Panic at the Disco - Pretty. Odd.

Meh

I love Panic at the Disco... but this CD doesn't fly too well with me. There's a couple songs I love, but most of it is just 'meh.' They didn't quite hit the nail on the head with this CD. I'd suggest checking out each song and just buying only the songs you like. Even if you're a die-hard fan, you may regret buying this CD full-price and brand new. August 24, 2008

It's the Greatest Thing to Ever Have Happened (to Panic at the Disco)

The first time I heard Panic at the Disco's freshman effort, A FEVER YOU CAN'T SWEAT OUT, was when I borrowed it from my younger sister last fall in jokey preparation for a homecoming week stunt that involved my friends and I dressing up in tight pants, My Chemical Romance t-shirts, and black fingernail polish and pretending to be "emos". This should give you an idea of my attitude toward emo music and fashion in general. So unsurprisingly, I was entirely unimpressed by the band's run-of-the-mill punk/pop debut, and when the follow-up PRETTY. ODD. came out earlier this year, I never intended to give it even a first look.

Then I started to hear read snatches of reviews, rumors that Panic at the Disco had performed a perfect 180, abandoning their shoegazing for classic pop. I smiled knowingly to myself, suspecting the usual overwrought praise, but all the same, I was intrigued. At last a friend, a close friend, one whose tastes mirrored mine, one with whom I had lampooned Panic at the Disco and their ilk, began extolling the album's virtues to me. I couldn't believe my ears: I had to hear this record. And once I had, I could believe my ears even less, because this is an amazing record.

Bandmember Ryan Ross was quoted by Rolling Stone as saying, "[The album] is influenced by the music our parents listened to like the Beach Boys, the Kinks, and the Beatles." That's putting it mildly; on PRETTY. ODD., the band takes Oscar Wilde at his word and shamelessly beg, borrow, and steal from everyone from John Lennon to Jeff Lynne, from Graham Nash to Graham Gouldman. But the giddy enthusiasm with which they do so keeps us from dwelling on the fact that this has all been done before, and simply enjoy the music. And from the faux-SGT. PEPPER opening two-fer "We're So Starving" and "Nine in the Afternoon", past the galloping rock of "Pas de Cheval" by way of the music-hall romp "I Have Friends in Holy Places", through to the baroque pop of "From a Mountain in the Middle of the Cabins", it's one hell of a ride, positively awash in swooping strings, shimmering harmonies, and supremely buoyant songcraft straight of the Lennon-McCartney playbook. And if that's not a recommendation, I don't know what is, because though the piano may have known something Panic at the Disco didn't know, it wasn't how to make a great pop record, because they've got that one down pat. August 13, 2008

Panic at the Disco - Pretty. Odd.

Pretty. Odd. (2008, Fueled By Ramen) Panic at the Disco's second studio album. ***

As everyone knows, if you've an exclamation point in the name of your band and then drop it, it obviously means you've radically shifted the sound so that you've done crapiness in one genre and now moved on to the next. Why Panic was suddenly inspired by the Beatles is beyond anyone, probably even the band members, but they need to understand that that's not who they are, and they never will be. Pretty. Odd. is not by any stretch comparable to Sgt. Pepper, and any critic who makes that mistake should be shot. Granted, this album isn't garbage. It's not great, either. What we have is an above-average mix of songs that are completely second-rate to their inspirations of 60's psychedelic pop. The lyrics are beyond terrible, and it features far too many instruments that we know no one in the band is capable of playing. If there's anything admirable about their change in approach, they at least chose the correct era of the Beatles to mimic.

-Stephen
www.politicianrock.blogspot.com August 12, 2008

Panic at the Disco - Pretty. Odd. 8.5/10

I absolutely hated Panic! at the Disco's faux-prog rock emo caricature that was their debut hit album, A Fever You Can't Sweat Out. Their ridiculous stage setups, Fall Out Boy-mimicking vocals, and tongue-in-cheek lyrical posturing repulsed me, but it made them platinum stars and MTV darlings.

With the removal of the ! from their name, however, seems to have come a sort of maturity for the emo playwrights, and Pretty.Odd. is an interesting, ambitious, and surprisingly inspired follow-up. I couldn't believe I was actually enjoying it when I first listened to it, but it's true: Panic at the Disco has grown up, musically and lyrically.

Lead single "Nine in the Afternoon" leads off with a bouncy piano line and a catchy guitar line, and lead singer Brendon Urie manages to avoid the high-note yelping that made the band so annoying throughout not only the song but also most of the album. His lyrics are just as metaphor-heavy and dense poetics but less obviously so, and this is a huge relief from those who hated Fever. Only when Urie gets pathetically sappy ("She Had The World") do the words grate.

The music is ridiculously diverse, from "Do You Know What I'm Seeing" violin balladry to the pastoral flute on "The Piano Knows Something I Don't Know." They even bring out the country-folk in the rural church singing of "I Have Friends in Holy Spaces" and the giddy fiddle on the tongue-in-cheek "Folkin' Around."

The record's highlight, the irresistibly catchy, nostalgia-tinged "Northern Downpour," is buoyed by the harmonizing between Urie and guitarist Ryan Ross, whose voice has evidently been possessed by some psychedelic imp in love with the Beatles. The swirling electric guitar licks that erupt halfway through mesh perfectly with the acoustic strum and gentle drums as the song coalesces into a chorus that is pure polyphonic bliss.

The band's obvious Queen fixation and `60s pop homages work out for the better, luckily distancing them from their labelmates and hopefully pointing toward a more long-lived career beyond emo. August 10, 2008

Bad timing

It took me a while to let Pretty. Odd. grow on me, and still some songs just don't do it. Their debut album was perfect, and this just wasn't what I was expecting. I think that people would have accepted this album with a lot more love if it had come out a year ago, before Across the Universe. The whole Beatles vibe had been done for the year, and that's a shame because this is a great album. Better timing could have gotten them a lot more kudos, but still a great album! August 6, 2008

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