Spectator Music presents: the album that changed my life — Vices & Virtues

Let me start this off by saying…I know what you’re thinking. “Panic! At the Disco? Really?” And to that I say, yes really. The album that changed my life is “Vices & Virtues,” the third LP from Las Vegas natives Panic! At the Disco.

Upon starting high school in 2010, I was the pretentious Catholic school kid who was just now jumping into the much larger pool that was my public high school. I thought I was better than everyone, but I was merely one of those people with a self-proclaimed ability to label the best music…and the only music that fit my description, came before I was born.

I wouldn’t dare touch music older than the late 80s, and I viewed listening to the pop radio station as the equivalent to shoving manure into my ears. Today however, I still enjoy the 80s. I occasionally listen to pop music for fun, and I find myself listening to nearly anything and everything other than country music. Never country music.

So enter spring of my freshman year and the iTunes free single of the week is “The Ballad of Mona Lisa” by a band called Panic! At the Disco that I had never heard of. I liked the artwork, so I downloaded it and had to have listened to it 10 times in a row or more.

I was amazed at the vocal range of the singer and how interesting the use of orchestral instruments was when played in tandem with distorted electric guitar. It was something I wasn’t used to, and I wondered why I had never listened to new music like this before.

I blame in part my mildly sheltered upbringing, but none the less, I was hooked. A few days later, the  band released the full album and I bought it on the spot.

“Let’s Kill Tonight” became my pump up song for cross country meets, “Ready to Go (Get Me Out of My Mind)” would cause joyful sonic booms to echo throughout my house, and “The Calendar” reminded me to forget counting the days and make the most of what time I have. From this album, a desire for music grew and overflowed into my social life.

I began going to concerts like Passion Pit, Walk the Moon and Breathe Carolina, and I even attended a couple Warped Tours (regretfully so, from a retrospective point-of-view.) I even picked up the bass guitar and started a surf rock band with some friends, of which I will neglect giving the name of for fear you come across one of our horrid singles.

Today, I actively go to concerts, review music, write poetry and play instruments. I’ve made friendships and romances based upon taste in music, and I listen to music that I would have never thought of listening to solely because it was new and therefore, by my younger self’s standards, absolutely awful and talentless.

I wouldn’t be who I was today without my love for music, and I thank that love to “Vices & Virtues” as being my entry way into the world of modern music. 

Roman Sabella can be reached at voices.spectator@gmail.com.

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