The music style has changed a lot throughout the history of the band; it was originally rock, and had a lot of metaphors and social messages to portray their opinions on various topics, such as marriage, drug abuse and school. Their first music video was I
Write Sins Not Tragedies, which is a narrative and performance. It shows a wedding in which the bride runs off and cheats on the groom. Like a lot of their other early songs, the lyrics had a very negative feel, despite the upbeat music video.
From their second album Pretty. Odd., this was the first music video. This was very different from trheir first album, as the song is very upbeat and matches the concept of the video, which is a parade, and the bands in seperate fantasy worlds. The sound has also changed a lot since the first album as the genre is much more similar to pop punk and steampunk, rather than alternative rock. It is similar to I Write Sins Not Tragedies in that it is a narrative and performance video. The bands image changed a lot in this video, and portrays them as more relaxed with their fame.
Ready to Go (Get Me Out of My Mind) was from P!ATD's 2011 album Vices & Virtues, shortly after the end of their hiatus. The video starts as performance, with another image change; the members could be described as hipster. The video begins to have an element of narrative, as he jumps into the 1960s, however, the performance element continues. The Male Gaze is used in the video, as the two female backing dancers are dressed fairly provactively. The bands jumps into the 1800s and are dressed as chimney sweeps for the instrumental, which features a semi acrobatic dance routine. The band jumps into a circus type scene, where Brendon Urie gets cannonballed through the sky to end with a final dance number in the streets. Each stage featured a different outfit, which make sthe video identify more as pop than rock or punk.
This Is Gospel was released as the second single from their fourth studio album Too Weird to Live, Too Rare to Die!. This music video is a performance and narrative. The narrative shows Brendon Urie fighting to get out of a surgery while performing frantically. You then see him getting dressed by other people, and then buried. There are a few effects with water and rope, showing that Urie has no escape. In the end he gets pulled still in surgery, but escapes from the ropes. This video is full of metaphors about life and death, similar to P!ATD's first album. The genre returned to rock slightly in this song too, however, with an element of electronica. The music video was released at the same time as the album.
Nicotine was the fourth music video from Too Weird to Live, Too Rare to Die!. Nicotine was filmed in black and white, and uses a lot of editing with layering shots to create clones and faded images. The video uses a lot of of very short clips that fade into each other. The video only features Brendon Urie, in several locations; on a bridge, in a bar, in what appears to be his house and driving in his car. There are also clips that show the girl that the song is about. At the end of the song you see Urie placing flowers at a gravestone, implying that the girl died. The black and white suggests mouning, and the quick pace of the video matches the tempo of the song, however, the content and topic of the music video opposes the beat and tempo. This song has a very large element of electronica, with some rock; returning to the roots of their first album, A Fever You Can't Sweat Out.