PANIC! ATTACK

A few months ago, Earshot was in a store near Union Square* when we heard one of the worst songs of our lives—a shrill, whiny dirge about marriage and lust, with lots of bad wordplay. Believing that all new strains of emo should be tagged and tracked so that they can be kept from roaming the wild, we wrote down some of the lyrics, went home, and googled them to find the name of the offender.

It was Panic! At the Disco.

Now they're selling 30,000 records a week, thanks to terribly titled songs like "I Write Sins Not Tragedies" and "The Only Difference Between Martyrdom and Suicide is Press Coverage," and the fact that they all sorta look like little-boy versions of the L Word cast. The new issue of Rolling Stone has a Q&A with songwriter Ryan Ross, and his taste in music pretty much explains it all:

What's your ring tone?
I'm getting a new phone in five days, and I have my ring-tone plan down. I've got Sixpence Non the Richer, "Kiss Me." That's one of those songs that you hate to love — but I really do like it.

Other guilty pleasures?
Some people would say Counting Crows or Third Eye Blind would be a guilty pleasure, but they're two of my favorite bands — I'm not ashamed of it.

Admittedly, it seems cheap to pick on a 19-year-old with dodgy tastes, but seriously...Sixpence None the Richer? On a ringtone? We listened to some wussed-out stuff at that age (sorry, Sense Field), but that's like Sepultura compared to Adam Duritz. Is it possible that emo is getting more emo? In ten years, will the kids be talking about how James Blunt was "mad fucking deep"? We're doomed.

* It was Forbidden Planet. We love our Peter Bagge reprints.