles were taken from it, and "Welcome to the Black Parade" gave the band their first number one in Britain. In 2020 Rolling Stone placed the album 361st in its five hundred greatest albums of all time. The running order here is the original's as printed.