I had heard a few of My Chemical Romance's older songs before buying this album, like Helena and I'm Not OK, and thought they were really good light hearted songs. Then someone recommended this album to me, saying that they had really grown up and I should listen to it because it was fantastic. The first song I heard before buying it was the title track "Welcome to the Black Parade", and from the video for the song you could see that they had indeed grown up, the songs are better than the earlier stuff and the lyrics are much more meaningful and mature. This album is by far their best so far, with cheery songs about "Teenagers" (and how they scare the living **** of of him!) right through to "Cancer" which tells of someone's experience of the disease. Deep stuff. Every song on the album is brilliant, especially their singles "I don't love you" and "Famous Last words". If you like any of My Chemical Romance's songs you should definitely listen to this album as you wont be disappointed - and its firmly worked its way onto my Favourite Albums list.