Looong Album Review: Pretty. Odd. (Panic At The Disco)

I'm embarrassed. Really seriously embarrassed. To review this album I had to listen to it, which would normally be embarrassing enough. But it gets worse: I like it.

But the thing I'm embarrassed about the most is that I'm embarrassed about liking/listening to it. Because it's good. Damn good. But there's this idea that Panic can never be good, and even listening to this as I type and loving every second of it I get a bit confused.

I mean, let's face it. A Fever You Can't Sweat Out was a joke of an album. I'm sure you could listen to the same album by buying Fallout Boy and playing it at 2x speed. And there's no reason to expect Panic's sophomore release to be this good. The lyrics on A Fever... were trite and contrived, the music was, well, basic and written by 12 year olds. They wore top hats, makeup, and were generally mocked by the music world.

So here comes Pretty. Odd and it gets, weirdly enough, good reviews. Like, really good reviews. I hear about it everywhere.

I ignore all of this. I mean, Fallout Boy's second album got good reviews, yeah? And that was more of the first album. Then one night, I'm watching SNL and Panic comes on. I reach to mute it, but my remote dies and so I'm stuck in bed ready to be terrorized. And I'm mesmerized.


I don't know what happened, maybe the band heard a real album that wasn't written by Pete Wentz. I don't care. THIS IS GOOD.

So it's not the best thing since Pet Sounds. It's still really really good. There are a couple of weak spots, like the album opener We're So Starving, which is rather arrogant in that they apologize for being gone to write songs for "you". When they sing that, a crowd cheers. It's not a bad song, but annoying. Since I never missed them.

But most of it is, well, fantastic. Even if the lyrics are possibly pure nonsense (Do You Know What I'm Seeing is a great example of this).
One of the best songs is Folkin' Around, a Byrdsish (I hate comparing band sounds, but it's unavoidable here) track.

Another great song is Northern Downpour. It's quiet, soft, and sweet. Everything this band seemed to avoid on the first album.


My personal favorite though, for no particular reason other than it has a great chorus, is She's A Handsome Woman.