On Tuesday, January 24, Brendon Urie officially ‘disbanded’ the band Panic! At The Disco. As the sole original member of the band who remained, it was a bittersweet end for many original fans of the band. Lasting about 19 years, Panic! At The Disco had influence over many teenagers for a majority of the late 2000s and early 2010s. However, as time passed on and more original members left, the band started to lose some of its original luster. 

Many people, fans or not, have noticed this change over the years. Senior Ryan Bruce says, “I liked their first album, but the band should have died a long time ago. When it’s just one person it isn’t a band.” Given that this has basically been a solo project for years, this is not surprising in the slightest. However, it’s still sad to mourn the loss of another classic band lost to poor music. As a way to send off this wonderful band, I felt it most appropriate to review their last official album, Viva Las Vengeance. 

Track 1: Viva Las Vengeance

Starting poorly with a bad name, and not even 30 seconds in, you’re hit with the awful lines, “Someone did me wrong, Stole my favorite song, Yes it really hurt.” Off the bat, there’s major self-pitying, which is just a severely unoriginal way to go about music. At the end of the song, the lines “Shut up and go to bed, viva las vengeance” are repeated, and personally, I believe he should follow his own advice. The phrase viva las vengeance in itself irritates me because that sounds so much like something an edgy 13-year-old would write when they went through an emo phase. This song was so bland and lacked originality. I can’t even describe the song well because of how much substance it lacked. The album is off to a very weak start, and it doesn’t look like it will be getting much better. 1.5/10

Track 2: Middle of a Breakup: 

I truly don’t have words for this. My whole body cringed so badly throughout the whole song. I have a personal bias against songs similar to this, with the whole “we’re toxic but I think you’re really hot so that’s why we’re still together” but this brought that to a whole other level in my eyes. Another smaller complaint I have is how he starts with a single word, and then leads into the rest of it. Seen in lines like “Guarantee, Guaranteed we live forever, at least until tonight,” which technically isn’t the worst way to go about writing song lyrics, but it still feels really weak and is just not one of my favorite things. Once again, just like Viva Las Vengeance, it ends with repetition. -6/10

Track 3: Don’t Let the Light Go Out: 

Right at the very beginning, I’m reminded of the Labyrinth soundtrack, more specifically the intro song. This track automatically seems to be the “sad” song of the album, and I mean this in the most derogatory way possible. He sounds so dependent and clingy in this song that it makes me consider never interacting with another human being again on the off chance that they resemble this behavior in any way. The worst part is how strained his voice sounds on the high notes. I can not imagine how awful this will sound live and, once again, it ends with repetition. I am begging that this man ends the other songs differently. 1/10

Track 4: Local God

I’m not going to lie. When I first heard the beginning instrumentals of this song, I thought I was listening to some early 2000’s Disney Channel Original song, which would’ve been drastically better than this. I seriously believe some old Hannah Montana songs sound similar to this intro. Ironically, this song is about teens forming a band and having a local influence because this man single-handedly ruined Panic! at the Disco. Every other original member left and he’s the only one left. This song is very forgettable. Just another song about some random nostalgia in a sense. I will argue that this song ended with repetition yet again, so now it’s four for four in ending stupidly. This album doesn’t appear to be headed uphill any time soon. 2/10

Track 5: Star Spangled Banger

The title alone made me want to cry. I would expect this title from some early 2000’s pop-country artist, but from a band that once had a reputation for not as awful songwriting, I couldn’t help but mourn the past. It almost sounded like a rip-off Fall Out Boy song. It gets worse as the song progresses, showcasing Brendon as a poor student with the lines “I never was much for schoolin’ Got a 2.1 GPA” as well as a player. This was one of the most painful songs for me on the album as a whole. Whenever an artist sings and says something with “we” I immediately hate them. How dare you make assumptions about people other than yourself. If I heard Brendon Urie say “Home of the freaks” one more time, I was about to give up on this album as a whole. -100/10

Track 6: God Killed Rock and Roll

This song felt like a major wannabe Queen song to me. Not that Brendon Urie could ever be compared to them, but you could hear certain aspects that you can hear done better in Queen songs. This felt like it was all over the place. I’d like to believe that if any of the classic rock and roll stars heard this song, they would wish they’d never been a part of the creation of rock and roll just so this track wouldn’t exist. I hated how the song ended slowly, however, there wasn’t the repetition the last few songs experienced. -10/10

