{"id":1041,"date":"2023-02-27T15:14:55","date_gmt":"2023-02-27T19:14:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/classapps.chass.ncsu.edu\/com304\/?p=1041"},"modified":"2023-02-27T15:15:11","modified_gmt":"2023-02-27T19:15:11","slug":"musical-narrative-in-the-black-parade","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/classapps.chass.ncsu.edu\/com304\/?p=1041","title":{"rendered":"Musical Narrative in &#8220;The Black Parade&#8221;"},"content":{"rendered":"For my first Listening Party blog post, I wanted to talk about the album The Black Parade by My Chemical Romance. For some background, My Chemical Romance, also known as MCR, is a band that formed in 2001 and was active until they disbanded in 2013. MCR reunited in 2019 and has been active ever since. The band\u2019s genre has been described as alt-rock, emo, pop punk, post-hardcore, punk rock, and hard rock and the band is considered one of the most influential rock groups of the 2000s and a major act in the pop-punk and emo genres, despite the band rejecting the emo label.<br \/><br \/>The genre of The Black Parade has been described as alt rock, emo, pop punk, hard rock, and progressive rock. It was released in 2006 and was MCR\u2019s third album. The Black Parade tells the story of a main character, known as The Patient, as he receives a late-stage cancer diagnosis and processes his fear of dying and relationships with his loved ones. The album was recorded at the reportedly-haunted Paramour Mansion in LA. The band lived at the mansion while the album was recorded and they recount experiencing night terrors and depressive episodes that led one member to leave the band for a little bit. <br \/><br \/>The aspect I want to highlight from this album is the first two songs, The End and Dead and how their audio lends to the narrative of the album. These two songs create a strong introduction to the album\u2019s story and really grab the attention of the listeners. In the beginning of The End, a vitals monitor can be heard beeping. This does a few things: 1. It is not an expected sound, so it piques interest, 2. It establishes the medical\/hospital\/illness theme of the album, and 3. It lends to the song itself, as you will notice that the beep of the monitor creates the rhythm for the song.<br \/><br \/>Another aspect of The End that really interests me is how it starts off slow simple and gets more upbeat\/energetic and adds more instruments in as it transitions to Dead, which starts off by the band just going wild on the instruments and vocals. This is really fascinating to me as The End represents The Patient\u2019s declining health, but when one imagines declining health we would think of something going from fast and full of life to slow and slipping away. I thought this juxtaposition was very intriguing and helps convey the point that The Patient\u2019s story only begins after his death. <br \/><br \/>The End helps ease us into The Black Parade, as it\u2019s a little shower even at its most energetic, and the quick transition into the wild energy of Dead is jarring, which helps grab attention and really gives the listener a feeling of beginning an epic tale. I also love how Dead and The End relate, as they both begin with vitals monitors. In The End the monitor is beating, but in the beginning of Dead we hear the vitals monitor flatline. This indicates The Patient\u2019s death and the beginning of our story. I think the flatlining at the beginning specifically helps make the point that the band is trying to make, which is that death can be the beginning of a story just as much as it\u2019s the end of one.<br \/><br \/><br \/>Link for The End \u2013 https:\/\/youtu.be\/XkCA2XqUJ4o  <br \/>Link for Dead \u2013 https:\/\/youtu.be\/H48kOqqaWv0  <br \/>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>For my first Listening Party blog post, I wanted to talk about the album The Black Parade by My Chemical Romance. For some background, My Chemical Romance, also known as MCR, is a band that formed in 2001 and was active until they disbanded in 2013. MCR reunited in 2019 and has been active ever&hellip; <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/classapps.chass.ncsu.edu\/com304\/?p=1041\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Musical Narrative in &#8220;The Black Parade&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":56,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1041","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/classapps.chass.ncsu.edu\/com304\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1041","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/classapps.chass.ncsu.edu\/com304\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/classapps.chass.ncsu.edu\/com304\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/classapps.chass.ncsu.edu\/com304\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/56"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/classapps.chass.ncsu.edu\/com304\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1041"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/classapps.chass.ncsu.edu\/com304\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1041\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1042,"href":"https:\/\/classapps.chass.ncsu.edu\/com304\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1041\/revisions\/1042"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/classapps.chass.ncsu.edu\/com304\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1041"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/classapps.chass.ncsu.edu\/com304\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1041"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/classapps.chass.ncsu.edu\/com304\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1041"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}