"Downpour" is paired with a sleepy, visually flat video with a little too much soft focus for my tastes. But the clip pairs nicely with the song, which is as lovely and lackadaisical as an early summer nap in a meadow (they've come a long way since their first single). The loose-to-nonexistent narrative and fuzzy, disjointed images make it a hard video to get excited about, but it stays out the way of the song and lets the band stand in the middle of a field and celebrate their new identity as purveyors of bucolic emo folk, so I guess we'll call it a success. As a festive bonus, please enjoy their novelty Halloween song. (I can just imagine the horror genre bandom stories that this video will inspire.)

Panic At The Disco - Northern Downpour [YouTube]

It's time to see what the most-played songs and artists on rock radio have been from January to June. And surprise, surprise, the drummer/singer/guitarist you can't get away from is in the top 5 of each list—twice. First, the top songs:

1. Seether, "Fake It"
2. Foo Fighters, "The Pretender"
3. Foo Fighters, "Long Road To Ruin"
4. Linkin Park, "Shadow Of The Day"
5. Puddle Of Mudd, "Psycho"
6. Bravery, "Believe"
7. Seether, "Rise Above This"
8. Finger Eleven, "Paralyzer"
9. Paramore, "CrushCrushCrush"
10. Rise Against, "The Good Left Undone"
11. Atreyu, "Falling Down"
12. Weezer, "Pork & Beans"
13. Three Days Grace, "Never Too Late"
14. Linkin Park, "Given Up"
15. Flobots, "Handlebars"
16. 3 Doors Down, "It's Not My Time"
17. Death Cab For Cutie, "I Will Possess Your Heart"
18. Jack Johnson, "If I Had Eyes"
19. Panic At The Disco, "Nine In The Afternoon"
20. Chevelle, "I Get It"

Almost every song here cracked the top 5 of Billboard's Hot Modern Rock Tracks chart, and the four that didn't—Rise Against, Jack Johnson, Death Cab and Panic—peaked elsewhere in the top 10. But these figures are all about longevity, songs that stay on playlists for months and months, not the ones that make a big splash and then quickly disappear. Therefore, we get plenty of the 2007 hits that refuse to die like "The Pretender," "Paralyzer," and "Never Too Late." And songs that broke in the spring and have been unavoidable ever since, like "Pork & Beans" and "Handlebars," will almost surely rate higher on the year-end list.

"Nine In The Afternoon," which I predicted would be a flash in the pan airplay-wise, has turned out to have substantial legs based on its placement here. That's not to say I'm ready to halt my sophomore-slump schadenfreude for Panic At The Disco—their album Pretty. Odd. has still sold below expectations, and the slightly more tolerable follow-up single "That Green Gentleman" failed to chart at all, which may have helped clear the way for the long radio shelf life "Nine" has had.

Now, let's look at the 20 most-played artists on alternative radio so far in 2008:

1. Foo Fighters
2. Linkin Park
3. Red Hot Chili Peppers
4. Green Day
5. Nirvana
6. Seether
7. Weezer
8. Pearl Jam
9. Stone Temple Pilots
10. Smashing Pumpkins
11. Three Days Grace
12. Offspring
13. Sublime
14. Incubus
15. Nine Inch Nails
16. Puddle Of Mudd
17. Paramore
18. Beastie Boys
19. Alice In Chains
20. Killers

Again, no surprises at the top, where the Foos and Linkin Park take their predictable spots, dominating with multiple singles from their 2007 albums and a comfortable bedrock of earlier hits. And Seether's two big recent hits get them plenty far up, despite a relative lack of airplay for previous singles. But overall you've got an interesting cross-section here, one that demonstrates just how much older recurrents dominate alt-rock radio these days. Less than half of the artists—nine total, four in the top 10—have had new singles out in the last few months. Three of the bands haven't been together for more than a decade, and the fact that those bands are Nirvana, Sublime, and Alice In Chains, all of whom have deceased frontmen, is a little creepy.

