Panic! at the Disco have been through a lot in its near-decade of existence: lineup changes, ups and downs in popularity, and fluctuating usage of the exclamation point in their band name. For new album "Too Weird to Live, Too Rare to Die!" -- which debuts at No. 2 on this week's Billboard 200 chart -- the famous punctuation mark is most definitely employed, both in the band's name and in the hard-hitting songs themselves, which borrow from pop, pop-punk, and, yes, hip-hop.
"There's definitely a lot of hip-hop influence in this record," frontman Brendon Urie declared while visiting the Billboard studio for an interview and performance session. "Artists like A$AP Rocky and Kendrick Lamar -- their production, their lyrical style, just the way they go about making the music -- is really inspiring, and I wanted to mimic that in a way. A song like 'Miss Jackson' is definitely more of a hip-hop vibe. I love that that was the first single choice."