10 Greatest One Man Band Albums
4. Death of a Bachelor - Panic at the Disco
By the time Panic at the Disco got to Death of a Bachelor, Brendon Urie needed to really prove himself. Since most of the original members had fizzled out since the days of I Write Sins not Tragedies, Urie had turned these pop punk stalwarts into a one man show, with backing musicians coming on to perform with him on the live stage. With no one in the studio though, how does the Brendon Urie show hold up? Well...pretty damn amazing.
Playing every instrument save for the horns, Urie really stepped up to the plate with this record, putting as much charisma as he can into every single track. Wanting to create a mold between Frank Sinatra and Queen, every song on the record goes for broke in the theatrical department, amping up songs like Emperor's New Clothes and Victorious to massive proportions across its runtime.
Even though Urie dips his toes into different styles, the entire project holds up as a fairly coherent whole, whether it's the '80s pastiche happening midway through LA Devotee or the melodrama of Impossible Year, with a chord progression and ballad energy that makes it feel like a bygone relic from the days before rock and roll even came to fruition. The days of emo comparisons were officially dead...it was time to ascend to the realm of pop perfection.