Panic! At the Disco - I Write Sins, Not Tragedies (2006)
*** (of four)
This is the kind of thing I normally make fun of hardcore - pop-punk with goth-synth pretensions, in a video where everyone's dressed in clown makeup. I don't mean raccoon eyeshadow, I mean full-fledged circus greasepaint. But there's something about this Panic! At the Disco tune that gets me, if just because I've been waiting for a pop song to stick the word "goddamn" in the chorus.
The scene? A wedding. One family's side is empty, the other is wearing sad-mime makeup. The ceremony is proceeding normally when the lead singer - who looks like Ashton Kutcher as a lipstick and mascara-wearing circus ringmaster - reaches the song's chorus and more circus people burst through the "---damn door." This startles the o.g. mime-clowns, and the preacher doesn't know what the hell to do. This is worse than when the best man loses the rings.
Only the beginning, I'm afraid - some kind of biker strongman, chap-wearing Freddie Mercury blows (oh, he blows alright) his angel dust on the attendees. He has a magic wand, too, and he starts siccing it on random people. Instead of all hell breaking loose, everyone starts ballroom dancing. Someone plays an accordion. The bride cries and storms out. She'll be kissing one of the makeup mimes in a minute, to the groom's severe chagrin.
It all reads pretty ludicrous on paper, and it's all over in three minutes, but "I Write Sins" - the song and video (courtesy of director Shane C. Drake) - has an irresistible quality. Rarely has tragedy at the altar been this mesmerizing, demented and out-and-out goofy.
This is the kind of thing I normally make fun of hardcore - pop-punk with goth-synth pretensions, in a video where everyone's dressed in clown makeup. I don't mean raccoon eyeshadow, I mean full-fledged circus greasepaint. But there's something about this Panic! At the Disco tune that gets me, if just because I've been waiting for a pop song to stick the word "goddamn" in the chorus.
The scene? A wedding. One family's side is empty, the other is wearing sad-mime makeup. The ceremony is proceeding normally when the lead singer - who looks like Ashton Kutcher as a lipstick and mascara-wearing circus ringmaster - reaches the song's chorus and more circus people burst through the "---damn door." This startles the o.g. mime-clowns, and the preacher doesn't know what the hell to do. This is worse than when the best man loses the rings.
Only the beginning, I'm afraid - some kind of biker strongman, chap-wearing Freddie Mercury blows (oh, he blows alright) his angel dust on the attendees. He has a magic wand, too, and he starts siccing it on random people. Instead of all hell breaking loose, everyone starts ballroom dancing. Someone plays an accordion. The bride cries and storms out. She'll be kissing one of the makeup mimes in a minute, to the groom's severe chagrin.
It all reads pretty ludicrous on paper, and it's all over in three minutes, but "I Write Sins" - the song and video (courtesy of director Shane C. Drake) - has an irresistible quality. Rarely has tragedy at the altar been this mesmerizing, demented and out-and-out goofy.
posted by daytime at 12:16 PM
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