It's no coincidence that Panic at the Disco has removed the exclamation mark from their name for their sophomore album, Pretty Odd. This time around, the band looked to the legendary Beatles for inspiration. But inspiration blatantly turned into imitation.
Don't get it wrong, it's cool for a band to draw inspiration from the 1960's rock innovators, but Pretty. Odd. (Fueled By Ramen) is more of a Beatles knock-off rather than Beatles-inspired. From the lyrics to the album cover, everything seems completely unoriginal.
The intro "We're So Starving" bears an uncanny similarity to "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band," just with some extra violin. In addition, when listening to the tracks "The Piano Knows Something I Don't Know" and "Folkin' Around," you might find yourself singing along with the Beatles' songs instead ("Girl" mixed in with "Strawberry Fields Forever" and "I've Just Seen a Face," respectively).
Sadly, Panic at the Disco has forfeited all their strengths and has transformed into something more generic. With their debut, Panic! at the Disco sought out to create a genre of their own using synthetics in an original way in conjunction with creative and unique lyrics.
But the synthetics and witty lyrics have been replaced by brass instruments - which tend to make the album sound a little more country, a little less rock and roll - and lyrics that sound like they are mocking Gene Wilder in Willy Wonka.
On the contrary, the one upside of this album is the possibility that it will encourage kids to dig up some of the legendary bands from the '60s and discover a truly magical genre of music.
