Brendon Urie's Death Of A Bachelor: Music Analysis

Despite being under the name of Panic at the Disco, Death of a Bachelor is Brendon Urie’s first album as a solo artist. As such, he took the opportunity to build the album around what was going on in his personal life, most specifically the transition between a rockstar in his twenties to a married man in his thirties. As he aged and his relationship matured, he was no longer able to keep up the life that was expected of him as a successful male musician, thus Brendon was given the opportunity to reestablish himself as a person and redefine what made him a man. Through his music, we can see the parts of this process he is willing to share, the way he reexamines what made him a man in the past, deciding what parts of that could be kept and what

He details his feelings of uncertainty and confusion at the state of his relationships with his former bandmates, calling said relationships “a beachfront of bad blood,” and referring to his future without them as “a coast that’s unclear” (Urie 2016). Again, this relates to what’s expected of a man in society, as men are seen as inherently competitive rather than dependent, yet another thing Kimmel addresses when discussing masculinity. Kimmel explains how men are “lonely for each other’s company,” and how, to compensate, “fraternal orders filled that gap, recreating the artisanal brotherhood, the masculine parish.” (Page 6) Thus we see that friend groups are a masculine idea, but no one ever addresses how a man should react to losing said friend group. In most modern media, only 2 types of men exist, men who have a hyper masculine all male friend group, or men who are solitary and independent. Logically, there should be a transitioning period between the two, regardless of whether the man in question is seeking out new friends or losing them. Impossible Year is Brendon’s way of detailing said transition, dealing with the fact that he was left alone with the pressure of a fanbase, a record label, and his own expectations despite having no one to guide him. He could

Through the song, he portrays which is a mix of sadness and resigned calmness, using the voice of a man explaining his heartache and suffering after processing it enough to talk about it. This emotion, this reach, is something that is often deemed generally unmasculine and thus effeminate. However, Urie doesn’t seem to care as he pours his heart and soul into every word of Impossible Year, using the words “heartache and heartbreak” to describe his emotions. These words come with connotations so heavy they’re almost never used with a man, who is expected to be either passive or explosive, but never heartbroken. It’s also important to note how the song ends, given that the last lyrics heard are “this impossible year,” and the song’s audio stretches out the last note until it’s little more than a dull hum that just stops. There’s no closure to the song, and thus no closure to Urie’s own emotions. As this is the last song of the entire album, it can be understood that the wound is still open, still bleeding, and still