The Paper Kingdom

Last updated

The Paper Kingdom
Studio album by
Recorded2012
Genre Alternative rock
Producer Doug McKean
My Chemical Romance chronology
Danger Days: The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys
(2010)
The Paper Kingdom
(N/A)
Conventional Weapons
(2012–2013)

The Paper Kingdom (also referred to as MCR5) [1] is an unreleased studio album by the American rock band My Chemical Romance. It would have been the band's fifth studio album. Work on it began in early 2012, set to be a concept album with a story about a support group of parents whose children had died. Those who were present during the album's writing sessions described it as alternative rock and gothic-sounding, drawing comparisons between the band's sound and Radiohead.

Contents

The album's writing was highly impacted by the mental health of the band members. Gerard Way, despite his depression and lack of motivation, pushed himself to write music anyways, leading to the creation of the support group story. He was not satisfied with this story, and the band overall suffered from a lack of direction. In March 2013, My Chemical Romance announced their break up, and The Paper Kingdom was scrapped. One song from the album, "Fake Your Death", was included as part of their greatest hits album May Death Never Stop You (2014), while the rest of the project was deemed unsalvageable by guitarist Frank Iero.

Overview and music

The Paper Kingdom was going to be a concept album, telling the story of a support group of parents whose children had died, [2] [3] [4] and would make up a narrative about how their children were actually lost in the woods fighting against a witch. [4] [5] The style of music being written for the album was described by those present at its writing and recording sessions as the darkest music the band had ever written. Some described it as alternative rock and "gothic", drawing comparisons between the band's sound and Radiohead. [6] [2] One of the people present at the sessions was comic book artist Grant Morrison, who said that the music almost didn't sound like My Chemical Romance at all. [2]

Development

James Dewees 2014.png
MCR820 (Jarrod Alexander).jpg
The Paper Kingdom was going to feature My Chemical Romance's touring musicians James Dewees (left, pictured in 2014) and Jarrod Alexander (right, pictured in 2022). Dewees assisted with writing the record.

After touring concluded for their previous album Danger Days: The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys, My Chemical Romance reconvened in early 2012 My Chemical Romance to begin work on their fifth studio album, [7] [8] with the working title of The Paper Kingdom. [2] [4] [5] They rented out a space in Los Angeles to convert into their own recording studio. [7] The band hoped that, with their own space, they would be able to write new music whenever they wanted to rather than having to adhere to a strict recording deadline. [7] Their touring keyboardist James Dewees was going to be included as part of the writing sessions for the album. [9] Furthermore, their touring drummer Jarrod Alexander was set to perform on the record. [10] [9]

Recording sessions started in June 2012, [10] with audio engineer Doug McKean helping with production. [11] In an interview on Spoilers with Kevin Smith, front man Gerard Way stated that progress on the album was going "rather quickly" and described it as "very dark so far". [12] In early 2013, Way told Kerrang! that six songs for the album were complete. [13] When the band wasn't working on the music itself, they would instead work on designing costumes and stage sets related to it. [5] These costumes were set to be designed by Colleen Atwood, who had previously done costume work with the band starting with The Black Parade (2006). [12]

Gerard Way at the festival Big Day Out in February 2012 in Australia Gerard Way Big Day Out 2012 2.jpg
Gerard Way at the festival Big Day Out in February 2012 in Australia

The direction of the album was highly influenced by the mental health of the band members at the time, specifically Way. [3] He wanted to try and replicate the success of The Black Parade, as Danger Days wasn't as much of a cultural phenomenon. [3] Despite his depressive state at the time and lack of motivation to create music–which he referred to as "the haze", he pushed himself to write anyways, leading to the creation of the support group story concept. In an interview, he said that it was "not a story I wanted to tell – and the songs reflected that, you could hear it. All the joy was just gone." Frank Iero described the making of the album as bleak, and the music itself as having a "weird sparseness to it", and even though that over an hour of music had been conceptualized, most of it was unfinished. Furthermore, he later stated that the band overall struggled with direction at the time, and was generally unable to make decisions on where to take the music. [14]

On March 22, 2013, My Chemical Romance officially announced their break up. [2] The Paper Kingdom was scrapped completely. [15] [13] In an interview with My Chemical Romance biographer Tom Bryant, Iero told him that nothing worthwhile had come out of the album's writing sessions, and that if anything positive had come out of it, the album likely wouldn't have been scrapped and the band would not have broken up. [6] One of the songs that was intended to be part of The Paper Kingdom, "Fake Your Death", was later included in the band's greatest hits album May Death Never Stop You (2014), [16] poised as the band's final song. [17] [18] Prior to the album's release, it was released as a single on February 17, 2014. [19] According to Iero, it was the only song from The Paper Kingdom that was suitable for release, and that the rest of it was likely unsalvageable. [20] In a 2014 interview, Way stated that he might revisit The Paper Kingdom's story in the future, though it could be through a different medium. [5]

Legacy

Some material published by the band, such as this logo used for the Long Live The Black Parade Tour, were speculated by fans as alluding to The Paper Kingdom Long Live The Black Parade Tour Logo.svg
Some material published by the band, such as this logo used for the Long Live The Black Parade Tour, were speculated by fans as alluding to The Paper Kingdom

Since the band's reunion in 2019, there have been several instances where fans have tried to connect the band's promotional material to The Paper Kingdom, believing that the band was teasing the completion and release of the project. [1] [21] [13] Blunt Magazine described it as "unreleased gem that’s become a thing of fan lore". [22] Media that fans connected to The Paper Kingdom includes certain imagery from the band's initial reunion announcements [1] and a video that they released titled "An Offering...", which was speculated by some as being a possible song title, and by others as related to the project. [21] Similarly, when My Chemical Romance released a teaser in 2024, several people noticed that the initials for The Paper Kingdom, when translated into Russian and then rotated, roughly resembled the logo present within the teaser. [13] The teaser ended up being for the band's Long Live The Black Parade tour (2025–2026). [23]

