Marketing Ploy or Not: Conspiracies on Brendon Urie

(Via Wikipedia)

Contrary to my last post, there is one thing that will get me through this week. Friday is technically the release date of Panic! At The Disco's new album, Death of a Bachelor.  I've been eagerly anticipating this album for several months now. I mean, I've been looking forward to hearing at least half of the album.  The other half has already been released as singles or they've been leaked, which leads me to the basis of this post.

When Panic! At The Disco released the song and music video for one of their singles "Emperor's New Clothes", the album title, song titles, and official release date was also announced.  Because of this big announcement, Brendon Urie, the lead singer of the band, did a live stream on Periscope.  He was answering the usual questions from buzzing fans about the album and the songs, and at one point he even said if it was up to him he would release the album against his management's will.  And perhaps, over the next couple of months, that's exactly what he did.

After the album announcement in October, everything else had gone relatively normal.  There were a couple new music videos made and another single was released.  But around December, that's when things started to get shady.

First, one night on Tumblr, my friend found a peculiar audio clip and sent it to me.  It was the high quality and full length version of one of the songs "Don't Threaten Me With A Good Time".  There was no hint to this being released early at all on any of Panic! At The Disco's social media, so I was curious as to where it came from.  At first I was weary to listen to it because I didn't want to be a bad person and potentially listen to pirated music.  But hey, why not; Brendon Urie would be proud considering how many times he's told his fans to rip his songs off of Youtube.  So I listened to it once and let it be, and about an hour later, all of the audio clips of the song were taken down.


The second shady thing that has happened recently was during a football game. I didn't personally watch it, but according to the internet, a clip of one of the songs called "Golden Days" was playing during a football game before a commercial break like many songs do.  Yet again, they didn't hint this song was going to come out any time soon either.  So why would a sports station have a Panic! At The Disco song that wasn't supposed to be heard until January 15th?

And finally, the most bizarre thing that has happened thus far occurred this week.  A couple of days ago several fans went to Target and came across physical copies of Death of a Bachelor out in the CD section; a little less than a week before the actual release date.  For instance, this is just one of the fans who found a copy and posted it on Twitter.

(Via Ruhquel on Twitter)

Some Target employees have realized that the CDs aren't supposed to be out yet and they've prevented fans from purchasing it, other stores have let the fans get away with it.  This wasn't just one store though, this was several across the nation.  So if that's the case, why would a large corporation like Target mess up the release date of an item in several of their stores across the country?

You've seen the evidence.  Now comes the question.  Is this all an unsaid marketing ploy by Panic! At The Disco?  Or, are all of the leaked songs and miscommunications on the release date of the album a simple coincidence?  In my view, there's no way a sports channel would take unreleased songs without Panic! At The Disco giving it to them first.  I also don't think this many Target stores would mess up on the release date of an item.  Maybe it was Brendon Urie himself who somehow flew to all of the stores and put them there (just kidding).  Basically, it wouldn't surprise me if Brendon Urie was just trying to screw with us.