Recently, one of my Facebook friends shared a video that I hadn’t seen in years: My Chemical Romance’s music video for “Famous Last Words.” This was my freshman year jam, the song that was the soundtrack to my morning bus rides, the first song I ever taught myself to play. I clicked play and let the wave of nostalgia hit me, and felt a big goofy smile cross my face as I took the four and a half minute trip down memory lane. And then I noticed the caption that went along with this post, and immediately felt really old. Apparently, My Chemical Romance’s “The Black Parade” would be turning ten-years-old in a matter of weeks.

Ten. That’s the age of a fifth-grader. A decade. Double digits.

“The Black Parade” celebrated its tenth anniversary on October 23, 2016. Arguably the signature album of My Chemical Romance (although perhaps not everyone’s favorite), “The Black Parade” was not only a collection of songs, but a symbol of a generation. The generation that shopped exclusively at Hot Topic, that sported black nail polish and questionable shades of eyeshadow, and that embraced uniqueness (though in retrospect, I’m not sure how unique we really were if we all were doing this). We were the last of the great dwindling emo generation, the ones who held onto our black and red clothing and angsty music with all our might when the “scene kid” fad started catching on. We were the ones who were not afraid to think and question, who somehow managed to be both open and closed off at the same time. We were the kids who rejected the norm, risking our position in the high school social hierarchy. But through it all (“the rise and fall”...sorry, I had to), My Chemical Romance was there to say, we hear you, we understand you, here is your anthem.

I have always found it curious that so many people are so adamantly against "The Black Parade." Maybe it's because that was the first MCR album I listened to, so I never felt the same pang of "selling out" that many earlier fans did, but I've always loved "The Black Parade." Unlike their previous albums, "The Black Parade" is a more organized, conceptualized effort. From the musician standpoint, it showcases a much wider range of musical ability and variety, like using instrumentation that was rarely (if ever) used on previous albums, like piano, acoustic guitar, and strings. From the listener's standpoint, it was just plain cool. It is a concept album, not unlike Pink Floyd's "Dark Side of the Moon," and while it certainly gets dark at times, it really causes you to think. I like when music does that.

Everybody's proclaimed favorite MCR album, "Three Cheers For Sweet Revenge," is also great, but it didn't seem as mature as "The Black Parade." I think a lot of people listened to "Welcome to the Black Parade" and stopped there, not giving the other songs a chance. For what many might consider to be too many theatrics, too much production, or too big a shift in genre, I don't see such a huge difference. While "Three Cheers" was the angry, angsty album, and "The Black Parade" was the more somber, thoughtful album, it still had all the key elements of work by My Chemical Romance. The lyrics spanned everything from cutting to kitschy. There were still plenty of fantastic guitar solos. The drums are just plain better than on the previous albums. And yes, "The Black Parade" is incredibly theatrical, so much so that Liza Minelli herself makes a cameo appearance, but I'm not so sure that "Three Cheers" wasn't theatrical. There are plenty uses of alternate voices and accents, sort of portraying characters, on "Three Cheers," and I don't think anyone can deny that the music videos for "Helena" and "The Ghost of You" are actually more theatrical than a few of their "Black Parade" counterparts like "Famous Last Words," "I Don't Love You," and "Teenagers."

Speaking of "Teenagers," that is a really awesome rock song. Let's remember that MCR really didn't like being labelled an emo band, they wanted to be known as a rock band. And "Teenagers" does just that. With almost Rolling Stones-like guitar riffs and a clearly blues-influenced solo, "Teenagers" is the song you could sneak onto your classic rock playlist and probably get away with without any questions.

I constantly argued with the people who lumped My Chemical Romance into the category of whiny boy bands who only played in drop D because they weren't capable of playing real barre chords, trying to tell them that MCR was actually a really great band musically. They didn't sound like the pop punk bands, because they weren't a pop punk band. And sure, their lyrics toed the line of emo sometimes (I'm looking at you, "I Don't Love You"), but with MCR's heavy Queen and David Bowie influences and hard rock instrumentation, Bright Eyes was a far better example of emo music than My Chemical Romance could ever be (no offense, Bright Eyes, we love you).

