10 Greatest Pop Punk Albums In Rock History

It feels odd trying to put some albums from the pop punk wave into the greatest albums of all time. In between the more forgettable acts from around the same time, how are you supposed to convince the rock community that something from the emo stripe of rock is going to withstand the test of time? Rock has always been about defying expectations though, and My Chemical Romance gave us a musical wrecking ball on the Black Parade.

Rather than go down the same pop punk tropes of their peers, this is a bold concept record revolving around a man who is dying of cancer. While the actual story fits well into the more whiny stripe of rock music, MCR blow this up to gargantuan proportions, making for songs that sound like what a modern day version of Queen would have sounded like had Freddie Mercury been able to see the turn of the millennium.

Despite the comparisons to classic rock, My Chem hit on something completely unique for the time, putting a little bit of every stripe of rock they loved into the mix, whether it's stadium rock on I Don't Love You, pop punk bombast on Dead!, or making something all their own on songs like Mama or Sleep. As the rest of the scene was talking about their issues with their parents, this is where everything turned a corner and things became deadly serious.