Track 7: Say it Louder

Once again this felt like a Disney Channel Original song. If you told me this was originally written for High School Musical, I would fully believe you. Listening to this made me feel like I was watching some “misfit ragtag” team of teens in a 2007 low-budget movie trying to rebuild their spirits after they had a fall apart. I’m not sure why, but Brendon Urie’s voice especially irked me in this song. Maybe it was the agitation building up, but this was another rough song to get through. It was around here that I realized how much these songs sounded like they were made in GarageBand. Sadly, this song ended with repetition, so my hopes started sinking lower than I knew possible. 2/10

Track 8: Sugar Soaker

This track started with a countdown, which automatically makes me despise songs more. I had to take a moment and pause the song after hearing the lines “You’re a car, you’re a woman, you’re a drug, You’re all of the above, baby” because I was worried my sobbing would wake up my family. Comparing people to inanimate objects can be very well done to attribute traits to characters without directly stating them, however, calling someone a car, woman, and drug in that order feels gross. I once again had to pause after hearing the chorus, which made me wonder how this man has a wife. Hearing the phrase “breaking my bed” is never a good sign to me when it comes to songwriting, and this proved to be no different. I couldn’t help but laugh at the line “I’ll drag you to the opera, so you think I’m clever” being followed by the triple comparison from earlier, because who would ever consider a man comparing a woman to a car clever? I wouldn’t consider that man to be anything more than a scumbag personally. Once again, Brendon Urie doesn’t know how to end songs, so you just get to hear “come on” repeated about 20 times. I wish I were exaggerating when I say it sounded like a scratched record. -999/10

Track 9: Something About Maggie

I often hate when men sing about women. this song was no exception. Hearing the lines “Gilly thinks that he’s a DJ, Makes me want to slit my wrist” made me decide it was a good time to take a break, because wow! That was unexpected, to put my thoughts politely! Eventually, I realized this song was about Maggie being abused by her boyfriend, yet it felt like Brendon was making this all about him. He completely ignores the difficulty involved with leaving abusive relationships. I understand that it can be difficult to tackle such subjects in songs, but either fully commit to it or don’t even try. The end wasn’t as repetitive as the others, but I was too flabbergasted by how much I hated the song to even comprehend that. -25/10

Track 10: Sad Clown

Just seeing the song title made me a bit happier because it sounds like Brendon Urie is becoming more self-aware! His voice was worse in this song than in any of the others. I thought my ears were legitimately bleeding when he was screaming the high notes. You can also hear in the section with the high notes that he borrowed from his version of the Frozen song Into the Unknown. He’s very original. That, combined with hearing “he not so molto bene” made the sickness in my stomach come back all over again. All I could imagine was Brendon Urie trying to decide what foreign language to use just to say that “he isn’t too good right now.” He also includes the lines “Did I see Maggie holding Gloria? They look so happy there” which also made me cringe a little bit because making references to characters in other songs is rarely done well. Given that none of these songs are truly that story-driven, it just feels cheap. The constant usage of “Vincero” gave me queen flashbacks yet again. I almost wonder if Brendon found an ai that created poorly ripped-off Queen songs and just copied down those lyrics. The only redeeming quality here was the lack of repetition at the end. -382/10

Track 11: All by Yourself

The songs progressively made me pause sooner and sooner. In just the second line, Brendon Urie says “You sweet little kitten” which I think should land him behind bars immediately. Hearing him say honey and honeybee in Middle of a Breakup already hurt enough, but this was the final straw. The only thing urging me to continue was the fact that this was the second to last song. I genuinely hate the themes in this album, and this song solidified it. It’s filled with self-pity and a massive ego, both of which disgusted me greatly. This song reminded me of another song, and I could not place it. Whatever it was, I’m sure that it was better than this noise. there’s not much else to say about this mundane track, other than the annoying nature of how the person being sung about is always doing stuff to spite others. Be more original for once, please. This track ended with repetition again. I don’t know how I got so far. 0.5/10

Track 12: Do it to Death

The first few seconds made this song feel really out of place. I can’t explain it well, but it reminded me of the song Separate Ways (Worlds Apart) by Journey. After hearing this song, I realized that my biggest issue with this album as a whole is how preppy each song sounds. I like when pop music sounds like pop music, but this whole album sounds exactly the same to me. This track felt like it has the most repetition out of all the songs, but to add insult to injury, it ended with the idiotic “Shut up and go to bed” lines from Viva Las Vengeance. The way he sings it makes me want to rip my ears off so that I never have to worry about hearing it again. For that very reason, as well as the fact that it felt blander than an unsalted saltine cracker, I’m saying this song is the worst from the entire album. 0.0001/10

That album was an experience. You can tell that Brendon Urie has a very different writing style than the original members. This album has made me relieved that the band has ended. All good things must come to an end, and the era of good Panic! At The Disco music ended long before the band disbanded.