Panic at the Disco - Pretty. Odd.

Look, I get it, it's been a while, you need to show folks what's going on in your head and where you've been for the last few years. That's cute. Unfortunately for the rest of us you've been sucking ass for the last few years, musically speaking, and it shows.

Pretty. Odd. is, alternately, pretty and just bad. Not odd. (D'ju see what i did there? I could write for Pitchfork.)

What made, A Fever You Can't Sweat Out, so good is that it was a different medley of pop power cords and "other" than any one else was doing--or doing well enough to warrant anyone hearing it. You had your west coast "punk", you had your straight up TRL pop, and you had your solo vocalist pop. Panic came along and combined Broadway musical composition and singing styles with pop music (which makes sense; 50 years ago, Broadway was effectively pop music.) They were 70/30 pop/showtune. It worked. There was foot tapping. There was singing along. There were embarassed sideways looks at stop signs. Those are three hallmarks of Good Pop.

Then they went and reversed the make up of the band and went 30/70, pop/musical and threw in some prog rock who-ha. We get the full show tune extravaganza. You get the country/folksy bits from an Oklahoma. You get the mildly dark, repeatable singalongs from Cats. You get the old timey, vaudvillian (sp?) voice modulation. Fully 10 of the 15 songs on the album conjure the mental image of people on stage in costumes, surrounded by sets and chorus's of extras. Some of them call to mind a curtain raise. These are not good things for a pop album.

Also, i hate it when musicians directly address their fans on albums. Look, i don't need a song telling me you've been away for a few years and that you've got an album out now. I'm listening to it. If i haven't put two and two together already, i don't think you pointing it out is going to help matters. Put on a b-side. Just say, Thank You. Record poop noises. Don't sing me a song about how you haven't been singing songs. Your metamusical immediately made me prejudiced against the album.

But, despite their valiant attempt to destroy the album, parts of it work. Really well. Many of their showtune songs work to a disgusting degree. There is foot tapping. There is singing. There are furtive stop sign looks. Dig. It.

Which just leaves me ultimately dissapointed in the album because i look at it and say, Guys, why did you reverse the ratio?! It was great. If you had tweaked it, altered it, hip bumped it, whatever, this album could have knocked my socks off. As it is... 6.5

Artist: Panic at the Disco
Album: Pretty. Odd.
Overall: 6.5
Best Song: That Green Gentlemen (Things Have Changed)
For Fans Of: Musicals and Pop (in that order)