Tracks 9, 10 and 11 from Vices & Virtues (2011)

Tracks 12, 13 and 14 from Too Weird To Live, Too Rare To Die! (2013)

Most of the members of Panic! At The Disco were in high school in the Las Vegas suburbs and hadn't played a show yet when Pete Wentz of Fall Out Boy heard their demos for "Time To Dance" and "Camisado" and signed them to Decaydance, a year after they'd transitioned from Blink-182 covers to playing original songs. I can't imagine those kids had any idea what hit them. A Fever You Can't Sweat Out was recorded on the cheap in a studio in College Park, Maryland, where my wife works and 20 minutes from where we live -- I'm always very curious exactly where the studio was, it's probably the biggest record ever made there. The album was released a couple weeks after "Sugar, We're Going Down" entered the top 10, and in under a year "I Write Sins, Not Tragedies" was a top 10 hit as well. 

Panic! At The Disco is one of those interesting bands that has completely changed lineups and creative leadership over the course of its career, but most people might have never even noticed, since the same lead singer was up front the entire time. Guitarist Ryan Ross was the lyricist and primary songwriter for the first two albums, which the band recorded as a quartet. But Ross and bassist Jon Walker left the band in 2009 (although one song on Vices & Virtues, "Nearly Witches," was a Pretty. Odd. leftover with a Ross writing credit). And drummer Spencer Smith left in 2015, with Panic! finally becoming a Brendon Urie solo project. 

PATD and a lot of their contemporaries seemed to pivot hard to classic rock influences when following up their breakthrough albums -- My Chemical Romance did a Queen thing, The Killers went all in on Springsteen, and Panic went for a Beatles/Beach Boys vibe on Pretty. Odd. It's got some really great stuff on it, and Ross sings some leads on "She Had The World" and "Behind The Sea" and has a pleasant if more ordinary voice. 

After Pretty. Odd. underperformed, Ross and Walker left and started a new band, The Young Veins, which released one album continuing in the style of Pretty. Odd. in 2010 and then split up. I have no idea what kind of personal or creative conflicts led to the split, but it's strange to think that Ryan Ross pretty much penned all the songs that launched the band's career and sold about 4 million albums, and then he virtually disappeared from the music scene for the past decade. 

Panic! is such a different thing now, it feels like even for nostalgic Warped Tour kids who embrace, say, Paramore's newer albums, "High Hopes"-era Urie has become kind of an arch villain. Ironically, that hasn't even changed with Viva Las Vengeance, which is something of a return to the nostalgic garage rock/power pop vibes of Pretty. Odd. But it's still hard to imagine the original PATD lineup reuniting and playing A Fever You Can't Sweat Out in its entirety at a When We Were Young festival someday, but stranger things have happened. 

"House of Memories" appears to be a completely fan-driven phenomenon. PATD didn't even perform the song live for the first time until this past September at the tour kickoff for Viva Las Vengeance, a few months after it took off on TikTok. But Death Of A Bachelor was a big album for them, their only multi-platinum album since A Fever even before "House of Memories" took off. "Collar Full" from Too Weird To Live is probably my favorite song on here, though, very much feels like the highlight of their work with Butch Walker.