Panic! At the Disco – Too Weird To Live Too Rare To Die (Vinyl LP)

Panic! At The Disco’s roots coming of age in Las Vegas loom large on the band’s fourth album Too Weird To Live, Too Rare To Die!. From its glittery synth-based, drum-heavy sound, to its playful, celebratory subject matter, to the Rat Pack-inspired imagery on the cover, to the title itself (a line from Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas author Hunter S. Thompson), the album finds the band, for the first time in its nearly 10-year career, owning up to loving their hometown.

“Before I started demoing any of the songs on the album, I was in Vegas and went to a club,” says the band’s frontman and songwriter Brendon Urie. “I was listening to the driving beats and watching all these people dance and have a good time. And I thought, ‘I want to make music like this. These people are celebrating life.’ It made me stop being cynical and see how beautiful it actually was. We left Vegas when we were 17, because at that age, Vegas sucks. You’re not 21. You can’t go anywhere; you can’t play in bars. We never played live shows. So we were really bitter for a lot of years. But this last time I realized that people go there to drop their guard and let loose, and that inspired me. It was a real moment of clarity. Now I’m in love with Vegas. I even wrote an anthem about it, ‘Vegas Lights.'”

Urie’s inspiration is reflected in the sound of the new album, which was recorded largely on a collection of Arturia and Moog synthesizers that he and drummer Spencer Smith had collected over the years. “I hadn’t really delved into it all because I didn’t know how to use the technology,” Urie says. “A huge part of the process for me is that I wanted to be a producer. I had the sounds in my head, I just had to figure out how to get them out.”