It only took 10 years, but Las Vegas act Panic at the Disco scores its first No. 1 on the Billboard 200 with Death of a Bachelor. The album, Panic’s fifth studio set, debuts with 190,000 equivalent-album units earned in the week ending Jan. 21, according to Nielsen Music. The DCD2/Fueled by Ramen release tallied Panic’s best sales week yet: 169,000 in pure album sales — more than double the debut frame (84,000) of its last release, 2013’s Too Weird to Live, Too Rare to Die!
The new album’s arrival caps a rebuilding period for Panic, which bowed on the Billboard 200 in 2005 with its breakthrough 2 million-selling debut, A Fever You Can’t Sweat Out. The set peaked at No. 13 and spent 75 weeks on the tally. The band then faltered with its second and third albums, Pretty. Odd. and Vices & Virtues — neither spent more than 18 weeks on the list — and had lineup changes that reduced the act to a solo project for singer-musician Brendon Urie. But Panic’s manager, Scott Nagelberg of Crush Music, says, “They were still selling tickets and maintaining their core. For whatever reason, it didn’t make noise outside of that core.” Now, he adds, “it’s reaching beyond that.”
The band’s renaissance began with third album Too Weird, which hit No. 2, sold 407,000 and spent 58 weeks on the chart. Nagelberg says there’s no single “magic bullet” behind the successes of Too Weird or Death of a Bachelor, though there was an emphasis on social media: “Panic’s fans are definitely the most reactive online out of all our artists” at Crush, which also oversees Fall Out Boy and Sia. Death was preceded by a five-month preorder window “with a very focused campaign” targeting the core, including the continual release of content and visuals to keep fans engaged.
Speaking of visuals, music videos are also still key for the act that won the 2006 MTV Video Music Award for video of the year (for Fever‘s “I Write Sins Not Tragedies”): Death‘s four official videos have a combined 53 million global views on YouTube. “It’s about connecting the fan with Brendon,” says Nagelberg. “From him being half-naked in Too Weird‘s ‘Girls/Girls/Boys’ video, to him dressed as a demon in the new album’s ‘Emperor’s New Clothes’ video, it’s always about highlighting him as a performer.”