Modern Rock Misses You, Danny Elfman (or at least I do)

submitted by Deena

With all Scott's recent talk of Panic(!) at the Disco, I thought I'd keep it going with an entry of my own. What a letdown to hear that their upcoming album, Pretty. Odd., was originally going to be produced by Danny Elfman, who was dropped after the band decided to re-write the entire album, saying it sounded too much like a film score.

Although Ryan Ross, lyricist and guitarist for P@TD (pictured right--isn't he cute?), is a self-proclaimed Elfman fan, it seems like these kids don't even realize that his roots aren't in film.

In fact, Elfman's past work with Oingo Boingo would have made him a great candidate to work with the Panic boys. Both groups share the common ground of a fusion of genres like pop, electronica, dance, and rock as well as a love for creativity in instrumentation on their albums. It seemed like a great match.

Maybe I'm just bitter becuase I desperately want to see Danny Elfman venture back into the pop/modern rock scene, but the whole fiasco just seems strange to me. Panic passed up the opportunity to work with their idol and essentially discredited Elfman as anything other than a film composer.

So who DID Panic pick to produce the album? Rob Mathes, songwriter, arranger, and producer, who is widely known for his yearly Christmas concerts, which have spawned 2 PBS television specials. Snore.

But for all my complaining, I still can't manage to dislike the pre-release single, "Nine in the Afternoon," which has--dare I say it--a very Beatlesque quality. I'm still going to hold out hope that the boys bring Danny back into the picture at some point when they're ready to write their big film score...