walking upstream…
Panic! At The Disco
photo: jenniferlinneaphotography from denver, co, usa · cc by 2.0 ↗Panic! At The Disco
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Formed in Las Vegas in 2004 by teenage blink-182 devotees, Panic! at the Disco recorded two songs on a laptop and sent them to Fall Out Boy's Pete Wentz, who signed the then-unknown band on the strength of a two-song demo. The debut that followed built a career out of gasping falsetto, a plot-twist bridge, and a song title longer than most bands' entire discographies. Guitarist Ryan Ross wrote and led the band through its first two albums before splitting off in 2009; Brendon Urie, the only member left standing after a string of departures, spent the next decade turning it into a solo vehicle for British Invasion pastiche, cabaret-pop, and Sinatra-and-Queen-indebted arena pop. One thread ran through both eras: an unembarrassed love of Freddie Mercury. Urie folded the act for good in 2023.
the sound in question
2005
I Write Sins Not TragediesPanic! At The Disco
walk the tributaries ↓
Queen1970s–80s · Rock / Glam rock / Arena rock
In 2006, Ryan Ross called Queen "one of my favorite bands – the theatrics! Freddie Mercury's my favorite vocalist of all time." A decade later, with Ross gone and Urie running the band alone, that admiration turned into a session: producing "Death of a Bachelor," Urie chased Roger Taylor and Mercury's blend on "Bohemian Rhapsody" by stacking his own voice "32 times, maybe" — the same year Panic! cut a studio cover of that very song for the Suicide Squad soundtrack.
listen: upstream & here
1975
Bohemian RhapsodyQueen
2016
Bohemian RhapsodyPanic! At The Disco
listen forPlay Queen's original against Panic!'s 2016 studio cover and the debt is almost embarrassingly literal — the same lurch from hushed piano into a multi-tracked wall of harmony, the same ballad-to-hard-rock gear change, Urie chasing Mercury's highest notes nearly note for note instead of reinterpreting them. It's less a cover than a transcription, cut the same year Urie leaned on that same stacked-vocal trick to build his own title track.
blink-1821990s–2000s · Pop punk / Skate punk / Alternative rock
Ryan Ross got his first guitar at twelve with one target in mind: "Originally, I wanted to learn how to play like Tom DeLonge. That was my first influence – Dude Ranch," he told Rolling Stone in 2006. He and drummer Spencer Smith spent their pre-teen years playing blink-182 songs together, and the group they eventually formed started life as a straight blink-182 cover band before anyone in it had written an original song.
listen: upstream & here
1997
Dammitblink-182
2005
The Only Difference Between Martyrdom and Suicide Is Press CoveragePanic! At The Disco
listen forLine up blink-182's "Dammit" against Panic!'s "The Only Difference Between Martyrdom and Suicide Is Press Coverage": the same galloping, palm-muted pop-punk pulse sits under a fast, syllable-stuffed vocal that treats its subject — heartbreak, scandal — as punchline and wound in the same breath. No one on record has named this exact pair; it's the closest audible stand-in for the Dude Ranch-era playing Ross actually cited.
Fall Out Boy2000s–2010s · Pop-punk / Emo / Pop rock
Before Fall Out Boy's Pete Wentz had heard of Panic!, Urie had already made up his mind about them. "I had only heard about Fall Out Boy a couple months before we contacted him," he told Billboard in 2015. "I heard 'Saturday' and 'Grand Theft Autumn' and thought the lyrics were smart." The band's own trademark came from the same source: "We saw that Fall Out Boy had a couple song titles that were really long... Nobody had song titles that were as long as ours," Urie said.
listen: upstream & here
2003
Grand Theft Autumn/Where Is Your BoyFall Out Boy
2005
Lying Is the Most Fun a Girl Can Have Without Taking Her Clothes OffPanic! At The Disco
listen forSet Fall Out Boy's "Grand Theft Autumn/Where Is Your Boy" next to Panic!'s "Lying Is the Most Fun a Girl Can Have Without Taking Her Clothes Off" — both hang a big, hooky chorus off a title that runs longer than the band's patience for a plain sentence, and both sung-rapped verses race to cram in one more wry aside before the beat catches up.