10 Darkest Albums In Rock Music History
Rock's Most Haunting Listens.
Rock and roll has never been known as the most wholesome of genres. As much as people might like to defend rock as artists recognizing free speech, it's about time that we all admit some of the darkness that comes up on some albums every now and again. Hell, if you're not careful, even you can find yourself scarred by some of the biggest names in the genre.
Then again, not every dark rock album has to necessarily be on the unlistenable side of the spectrum. While there are many bands who can make their living off of making some of the darkest sounds imaginable, the more subtle rock stars tend to sneak in some of the macabre stuff into their lyrics, making for songs that catch you off guard once you take them in as a full listen.
Some of these records might not even be all that dark on the surface, but once you take the time to actually look at the backstory behind the record, there was an absolute horrorshow going on behind the scenes of everything. From real life ghost sightings to people getting hurt during the creation of these records, these aren't your average rock album to make. Oh who are we kidding? These are the albums that were painfully forced into existence.
10. The Black Parade - My Chemical Romance
Okay, so when you're talking about the darkest albums of all time, The Black Parade tends to be thought of as the more children friendly of the bunch. Since this is basically a macabre version of something that Queen would do, how exactly dark can the thing get? Well, if you do the deep dive, there's a lot more twisted stuff on here than you probably remember.
The concept of a man detailing his final days after given a terminal cancer diagnosis is already pretty morbid, and yet the back half of the album feels like a thrill ride through some of your greatest fears. Recorded in a haunted studio, a lot of the creepy vibes end up coming out in the music, especially on songs like Mama, which has a backing track that sounds like it could have come off of the soundtrack to a Tim Burton film.
Even though the protagonist manages to turn things around a little bit towards the end, songs like Sleep are some of the most bone chilling songs that you'll find in the emo genre, as we are painted a grim picture of a man who knows he's going to Hell and is turning himself into an absolute monster in the afterlife. Out of all the scene bands coming out in the mid '00s, this is one of the few times where they land a punch that feels genuinely unsettling.