Hearing A Fever You Can’t Sweat Out as a teenager felt like stepping into a neon-lit circus where every song was bursting with drama, angst, and theatrical flair. Brendon Urie’s vocals soared effortlessly from smooth crooning to high-flying belts. It’s rare that you can ever describe a pop punk album as being operatic but this one fits that bill, bringing a level of intensity and musical variety that was immediately enticing. The album’s split-personality production—half electronic, half vaudevillian cabaret—kept you on your toes, with harpsichords, synths, and big-band brass popping in at unexpected moments alongside aggressive guitars and a rollicking rhythm section. Throw in a dash of insanely long song titles that read like short story titles from a drunken novelist and you had the recipe for a smash hit.
But perhaps the craziest part of this whole thing was these dudes were my age at the time they recorded this album, with all but one of the members (including Brendon Urie) still attending high school when they entered the studio. Wild times out there in the mid aughts.
Standout Songs: “The Only Difference Between Martyrdom and Suicide Is Press Coverage”, “Lying Is the Most Fun a Girl Can Have Without Taking Her Clothes Off”, “Camisado”, “Time To Dance”, “I Write Sins Not Tragedies”
