10 Underrated Hard Rock Songs Of The 2000s

Any self-respecting fan of rock and roll owes it to themselves to experience My Chemical Romance's the Black Parade at least once in their lives. Despite all of the more flamboyant connotations that come with the emo genre as a whole, this amazing concept album about a dying cancer patient is one of the greatest albums that this era of rock and roll has to offer. Even though any song on here could have made this list, The Sharpest Lives gives us a little more context for the story.

Compared to the more snide condemnations of the afterlife on tracks like Dead! and This Is How I Disappear, there's something oddly disaffected about this song. Opening with the guitar playing almost stagnant downstrokes, the lyrics are a nice metaphor for the excesses of life, as our Patient asks for a shot to remember in order to reveal himself for the pain he's feeling. While still being a celebration of the excesses, this is a cautionary tale more than anything else, as Gerard Way paints this picture of what happens when you walk down a dark path.

Though the protagonist in this song is far from being a good person, there's still that little bit of empathy that keeps you on the edge of your seat every time you listen to it. As if the opening singles didn't tell you enough, this was going to be one hell of an emotional rollercoaster.