Even some of the still-active older bands get a negligible amount of their chart placement from recent material: Smashing Pumpkins have eight songs in the top 500 most played songs of the year, but last year's underwhelming comeback single "Tarantula" is the least popular of those; all 10 of Pearl Jam's entries are from no later than 1994; and even if Stone Temple Pilots came home from their reunion tour
tomorrow and recorded a smash hit, it'd struggle to get as many spins as "Interstate Love Song." Meanwhile, Green Day, RHCP, Weezer and Nine Inch Nails get healthy spins for songs from the '90s as well as those from this decade.

The enduring popularity of first-wave grunge bands makes the presence of umpteenth-wavers like Three Days Grace and Puddle of Mudd unsurprising. But it's impressive that a relatively new band like Paramore has inched up so high on the list—especially since its two big hits were released in '07, and the one single the band released this year, the Idolator fave "That's What You Get," pretty much tanked, barely cracking the Modern Rock chart. And though The Killers' Sam's Town, released way back in 2006, was widely deemed a disappointment, enough of the band's singles, including that album's "When You Were Young," have remained in recurrent play enough to keep them high up on the list. In fact, they're up much higher than bands who achieved comparable success around the same time and haven't had alt-rock hits lately, like My Chemical Romance (59) and Fall Out Boy (74). FOB might wanna keep that "Mr. Brightside" cover in their set for a while, because it might eventually be more familiar to the casual fans in the crowd than any of their originals.

A T-shirt. Fair enough. (I guess those people who have phototransfer-capable printers are a "technicality.")

A surround-sound experience. But given that the "experience" involves that you listen to a 3 Doors Down live album, would you really want to?

"The band—or the sweaty fans in the front row, or the merch guy, or the sound tech." The sound tech? Looks like someone knows their path to the land of backstage passes!

A smell. Oh, RealAroma, your time is coming, if only to help stop those who will give lazy quotes to newspapers.

A revolution and/or Motorbaby. As chief Motorbaby Sharon Middendorf proclaims in her song "You Can't Download Me":

In the defense of broadband-enabled people everywhere, um, isn't she being a bit presumptuous?

(P.S.: "You can't download a baby" is exempt from this, because it's still funny.)

Panic At The Disco Measure Their Success With Live Shows: 'You Can't Download The Concert Ticket' [MTV]

First up, Idolator's new BFF, Pete Wentz:
THE LOWLIGHT: We get it, Pete. You're a complex sea of emotion. But no one should have to sit through Bobby Vinton's "Mister Lonely," Simon & Garfunkel's "The Only Living Boy In New York," and a Bright Eyes track in a row. Things are going so well these days, buddy. Would it have killed you to throw Paul Anka's "Having My Baby" on there? It would have been a nice touch.
THE HIGHLIGHT: Hands down, it's "Young Turks."

Next up, Panic At The Disco's Brandon Urie—who, to his credit, didn't just copy Pete's list then remove its hooks:
THE LOWLIGHT: Really, who's still listening to Bright Eyes these days?

THE HIGHLIGHT: Supposedly, these mixes are supposed to be for the summer, and at least Brandon starts off with a Beach Boys track, although one with little connection to the summer in "God Only Knows." "American Girl," "I Want You Back"—all fine choices, but who couldn't have a good time at a summer barbecue where "Don't Stop Me Now" was heard blaring from a cheap stereo?

Finally, because I'd prefer to ignore the Jordin Sparks and Rihanna lists, here's everyone's third- or fourth-favorite country starlet of the moment, Taylor Swift!
THE LOWLIGHT: An appearance by the official shoeless songwriter of the summer, Jack Johnson makes sense, but at this point, the 15-minute timer should be expiring on Ingrid Michaelson, right?
THE HIGHLIGHT: While I applaud Taylor Swift for continuing to head up a Better Than Ezra resurgence by featuring "Our Last Night", my son's favorite song, "It's The Night Time" by Josh Rouse, makes a somewhat strange appearance. That almost makes up for the Corrs track.

It's nice that a few decent songs are making their way to Seventeen's readership, but there's no need to create another generation of Bright Eyes fans. No reason at all.

