In Response to "Mad As Rabbits", specifically the line "We Must Reinvent Love"

We Must Reinvent Love - a powerful line of poetry from a band that I love. Panic at the Disco are like spectres to this new generation. The text message generation. A generation that considers raves a low key weekend. A generation that never sees the need to pick up a phone to call someone when they could simply push a few buttons and give another what I can only call a cold virtual hug. Parents for so many of these kids are friends. Not a source of moral value but a last resort of who to talk to. A speedbump on their 150 MPH highway. These kids, whether they be twelve or 21 expect everything to be instant. "Myspace", "Youtube", "Facebook" are all instant gratification that eases everything away from being something to appreciate. We are becoming like technology ourselves.

I'm around teenagers quite a bit. I can't count anymore how often I've heard "Flings are the solution, because if you're not with someone you'll never get hurt." No one wants to be in love, because they don't want to be hurt. In my eyes I worry about this becoming a vicious cycle.

I don't have a quote of how high the divorce rate is, but I know it's up there.

People talk about how divorce is so high because of people spending enough time together, people are working too much, we are a tired society. These all seem extremely true but I don't want to talk about that. I want to talk about how I think people are underestimating love. Because, as Ryan Ross said, we must reinvent love.

Another great band said "Look at all the lonely people." Simply said, but there is a lot of us out there. These people crave affection so much that they try to create their own. Love isn't perfection but they settle for infatuation, they settle for a safe situation, they settle for the first person the have strong feelings for. This is horrible. They say we all love someone but they love someone else.

I have a lot more to say so look for part II.

This is only the beginning.

A Rant to No One

My vision is become
blurry
What was once clear
Principles and love
Have taken a turn away from me
Fading
into the distance
Like a runaway animal

Where have you gone to, my old friend?
This land you've left me in has turned strange
I worry that you won't say the same of yours
Just pick up the phone every once and a while
I'll pick up the pieces
If I know I'll see something new

What is it with flowers?
They come only in extemes
Extreme
hardship
Extreme
love
Extreme
desparation
Is it just flowers and I?
Or is this the idea
The idea behind giving someone something stolen
Like a hostage in the night
As you both die of thirst?

Ro Sham Beaux

Untaped silent mouth
I can’t believe I never noticed
The shaded corner lily
Usually the first and last I water

A small collection
Separated by a timely garage sale
How very sad
Let me try to clear the air

The best intentions of mankind
Always launched from a solid, solid ground of selfishness
The sailor sacrifices his life
To bring fancy hotels the catch of the day
But the waves distance him
From secrets, sunken like anchors


So nearby though!
I cannot believe I never noticed
Few golden objects
Under my paper wing and scissored sight
I’m just plain stoned
One got away and it’s coincidence, I know
Ro Sham Beaux

Well, times have changed
Solid ground I do not have nor want
I will take my friend to the circus
We will ride the sinking ferris wheel
We will stomp the divets of the fair ground
And we will be children
In a world where adults cry for attention

Pretty, Odd. : After the Release

I started to write about this album song by song but I just have too much to say and I want to do my best to keep it short but sweet.

-Wonderful songwriting. The lyrics and melodies support each other like they were meant to be. I want this band to be big. I want them to change the world. Though many of the song's lyrics provide the right mix of ambiguity and clear conveyance, they do not quite have the same "I'm with you," effect artists like Bob Dylan and the Beatles have. They are growing though. While A Fever You Can't Sweat Out's lyrics were in your face with probably one broad theme per song, these are read between the lines songs. They have plenty of additude and style on both albums but Pretty. Odd. shines with powerful minimalist poetry. Hemingway would be proud.

-I have to ask are they Panic at the Disco or just the Beatles reincarnate? These songs are completely comparable to them. They were tired one night and one band member said it feels like it's Nine in the Afternoon and then came "Nine in the Afternoon". Ringo Starr said "It's been a hard day's night" once and then came "Hard Day's Night." We're So Starving is a powerful intro song about the band and mirrors the ideology of Sgt. Pepper's. "Behind the Sea" I swear is just "Don't Pass Me By" in reverse, with Ryan Ross's humdrum-nasal-but-peaceful vocals, not far from Ringo Starr's. I said I'd keep it short but let me say this - there's plenty more connections, but I would never call them thieves.