In 2022, a user on an internet forum (under the username of "Excalibur") claimed to have the entirety of The Paper Kingdom and posted an offer allowing users to purchase the demos for $15,000. He claimed that the album featured twelve tracks, and posted three snippets of alleged tracks, named "Dark Cloud", "Wake Up!", and "Witch". The snippets were taken down shortly afterwards for copyright, and only one user seemingly purchased the album before the posts with any mentions of The Paper Kingdom were covered up. [22] During the band's performance in Los Angeles on July 26, 2025, they played a song titled "War Beneath the Rain", which was intended to be a part of The Paper Kingdom. [24] [25] [26] The song was dedicated to McKean's family, who was in attendance. [24] "War Beneath the Rain" was later played again on August 2, during their performance in Arlington, Texas, as a show closer. [27]

Track listing

Confirmed
Rumored

References

  1. 1 2 3 Whitt, Cassie (November 14, 2019). "My Chemical Romance return sparks fan theories over new imagery". Alternative Press . Retrieved May 27, 2025.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 Richardson, Jake (September 6, 2024). "Conventional Weapons: The story of My Chemical Romance's final studio compilation, and subsequent break-up". Kerrang! . Retrieved July 1, 2025.
  3. 1 2 3 Shutler, Ali (November 22, 2020). "Ten years of Danger Days: The most important album My Chemical Romance ever made". Louder . Retrieved July 1, 2025.
  4. 1 2 3 Gerard Way Interview (The Paper Kingdom, MCR break up, and more). May 24, 2017. Event occurs at 13:07. Retrieved July 1, 2025 via YouTube.
  5. 1 2 3 4 Singh, Surej (November 12, 2024). "My Chemical Romance share cryptic post: "If you could be anything, what would you be?"". NME . Retrieved July 1, 2025.
  6. 1 2 Bryant 2014, pp. 298.
  7. 1 2 3 Bryant 2014, pp. 295–296.
  8. Tim, Cashmere (February 2012). "My Chemical Romance Build Studio For Album Number Five". Noise11. Archived from the original on March 10, 2012. Retrieved March 25, 2012.
  9. 1 2 Bryant 2014, pp. 296–297.
  10. 1 2 Goodwyn, Tom (May 16, 2012). "My Chemical Romance to start recording new album next month". NME . Retrieved July 1, 2025.
  11. Tim, Cashmere (February 2012). "My Chemical Romance Build Studio For Album Number Five". Noise11 . Archived from the original on March 10, 2012. Retrieved March 25, 2012.
  12. 1 2 Whitt, Cassie (August 13, 2012). "Gerard Way discusses My Chemical Romance's 5th album on "Spoilers" with Kevin Smith". Alternative Press . Retrieved July 6, 2025.
  13. 1 2 3 4 LaPierre, Megan (November 12, 2024). "Are My Chemical Romance Teasing the Release of Their Scrapped Final Album?". Exclaim! . Retrieved July 1, 2025.
  14. Bryant 2014, pp. 297–298.
  15. Garner, Emily (November 11, 2024). "Out of nowhere, My Chemical Romance have just started teasing something". Kerrang! . Retrieved July 1, 2025.
  16. 1 2 Whitt, Cassie (February 17, 2014). "My Chemical Romance stream their final song, "Fake Your Death"". Alternative Press . Archived from the original on February 28, 2014. Retrieved December 26, 2024.
  17. Whitt, Cassie (January 21, 2014). "My Chemical Romance reveal 'May Death Never Stop You' tracklisting, comment on their final song". Alternative Press . Retrieved July 1, 2025.
  18. Rutherford, Kevin (February 18, 2014). "My Chemical Romance Debuts Final Song, 'Fake Your Death': Listen". Billboard . Retrieved July 1, 2025.
  19. Whitt, Cassie (February 17, 2014). "My Chemical Romance stream their final song, "Fake Your Death"". Alternative Press . Archived from the original on February 28, 2014. Retrieved December 26, 2024.
  20. Bryant 2014, p. 299.
  21. 1 2 Greenwood, Koltan. "My Chemical Romance fans theorize "An Offering..." teases album track". Alternative Press . Retrieved July 1, 2025.
  22. 1 2 3 4 5 "Welcome to the black market: Profiting off stolen music in plain sight". Blunt Magazine . December 12, 2022. Retrieved June 2, 2025.
  23. Georgi, Maya (November 12, 2024). "My Chemical Romance Revive 'The Black Parade' for 2025 Tour". Rolling Stone . Retrieved July 1, 2025.
  24. 1 2 3 Garner, Emily (July 27, 2025). "See My Chemical Romance perform an unreleased song, War Beneath The Rain, live in LA". Kerrang! . Retrieved July 27, 2025.
  25. Wilson-Taylor, James (July 27, 2025). "WATCH: My Chemical Romance Perform Unreleased Song, 'War Beneath The Rain', Live". Rock Sound . Retrieved July 27, 2025.
  26. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Brannigan, Paul (July 29, 2025). "Watch My Chemical Romance perform unreleased anthem War Beneath The Rain for the very first time". Louder. Retrieved July 30, 2025.
  27. "Photos + Review — My Chemical Romance Bring the Black Parade to Arlington". Loudwire. August 3, 2025. Retrieved August 22, 2025.

Sources