Pretty. Odd. by Panic at the Disco
Mar. 4th, 2011 09:49 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
seekingferret-Okay, my best theory on "Behind the Sea" is that it's a mondegreen song and it's a play on "Behind the Scenes" and the whole song is about how people mishear songs and get things out of them that are absurd and yet kind of deep. Like how "Hold me closer, Tony Danza" has an unexpected profundity to it. Except that we're getting a behind the scenes view of it- the songwriter manufacturing these false koans, rather than watching them develop organically. The notion that the songwriter sits at his desk and writes poetry set to music meets the reality that nobody actually listens to the lyrics. "We're all too small to talk to God" meets "We're all too smart to talk to God" seems to epitomize this contrast between constructed cleverness and mass-cultural obliviousness. There's also probably a nod to Bobby Darin's "Beyond the Sea" somewhere in this interpretation.
Otherwise, that song makes no sense.
-Ha, I put that bullet point first for no reason other than to avoid talking about "We're So Starving" first, because you'd expect me to cover it first and I aim for the unexpected. But uh... yes, it's a Sergeant Pepper ripoff and it's kind of silly and 'sets the tone' for the album in ways that are probably pretty incoherent. "Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" sets the tone for the album by telling the listener to focus on a number of things: dense orchestration, intense interest in structure as an ends instead of a means, characterization of the narrator(s), reflecting on the past, rejection of conventional boy/girl romance pop... and then the album delivers on the promise of its theme. That's why it's such a brilliant song on a brilliant album. I'm not so sure that I can pinpoint the thematic references in "We're So Starving" and I'm not sure it says anything other than "It took us a while to create a new album because we were playing with a new style." And the rest of the album is so musically at odds with itself that we can't really say that it matches the statement of theme. Like, what is "Folking Around" doing on this album? Can anyone explain that?
-Panic has a spectacular gift for bad choruses. I was astounded at how many times they chose some absurd line for the chorus of one of their songs, some statement that doesn't make sense, makes less sense each time you repeat it, and lacks attractive euphonies. It's okay if you have ridiculous lyrics, but chorus matter. Choruses are the part of a lyric that really needs to stand up, and Panic is really bad at this.
Like "It's the greatest thing that's yet to have happened/Imagine knowing me/It's the greatest thing you'd ever imagine/But you'll never know until you're there". That's the chorus of "Pas de Cheval", whose maddening vagueness might slip by you (or even pass as cleverness or wit) if it were buried in the verse, but which nags at you as you listen to it repeated.
And perhaps the greatest example is the perplexing "I know it's sad that I never gave a damn about the weather, And it never gave a damn about me." I have no idea what that means, but that's not the problem. The problem is that I had to listen to it not mean anything ten times in that song.
- Huh? Oh, If I don't have anything nice to say I shouldn't say anything? Fine, then. Panic's vocal harmonies are catchy. I'll give them that. I like that sort of vocal harmony, it's tinged with nostalgia. It exudes innocence.
-The anxiety of influence*. Um... the obvious influence, the one they're trying to point you to, is the late Beatles. This album, needless to say, is nowhere near as good as Sergeant Pepper's or The White Album, no matter how hard they try. But this album owes a lot more to early '90s alt-rock than to late '60s experimental pop. The Offspring, Green Day, something of Devo, that's what comes to mind (Wary of my knowledge of genre labels, I consulted Wikipedia, which labels both Green Day and The Offspring as punk rock bands, but hah, if they're punk rock then Blink 182 has punk rock cred. So I'm back to calling this alt-rock, even though I don't know what alt-rock is.). I wrote about Gomez that I felt like they were splitting the middle between Fountains of Wayne and Barenaked Ladies, and I think Panic is mining a lot of the same material. If you like Panic, you'd probably like Gomez. Not quite clever enough to be geek rock, not quite refined enough to be art pop.
*I kicked that out as a catchphrase, not really intending it in anymore than a quippy sense to refer to the fact that I was about to discuss the album's influences. The anxiety of influence as a critical theory, as I understand it, is this theory that in order to create 'strong poetry' an artist needs to wrestle with his influences and overthrow them. But I've always studied the theory in terms of strong poets. We never looked at weak poets, the ones who failed to overthrow their influences. But... this album is probably an example of that.
Otherwise, that song makes no sense.