-The vinyl is awesome.

Peace

One Man's Opinion: On the Beatles Catalog Possibly Being Added to iTunes

First off, nothing is settled. Nothing has been set in stone yet or is even close to that point. Apple, after acquiring the John Lennon and the Paul McCartney catalog, is rumored to be craving the Beatles catalog to be exclusively released on iTunes. Of course.



This would be an outrage. There are many arguments I could place: the sanctity of going out and buying a Beatles album or even better a record; the fact that the Beatles aren't meant to be listened to in headphones but late at night in your room. However, I only have one certain argument: you don't listen to a single song by the Beatles, you listen to an album by the Beatles. Placing them on iTunes would leave each generation here forward to discover the Beatles in the wrong way. It's all like a rite of passage for Beatles fans. It's hearing Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band transfer into With a Little Help From My Friends, and later hearing a reprise of the same great song for the first time. It's about hearing the sound of Revolver. It's about hearing the difference 4 months made for the band between Help! and Rubber Soul. Plus, it's not really cool looking at a digital picture of Abbey Road. I doubt you'd even notice the infamous LMW 28IF license plate or the hearse in the background. And you would definitely never know about the back of Abbey Road, the subliminal 3 in front of the word "Beatles" to add to the Paul is Dead Hoax.

My final and most important piece of support is the one and only The White Album (The Beatles). Those songs are not just thrown on that album. They have a specific order for a reason. That album is a journey. No newcomer to the Beatles realm would ever appreciate Wild Honey Pie enough to download it. And what bigger part is there to being a Beatles fan than suffering through Revolution 9 to get to the wonderful and concluding Good Night. The White Album is like sitting in on a Beatles session. A digital world just doesn't capture that. Plus, the White Album comes with four pictures of the Beatles and a poster. I doubt it would be the same if Apple even went as far as to let you print your own copy of these...

Call me a purist but Apple Inc. and Apple Records together leave a bitter taste in my mouth.

Hot Knives - Bright Eyes

This is one of my favorite songs and videos, now for your audiovisual pleasure.

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The Wife forgave the Mistress for she only entertained
The pain was gone the instant she cleared her throat to speak her name
Said, "Both of us must suffer from the same unending ache"

The world was not of interest though her days were never dull
Her bed beneath a crucifix on guests performing miracles
With the Son of God just hanging like a common criminal
When I do wrong I am with God, she thought
When I feel lost I am not at all

So give me Black Light (Give Give me)
So give me Hot Knives (Deep Clean sleep)
On a dance floor no one tells time (There is no time)

Oh, I've made love, yeah, I've been f***ed, so what?
I'm a cartoon, you're a full moon, let's stay up

She went to see a Mystic who made medicine from rain
And gave up her existence to feel everything, dream others' dreams
Bid farewell to her family with one ecstatic wave (Please take care I love you all)
Out the window as the car rolled away
She just vanished into a thick mist of change

So let us rejoice (Let's Rejoice!)
In all this Pink Noise (Out Pink Noise!)
An oscillation that we can pin point (We're right here!)

Thoughts Before The Release of Panic at the Disco's Pretty.Odd.

March 25th: The release of Panic at the Disco's follow-up to 2005's A Fever You Can't Sweat Out. Their new CD, Pretty.Odd. is Panic at the Disco's transition to simpler songs. While their first album was an energetic interpretation of such genres as big band and techno for a modern and emo-sound-craving generation, their new album is inspired by such bands as The Beach Boys and The Beatles. They want to make timeless songs, and who can blame them?

Panic At the Disco is an interesting band. If you are a 16-year-old, myspace addict girl they are the cream of the crop. Four good looking guys who have a sound that makes you just want to dance. But the rest of the world seems a little immune to them. Just another pop sensation in the heart of their fifteen minutes of fame.

I disagree.

That is Fall Out Boy. Fall Out Boy is a single-pumping machine that knows how to twist words to teenage angst perfection. Don't get me wrong. I am a big fan of Fall Out Boy, specifically Pete Wentz's lyrics and Patrick Stumps melodies but ten years from now, they will just be what Foreigner was to the eighties.

