The Paper Kingdom

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, and it was 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. It also marked the first time that James Dewees and Jarrod Alexander were part of the band's writing sessions.

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. However, 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 ultimately 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.

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]

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] This also marked the first time that James Dewees and Jarrod Alexander, their touring keyboardist and drummer respectively, were being included as part of the band's writing sessions.^[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",^[12] and 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]

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] According to Iero, it was the only song from the project that was suitable for release, and that the rest of it was likely unsalvageable.^[19] In a 2014 interview, Way stated that there might be a point in the future where he would want to revisit The Paper Kingdom's story, though it could be through a different medium.^[5]

Since the bands 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][20][13] Blunt Magazine described it as "unreleased gem that’s become a thing of fan lore".^[21] 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.^[20] 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).^[22]

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", "Get 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.^[21]

• Bryant, Tom (2014). Not the Life It Seems: The True Lives of My Chemical Romance. Boston: Da Capo Press. ISBN 978-0306823497.