Entertainment
My Chemical Romance scores first No. 1 album with The Black Parade
The 2006 album jumped 139-1 on the Billboard 200 after its 20th-anniversary reissue, the longest wait to No. 1 for any album, Billboard says.
What to know
- The Black Parade earned 78,000 equivalent album units in the U.S. in the week ending Oct. 29, up 653%, according to Luminate data cited by Billboard.
- Pure album sales made up 68,000 of those units, up 2,082%, and vinyl accounted for 42,000 of the sales, the band's best vinyl week ever, Billboard reported.
- The 139-1 jump is the biggest leap to No. 1 since Taylor Swift's Fearless (Taylor's Version) soared 157-1 on the Oct. 16, 2021, chart, according to Billboard.
- The reissue came out Oct. 23 and the band also landed its first No. 1 on the U.K. albums chart on Friday, Rolling Stone reported.
My Chemical Romance has its first No. 1 album on the Billboard 200, two decades after The Black Parade first came out. The 2006 album jumped from No. 139 to No. 1 on the chart dated Nov. 7, 2026, following its 20th-anniversary deluxe reissue, Billboard reported on Sunday, Nov. 1.
The album originally debuted and peaked at No. 2 in 2006 and remained the band's highest-charting album until this week, according to Billboard. Its 20-year wait to reach No. 1 is the longest ever for an album, surpassing the 15-year, nine-month wait for Toby Keith's 35 Biggest Hits after his death in 2024, Billboard reported.
What drove the jump?
Mostly physical sales. The reissue was available in more than 20 physical variants on vinyl, CD and cassette, including signed editions, and expanded editions added bonus tracks, Billboard reported. All versions are combined for charting.
Streaming added 10,000 units, up 34%, equal to 10.14 million on-demand official streams of the album's tracks, while track sales were negligible, according to Billboard. The album also surged 29-1 on Billboard's Top Album Sales chart.
Equivalent album units are a consumption measure, not a head count. Billboard counts one unit as one album sale, 10 tracks sold from an album, or 2,500 ad-supported or 1,000 paid on-demand streams of the album's songs.
How long did the band wait?
My Chemical Romance went 22 years and four months from its first Billboard 200 appearance, with Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge on the June 26, 2004, chart, to its first No. 1, Billboard reported. The band is the third act in 2026 to wait at least 10 years for a first No. 1, after Megadeth in February and Jhené Aiko in September, according to Billboard.
The album's lead single, "Welcome to the Black Parade," peaked at No. 9 on the Billboard Hot 100 in January 2007 and spent seven weeks at No. 1 on the Alternative Airplay chart in late 2006, Billboard reported.
Who did it beat?
Olivia Rodrigo's you seem pretty sad for a girl so in love fell one spot to No. 2 with 64,000 units, according to Billboard. Rodrigo cheered the band on social media after midweek projections showed a close race, Rolling Stone reported. Swift's The Life of a Showgirl dipped to No. 6.
What's next?
The band has been touring behind the album since July 2025, including a five-night stand at the Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles in October, and the tour is slated to wrap Nov. 22 in Indonesia, according to Billboard. The full Nov. 7 chart posts on Billboard's website on Nov. 3.
The chart win is separate from the band's recent film news; NewsCubby covered My Chemical Romance's Prelude to The End film with Lauren Tsai last week. For more music news, see our story on Taylor Swift's Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame honor.
*Photos: Gerard Way by Gage Skidmore (CC BY-SA 2.0); Frank Iero by Morgane Dambacher (CC BY 4.0), via Wikimedia Commons. Archive photos from 2017 and 2026.*
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Photo & Video Credits
Credit: Gage Skidmore; Morgane Dambacher / Wikimedia Commons (archive photos, NewsCubby composite). License: CC BY-SA 2.0 (Gerard Way); CC BY 4.0 (Frank Iero). Source: file page.