-Ha, I put that bullet point first for no reason other than to avoid talking about "We're So Starving" first, because you'd expect me to cover it first and I aim for the unexpected. But uh... yes, it's a Sergeant Pepper ripoff and it's kind of silly and 'sets the tone' for the album in ways that are probably pretty incoherent. "Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" sets the tone for the album by telling the listener to focus on a number of things: dense orchestration, intense interest in structure as an ends instead of a means, characterization of the narrator(s), reflecting on the past, rejection of conventional boy/girl romance pop... and then the album delivers on the promise of its theme. That's why it's such a brilliant song on a brilliant album. I'm not so sure that I can pinpoint the thematic references in "We're So Starving" and I'm not sure it says anything other than "It took us a while to create a new album because we were playing with a new style." And the rest of the album is so musically at odds with itself that we can't really say that it matches the statement of theme. Like, what is "Folking Around" doing on this album? Can anyone explain that?
-Panic has a spectacular gift for bad choruses. I was astounded at how many times they chose some absurd line for the chorus of one of their songs, some statement that doesn't make sense, makes less sense each time you repeat it, and lacks attractive euphonies. It's okay if you have ridiculous lyrics, but chorus matter. Choruses are the part of a lyric that really needs to stand up, and Panic is really bad at this.
Like "It's the greatest thing that's yet to have happened/Imagine knowing me/It's the greatest thing you'd ever imagine/But you'll never know until you're there". That's the chorus of "Pas de Cheval", whose maddening vagueness might slip by you (or even pass as cleverness or wit) if it were buried in the verse, but which nags at you as you listen to it repeated.
And perhaps the greatest example is the perplexing "I know it's sad that I never gave a damn about the weather, And it never gave a damn about me." I have no idea what that means, but that's not the problem. The problem is that I had to listen to it not mean anything ten times in that song.
- Huh? Oh, If I don't have anything nice to say I shouldn't say anything? Fine, then. Panic's vocal harmonies are catchy. I'll give them that. I like that sort of vocal harmony, it's tinged with nostalgia. It exudes innocence.
-The anxiety of influence*. Um... the obvious influence, the one they're trying to point you to, is the late Beatles. This album, needless to say, is nowhere near as good as Sergeant Pepper's or The White Album, no matter how hard they try. But this album owes a lot more to early '90s alt-rock than to late '60s experimental pop. The Offspring, Green Day, something of Devo, that's what comes to mind (Wary of my knowledge of genre labels, I consulted Wikipedia, which labels both Green Day and The Offspring as punk rock bands, but hah, if they're punk rock then Blink 182 has punk rock cred. So I'm back to calling this alt-rock, even though I don't know what alt-rock is.). I wrote about Gomez that I felt like they were splitting the middle between Fountains of Wayne and Barenaked Ladies, and I think Panic is mining a lot of the same material. If you like Panic, you'd probably like Gomez. Not quite clever enough to be geek rock, not quite refined enough to be art pop.
*I kicked that out as a catchphrase, not really intending it in anymore than a quippy sense to refer to the fact that I was about to discuss the album's influences. The anxiety of influence as a critical theory, as I understand it, is this theory that in order to create 'strong poetry' an artist needs to wrestle with his influences and overthrow them. But I've always studied the theory in terms of strong poets. We never looked at weak poets, the ones who failed to overthrow their influences. But... this album is probably an example of that.
(no subject)
Date: 2011-03-04 05:46 pm (UTC)As far as I know, there really is no deeper meaning to Behind the Sea other than playing around with imagery, possibly while stoned; to me it always sounds like Ryan (lyricist and, in this song, vocalist) couldn't decide whether he liked Octopus's Garden or Yellow Submarine more, so he went for them both.
All of the lyrics on Panic's first album and most of this one were written by Ryan; Folking Around and I Have Friends In Holy Spaces are the only two that were written by Brendon, and whenever they talked about them they were referred to as "little ditties" that they "let" Brendon put on the album, just fun tunes they were playing around with. I actually read an interesting analysis about those two in particular but they were more about Brendon and what the lyrics say about him, not about the songs standing out on their own.
The chorus of Pas de Cheval is actually one of the only lyrics I actually do like on their own, this kind of arrogant but at the same time self-deprecating like-me-like-me, you-don't-know-what-you're-missing vibe. I don't actually remember the lyrics of the rest of the song, but I like the chorus anyhow :-)
SO. TY for heeding my prompt :D I hope the catchy harmonies made the music bearable for the week.
(no subject)
Date: 2011-03-04 07:31 pm (UTC)The music in general was bearable, but will easily slip out of the rotation now that the week is over. But like I said, I will try everything once!
(no subject)
Date: 2011-07-08 02:43 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-07-08 03:00 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-07-08 03:04 pm (UTC)