I believe Panic At the Disco to be the band that will shape the next ten years of music. My Chemical Romance is up there with their inspired newer album The Black Parade but Panic at the Disco has one thing they do not: an unlimited musical style. 2005's A Fever You Can't Sweat Out was so original, so inspired (mostly by the works of Chuck Palahniuk, specifically invisible monsters) that no one can keep Panic in a box.



Okay, one thing you'll learn about my blogs is I have basically ADD. I just have too much to say, most of which goes out the window with a few confuzzled tidbits that make their way onto the page.

But now I would like to speak for a brief second about the Beatles. BOLD STATEMENT OF THE DAY (POSSIBLY IGNORANT): all great music that has come out of music for the last forty years has been catapulted by the Beatles. Experimental bands like them who take what someone else has done and perfect it, mix it and turn into its own entity are completely rare. I'm not talking about 1964 Beatles. I'm not saying "I want to hold your hand" is responsible for Nirvana. I am saying The White Album, Abbey Road, Sgt. Pepper's. These albums made music what it is now. And it always will, but never will there be a new sound that is anything but a sub-genre or an unneccessary twist (I quote grindcore or indie hip-hop) until someone new enters the game. Someone who will turn the music industry around.

Panic! Meet the Press!

Yes, I think Panic is this band. Or I should say will become this band.

Once again,I'll explain using Johnny Depp for examples sake.

Johnny Depp entered the world of movies as a heartthrob. 21 Jump Street was just meh. Cry Baby doesn't seem to be too impressive. But Johnny Depp didn't want to just be a cutie on the cover of bubble gum pop magazines. Along came Edward Scissorhands, along came Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, and now he's been a pirate, a murderous barber, a famous playwright, a Stephen King based neurotic writer and too many more to name. He escaped his bubble, due to his persistence to be more and his willingness to do what it takes to survive in the world of music. He becomes his characters and makes them his own, I challenge anyone to say who could replace Johnny Depp in any movie. Reader's digest version: Johnny Depp transcended his image to become one the greatest actors of all time.
In other ways too. As a sex icon. The man's gonna be fifty soon, and every teenage girl still thinks he's quite the guy. He's gone from pretty boy, to hunk, to sexiest man alive. And he's a flippin' pirate.

Back to Panic: The way I see it, Panic at the Disco will transcend their images as pop-punk's forerunners and pretty boys (they are forerunners due to what they bring to the genre as far as innovation)and be the greatest band to ever come out of Las Vegas, Nevada (Although, honestly, now that I think about it, The Killers may be tough competition). I gain part of my theory from Pretty.Odd. The single is radio-friendly but is a very mature composition, as are such songs as When the Day Met the Night and Mad as Rabbits. If people think this band is just too pop to mean anything, remember someone's probably said that about the Beatles circa 1964. This band has the fun, they have the sound, they have the talent, the following, the persistance to create ripples the size of the ocean and eyes the size of the moon.


NEW MUSIC VIDEO: NINE IN THE AFTERNOON
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WHEN THE DAY MET THE NIGHT
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Imagine on Idol

Okay, to start, I am not the biggest fan of American Idol. I feel like each season is exactly the same and half the people do not come off as being very talented.

Even more than my distaste for American Idol is my distaste for people covering songs by John Lennon or any of the Beatles. That is UNLESS they do it well, like Jack Johnson's cover of Imagine for the Instant Karma CD. Another great performance I found of Imagine was by David Archuletta on American Idol:



Of course, American Idol decided to try to market themselves on the hype of a Lennon song and made a episode where the contestant sang Lennon/ McCartney songs. Everyone bombed:

A Sugary Environment

A sugary environment
Bitter and undaunted by evolution
Ignorance, a simple solution

Wake up! From this nightmare
Lie down on your bed
Listen hard what's in your head

Terrible war winds can't seem to focus
They meander like blind fish
A score of men kill wild geese
A score of women cook the dish

They foster children like plants
I foster letters like they're extinct

In closing, I'd like to thank you all
This experiment's brought me close
Sign your name on the bottom line
Sign yourself off and on as a ghost