The Black Parade Turns 20

You can't just decide to make a classic album. If it were that easy, everyone would do it. We'd have to sort through piles of classic albums every week. An artist can't simply make up their mind that their new album is about to be a classic. But one thing that artists can do is try. They can put everything out there, hammering away at their own biggest ideas with all the resources available to them. That's a risky strategy. It doesn't work out often, and when it fails, the artist looks like a self-important fool. The conditions have to be exactly right. The artist has to be in the right place, mentally and temporally, to make something that will resonate and endure. In 2006, My Chemical Romance had the opportunity and the motive. They went for it, and they made it happen. They won.I didn't think that My Chemical Romance's third and best album was a classic when it first came out. I resisted it. The Black Parade, which turns 20 on Saturday, came with a whole lot of advance hype. There would be strings on this album. Horns. Choirs. Liza Minelli. Visual themes. A grand, pretentious overarching storyline. The band invented whole new personas for themselves. They wore matching costumes ...