Every couple of years, I sort of “rediscover” My Chemical Romance, and every single time I’m shocked at myself for not listening to them more often. It’s like the longer I go without listening to them, the more I forget just how awesome their music really was. For me, My Chemical Romance totally doesn’t belong in the throwaway bin of my high school memories. My love for My Chemical Romance went beyond liking one or two of their songs. They were my absolute favorite band in the world, and I was their quintessential fangirl. I hung posters on my walls and magazine photos in my locker. I knew every single word backwards and forwards. I was legitimately upset when Mikey Way got married because it meant I no longer had a chance. I was also legitimately upset when anyone tried to shorten the name “My Chemical Romance” to anything other than “MCR” (“My Chem?” I mean, really, guys?) They were literally all I listened to for two years, because every time I tried to pop a different CD into my portable CD player (I was a little late to the iPod party), it just didn’t measure up.

So after watching the "Famous Last Words" video my friend shared, I immediately decided I should put on an MCR album. I started with "Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge," which admittedly is my favorite of their albums (partially because I like the constant explosion of sound, and partially because...well, peer pressure to consider it the best MCR album). I was shocked as I found myself mouthing the words to every song, even though it must have been years since the last time I listened to most of them. During the last song, my phone flashed the ten percent battery warning. Nonetheless, when the final track came to an end, I found myself putting on "The Black Parade," deciding that I would get as far into the album as possible before my phone died.

Let me just say, I absolutely love "Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge." But it does not even come close to evoking the same emotion in me that "The Black Parade" does by a long shot. Considering I'm a musician, it might seem weird that most music doesn't actually elicit much of an emotional reaction from me. But as I heard the first strums of the acoustic guitar on "The End," I was transported back to being fourteen-years-old, a period of my life when MCR was the backdrop of my existence, and listening to it now at 24-years-old, I had the deepest sense of nostalgia I've ever experienced. Dare I say, "The Black Parade" is the only collection of music that I have such an emotional connection with.

That's the really magical thing about music, especially when you're a teenager. You're going through so much when you're a teenager. Sometimes it feels like the world is out to get you, or that absolutely nothing is going your way. But music is always there. You turn it on, put on your headphones, and drown out the world. Music is there for you, no matter what. That's what My Chemical Romance, specifically "The Black Parade," did for me. And it's what they did for many other teenagers in the mid-2000's.

When I was a senior in high school, my music theory teacher posed an interesting question to our class. He pointed out that there are so many tribute bands out there for the greats, like the Beatles, Led Zeppelin, and Queen. Now, my teacher didn't have a ton of faith in modern music, so I know he was being a bit snarky when he asked us, "What current bands do you think we will be seeing tributes to in twenty years?" Most people didn't answer, because I suppose none of us had a lot of faith in modern music at that point, but my hand shot up in the air, and I confidently claimed, "My Chemical Romance." This was not a personal bias. I really thought that MCR had the staying power that was required of great bands to stay relevant ten, twenty, thirty years later. Their sound could not be put in the mid-2000's pop punk box, it transcends that and I knew that back then. Perhaps it hasn't been twenty years yet, but it has been ten since "The Black Parade" came out, and judging by everyone's reactions to certain things surrounding the anniversary, I think I was definitely right about MCR's staying power and relevance. And those tribute bands? Well, we might not have gotten that far yet, but when Twenty One Pilots starts releasing official covers of My Chemical Romance songs, we're well on our way to full on tributes.

When the band broke up a few years ago, there was a huge outcry from fans. Even though "Danger Days" didn't capture our attention as much as "The Black Parade" did, My Chemical Romance was such a phenomenon, and as I said earlier a symbol of our generation, that it really felt like an age was coming to an end when they official broke up. A few months ago, My Chemical Romance began posting cryptic messages on their social media, that many sadly misinterpreted to mean they would be doing a reunion tour. The real meaning was that they would be rereleasing "The Black Parade" as a tenth anniversary edition with bonus material. Which even today elicited a strong reaction from fans, half of which were excited to download the anniversary edition, and the other half who were upset there would be no reunion tour (I fall into that half).

Well, this article got to be pretty long! I should have known once I started writing about My Chemical Romance that it would be difficult to stop. So I will leave you with this: perhaps you are feeling a bit old, I know I am. But I know one way to make yourself feel really young again. Grab your iPod nano (you know its floating around somewhere), plug in your earbuds, and put on "The Black Parade." You'll feel like a high schooler again in no time.

Happy Anniversary, "The Black Parade!"