Jango Partners with Seventeen.com to Create Co-Branded Celebrity Music Widgets [Business Wire]

I know, I know, they don't reach those heights. But can you blame them for trying?

Panic At The Disco - That Green Gentleman [YouTube]
Jellyfish - The King Is Half-Undressed [YouTube]

Radiohead
Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers
Jack Johnson
Beck
Wilco
Manu Chao
Ben Harper & The Innocent Criminals
Widespread Panic
Primus
Rodrigo y Gabriela
Steve Winwood
Café Tacvba
Broken Social Scene
Regina Spektor
Devendra Banhart
Cold War Kids
Galactic's Crescent City Soul Krewe
Lyrics Born
Andrew Bird
Steel Pulse
Sharon Jones and The Dap-Kings
M. Ward
Drive-By Truckers
ALO
Matt Nathanson
The Cool Kids
Two Gallants
Dredg
Little Brother
Grace Potter & the Nocturnals
Donavon Frankenreiter
The Mother Hips
Black Mountain
Sidestepper
Nellie McKay
The Coup
Goapele
Bon Iver
Ivan Neville's Dumpstaphunk
Sean Hayes
The Felice Brothers
Rupa & the April Fishes
Back Door Slam
K'NAAN

• "It's almost—dare we say it?—a headphones album, a dense, largely enjoyable layer cake of ideas and instrumentation that might actually alienate its teenage fans. Or, one hopes, it may inspire them to delve into their parents' record collection for Sgt. Pepper's, Cheap Trick at Budokan, Kris Kristofferson's The Silver Tongued Devil and I, and all the other stuff that, you know, 'old' people dig. And that may be Pretty's best surprise of all." [EW]
• And there are loads of gorgeous pop songs, including 'Northern Downpour,' an acoustic gem that sounds like Panic's take on a Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band ballad. Like their mentors Fall Out Boy did on Infinity on High, Panic at the Disco has taken a quantum leap forward in terms of ambition and execution. Pretty. Odd. is the exact opposite of the sophomore slump—a sophomore smash they can be proud of." [Newsday]
• "This isn't the most original album you'll hear this year, but don't panic. At least PATD had the good sense to steal from the best." [Cleveland Plain Dealer]
• "Pretty. Odd. is a brave change and a wildly elaborate project. 'I can't prove this makes any sense but I sure hope that it does,' Mr. Urie declares in 'The Piano Knows Something I Don't Know.' Nearly every song is packed with vocal harmonies and orchestral flourishes, and Panic at the Disco has obviously studied the Beatles' melodies as carefully as their arrangements. But for all its craftsmanship, Pretty. Odd. comes across as mannered and overbearing, more studied than exuberant, the magnum opus of a talented band charging wholeheartedly down a blind alley." [NYT]

Instead of bitching about how little the Modern Rock and Mainstream Rock charts have changed since the last time I bitched about them, this week I thought I'd take a look into the charts' near future, the new slate of songs that are, in radio biz parlance, "going for adds" on Modern and/or Active Rock formats in the coming weeks. (As you may have guessed, this means they're currently up for consideration from station programmers looking for tracks to add to their playlist.) I'll try to evaluate each song's odds of becoming a hit, as well as whether it's any good. (Since, as we all know, those are frequently not the same thing.) If nothing else, I'll be able to laugh at how wrong I was about at least one of my predictions in a few months.

Seether, "Rise Above This"

With "Fake It," the biggest single of their career so far, still entrenched at the top of the Modern Rock chart, Seether should have no problem getting attention for their follow-up single. But even with the added
emotional tug—it was written by frontman Shaun Morgan about his brother's suicide—"Rise Above This" is such a bland midtempo slog that I can't see it matching its predecessor's success. And on rock radio, big hits can linger so long that a band's next release often gets swallowed, as evidenced by Finger Eleven's inability to capitalize on the momentum of "Paralyzer."

