Album Spotlight: Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge

Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge by My Chemical Romance

It’s hard to believe it, but it’s been almost 20 years since this album came out in 2004.

I wasn’t really a sentient being when Three Cheers came out – I was two years old – but I do have a lot of fond memories attached to it.

After writing about the Emo Trinity and their Golden Days of 2004-2009, it had me looking back on this album and the mark it left on emo culture. I’ve also got some great personal memories attached to it.

I remember listening to it for the first time and thinking, “I don’t get this stuff at all, it’s way too hardcore for me.” Back then, the hardest stuff I listened to was Fall Out Boy, and even that was new territory.

The next vivid memory I have of Three Cheers is making my poor Catholic mom listen to it with me on a car ride to my grandparents’ house. She put up with it and was a little hesitant, but she was shockingly okay with it.

I think that memory specifically speaks to some of the beauty in Three Cheers that sometimes gets eclipsed by the sheer popularity of its successor The Black Parade.

Three Cheers is built on the foundations of classic rock and punk sounds that make it almost approachable for even audiences like my mom, who are into rock from the 60s, 70s, and 80s.

Of course, My Chemical Romance owes the punk rock greats of the past for their ability to succeed and create in the way they have, but something about Three Cheers especially builds off of some classic rock elements that are part of what make it one of the hallmark albums from the 2000s emo scene.

The power chords, the rhythms of the drums and the guitars, the style of vocal delivery, all of it is built on some of the more classic rock traditions.

So, for these reasons, I honor Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge today, dressed in all red and black to pay homage to the vampiric vibes of the album.