Let’s Talk About “Pretty. Odd.”
Up until a couple of months ago, I wasn’t a fan of Panic! At The Disco. The lyrics were pretentious, the music wasn’t really about anything, and the fans ruined any hope of me trying to really enjoy any of their music; at least I thought. What happened a couple months ago was my girlfriend playing their music extensively whenever we were in the car or hanging out. I ended up listening to the playlist on my own, which was highlights from their 2005 debut and emo trash essential A Fever You Can’t Sweat Out. I like to listen to music by myself because I think that’s where you form your most sincere opinions on things, and allow the music to address you personally instead as a crowd. Anyway, from the very first guitar riff on the completely unpretentious song title “The Only Difference Between Suicide and Martyrdom Is Press Coverage”, it dawned on me that this band had something going for them. Unconventional chord progressions, unique arrangements, even if I think the songwriting jumped around too much, the ideas presented in Fever became some of my favorite music all summer. On top of all that, it made me eternally jealous of Ryan Ross for being able to arrange Fever, despite barely being out of high school.
After listening to Fever, I kept going and played through their second album and topic of this post, Pretty. Odd. The best way I can describe Pretty. Odd. is this: Pretty. Odd. is Sgt. Pepper for people who wear eyeliner. I think that’s a pretty fair description too (excluding the immortality and innovation the latter possesses, of course). The album continues with the game plan from Fever, and turns it up to twenty: the backing band gets bigger, the arrangements more ambitious and spontaneous. Musically, this is one of the most luscious things I’ve ever listened to. Every instrument has its place on the album. Strings, brass, and woodwinds all used at all the right times. From a songwriting perspective, the melodies and structuring is superb. As for the lyrics leave talking points of infidelity and alcoholism for lines that almost completely embody a certain mood.
Building on that, the mood is the thing about Pretty. Odd. that resonated with me the most. Even in the happy songs, there’s this aura of sadness that sweeps over everything. Songs like “That Green Gentleman”, where lead singer and theatre geek Jesus Brenden Urie laments “I wanna go where everyone goes, I wanna know what everyone knows, I wanna go where everyone feels the same”. It’s this sadness that makes somber songs like “Northern Downpour” all the more melancholy. Speaking of lyrics, it’s almost impossible to really pick out a concrete meaning for any of the album’s lyrics, excluding the completely obvious “We’re So Starving”. The line that best summarizes the lyrical direction of the album comes in the track “She’s A Handsome Woman” with the line “Film the world before it happens”. It’s the kind of line that has a lot of punchy words, but overall has no real discernible meaning.
Listening to Pretty. Odd. had a profound impact on me, more than I would realize. It became one of my favorite albums ever, it made me hate Ryan Ross even more for his supreme knowledge of songwriting and arranging, and it made me something I had never been before: a Panic! fan. Furthermore, Pretty. Odd. made me realize why older Panic! fans hate their newer material; because it didn’t come from Ryan Ross. Brenden Urie obviously has a great ear for melody, is a stellar musician, and excellent live performer, but the songs he makes on his own are devoid of any charm that Ryan Ross’s songs have. The first time I heard Panic!, I couldn’t shake this feeling that Brenden was just going through the motions with everything he did, and now I have found some weight to that theory. I have this image in my head of a period of time right after Pretty. Odd. was released, and an argument between Urie and Ross that boiled down to Brenden saying “This music sucks, but I’m not leaving because I’m the face of the band, and the band will fail without me” and Ryan saying “Fine, I’ll leave, have fun making crappy music without me”. My point is, Pretty. Odd. taught me that both of them are right.
Pretty. Odd. is the Panic!’s best album to get people into them. It has ambition, and the songwriting tenacity to back it up. It’s the kind of album I never expected myself liking, but glad I do at the same time. It gave me a peek into a fanbase I could never understand beforehand. At one point, I asked myself “how would I feel about this album if The Beatles wrote it?” and even by The Beatles standards, it’s a decent album. All in all, I still think Panic! is pretentious. In fact, I think they’re objectively pretentious. But the combination of superb arrangements and a brightly melancholy aesthetic make Pretty. Odd. the kind of album I felt inclined to talk about.
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