Panic At The Disco, "Nine In The Afternoon"

Although it's officially going for adds this week, this is arguably already a hit; it's at No. 18 in its second week on the Modern Rock chart. I'm going to go out on a short limb, though, and predict that while its momentum will shortly catapult it into the Top 10, it won't stick around the airwaves very long, and that even an initially successful lead single can't fully stave off an inevitable sophomore slump. Panic At The Disco, now punctuation-free, followed in the footsteps of My Chemical Romance and Fall Out Boy a couple of years ago in bringing histrionic eighth-generation emo to the TRL crowd. But even with a platinum plaque for their first album, they never had the same foothold in rock radio as their peers; only one of their five singles broke the Modern Rock Top 10, and it wasn't even their iconic video hit, "I Write Sins, Not Tragedies."

Having taken longer than their peers to follow up their initial success, it'll be harder to maintain it, since an extra six months is an awful long time to make a fickle tween fanbase wait. And with this bouncy, lightweight track foregoing the darker undertones that colored the band's previous hits—plus its garish Sgt. Pepper's nightmare of a video—the bands true colors as overly ambitious drama club nerds are showing. And I don't think alt-rock radio, now leaning more toward meat-and-potatoes power chords than ever before, will continue to embrace them once the debut's afterglow fades. This may all be wishful thinking, however, since I fucking hate this band.

Coheed & Cambria, "Feathers"

I always kind of felt like these guys, if you could ever get past the nerdy sci-fi backstory of their songs and the grating helium vocals, could be a good, hooky radio band. And this song is remarkably free of
most of the proggy quirks that people tend to find off-putting about C&C; it's a simple verse-chorus-verse tune, the squeaky singer reins in his higher register, and even the video is refreshingly devoid of graphic novel bullshit. I kinda hate to say it, but I'm rooting for this song to do well, although I'm officially predicting it'll be another moderate hit.

3 Doors Down, "It's Not My Time"

Though not as inexplicably durable as Nickelback, 3 Doors Down are about as much a sure thing as exists on the Mainstream Rock landscape these days. I can't say the lead single from their forthcoming album has left much of an impression on me, but neither has anything the band's done besides "Let Me Go." That hasn't stopped a ton of their songs from becoming massive hits.

Story Of The Year, "Wake Up"

Story Of The Year are a whiny "punk"-with-quotation-marks band that I frequently confuse with Hawthorne Heights. And after one successful album on Maverick Records and another that failed to do quite so well, they've been kicked back down to Epitaph. That's probably the best possible label for a band like SOTY, but Epitaph hasn't broken a band on the radio in a decade now. I can't picture "Wake Up" becoming popular, but then, I probably would've said the same when I first heard their 2004 radio staple "Anthem Of Our Dying Day."

The Cribs, "I'm A Realist"

British bands have been a hard sell on American rock radio for a good long while now, even bands breaking U.K. sales records and being hailed by the NME as the second coming. (Which only happens once a year, maybe twice.) So The Cribs, who seem to be only moderately popular in their home country, don't stand much of a chance. I can picture radio programmers reaching for the skip button after the first heavily accented couplet. Hell, I wanted to hit the skip button.

ONE-LISTEN VERDICT: They've stripped the punctuation from their name and taken to covering The Band in concert, but Panic At The Disco haven't completely given up their tendencies toward hopped-up showmanship, if their new single is to be believed. One wonders just how often A Night At The Opera got played on the band's bus, because "Nine In The Afternoon" sounds like a drama-club-produced Queen homage, complete with instantly hummable melody, swooping-from-the-skies choir, and big orchestral breakdown at the end. Sure, there's no way that Brendon Urie can hit the high notes or command a stage like Freddie Mercury, but his syllables-per-second quotient has been cut by about 50% since the band's last album, which does show that he's at least trying to grow beyond the "watch me stuff my entire Livejournal into one song" stage of frontmanship. Whether this will translate into an album's worth of material that won't need contortionists and fire-eaters to distract from it in a live setting remains to be seen, but color me cautiously optimistic.

Panic At The Disco [MySpace]

Pretty! Gay? [Out]

Brendon Urie Sings Super Mario Theme [YouTube via absolutepunk]