Album Preview: Panic At The Disco Grow Up, Quiet Down on "Pretty. Odd."

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On Friday, Rolling Stone caught a sneak preview of Panic at the Disco's second album, Pretty. Odd., due on March 25th. The hyper-sexualized lyrics and synth-heavy beats from 2005's A Fever You Can't Sweat Out are gone, replaced by a sound that's directly influenced by Sgt. Pepper's-era Beatles. Guitarist Ryan Ross, who picks up singing duties for the first time, takes on the role of Lennon to frontman Brendon Urie's McCartney.

When Panic isn't paying homage to the Beatles with the horns, strings and vocal harmonies on the first single "Nine in the Afternoon" and the driving drumbeat and infectious hook of "Pas De Cheval," the mood is more dreamy, and consequently slower, than the songs fans are used to hearing.

This time around, the words (once again primarily penned by Ross) address two main themes: becoming a different band and, more prominently, finding, keeping and reflecting on love. On the short, country-tinged "The Piano Knows Something I Don't Know," Urie sings, "You've never been more divine in accepting your defeat and I've never been more scared to be alone" and on "She Had the World" Ross laments, "Who can love me? I'm out of my mind throwing a line out to sea to see if I can catch a dream."

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Song Stories

“Karma Chameleon”

Culture Club | 1983

Boy George has said this song was about standing by what you believe in. However, at the time, he was involved in a secret affair with Culture Club drummer Jon Moss. "Now people can understand the songs better," he said. "They were written about my relationship with Jon, and they were also written about being a gay man in a homophobic world." The lines "If I listen to your lies, would you say/I'm a man without conviction/I'm a man who doesn't know how to sell a contradiction," described his life at the time, he said. "I was selling this big lie."

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