My Chemical Romance's The Black Parade reaches No. 1 on Billboard 200 for first time

First No. 1 in 162nd week

The Black Parade (20th Anniversary Deluxe Edition) rose from No. 139 to No. 1 on the Billboard 200 dated 7 November, its 162nd week on the chart, Billboard reported. It earned 78,000 equivalent album units in the week ending 29 October. The original album debuted at No. 2 in 2006 behind the Hannah Montana soundtrack, which sold 281,000 copies to The Black Parade's 240,000, according to Nielsen SoundScan figures cited by the Associated Press. The 78,000 units are well below the 240,000 the album sold in its opening week in 2006, which dwarfed the 38,000 best week of 2004's Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge.

Physical sales drove the week

The reissue arrived on 23 October with six bonus tracks, three B-sides and three live tracks, and more than 20 physical formats and variants on vinyl, CD and cassette, some signed, Billboard reported. Pure album sales were 68,000 of the 78,000 units; vinyl accounted for 42,000, the band's best vinyl week. Total units rose 653% from the previous week and pure sales rose 2,082%, according to Luminate data.

Streaming was a small part: 10,000 units came from album-equivalent streaming, Music-News reported. The surge followed a five-night run at the Hollywood Bowl in October, where the band played the album in full.

Records and context

Billboard reported the 20-year gap is the longest between an album's original release and its reaching No. 1. It overtakes Toby Keith's 35 Biggest Hits, which reached No. 1 in 2024, nearly 16 years after its release. The album jumped 138 places, from No. 139 to No. 1. Consequence reported it is the first anniversary reissue to reach No. 1.

The AP reported that Beyoncé's B'Day, the Beatles' Rubber Soul and Mac Miller's The Divine Feminine all returned to the top 10 in 2026, but no catalogue title had reached No. 1 until The Black Parade.

The band's run from its first Billboard 200 appearance in June 2004 to its first No. 1 spans 22 years and four months, according to Billboard. The reissue also gave the band its first No. 1 on the UK Official Albums Chart, Rolling Stone reported.

What it beat

The reissue beat Olivia Rodrigo's You Seem Pretty Sad for a Girl So in Love, which sold 64,000 units at No. 2, and Morgan Wallen's I'm the Problem, No. 3 with 53,000, Billboard reported. On Wednesday, after midweek projections showed My Chemical Romance ahead by about 1,000 sales, Rodrigo posted a clip of the band's Citi Field show, which she attended earlier this year, Rolling Stone reported.

What happens next

The Long Live the Black Parade tour is scheduled to end on 22 November in Indonesia. Gerard Way said onstage that the band plans to take 2027 off the road to work on a new album, Consequence reported. That would be its first since 2010's Danger Days: The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys.