Panic! At the Disco have invented a new genre: emo retropop. Vices & Virtues is the band's first album since becoming a duo (singer Brendon Urie and drummer Spencer Smith), and it's the closest emo has come to the sound of old-school pop and rock, with Beach Boys harmonies and even gypsy-style swing flavoring the usual hopped-up confessions. The group's old lyricist, Ryan Ross, is gone; these songs are missing some of the hyper mall-rat poetry that made Panic's first two albums such daffy fun. But the arrangements are tight, even when the songs get baroque: Check "Nearly Witches," which mixes funk, Fifties horror-movie kitsch and a children's choir to ridiculous — and sublime — effect.

Listen to "The Ballad of Mona Lisa":

Gallery: Random Notes, Rock's Hottest Photos

“The Pretender”

This song wasn't part of the planned track listing for 2007's Echoes, Silence, Patience & Grace, and was put together in a day. "It happened after we recorded a lot of stuff," said Dave Grohl. Yet it ended up as the album opener and the lead single. Grohl called it "a stomping Foo Fighters uptempo song with a little bit of Chuck Berry in it." The singer hinted at the lyrics' political overtones: "Everyone's been f---ed over before and I think a lot of people feel f---ed over right now and they're not getting what they were promised."