Nightwish - Imaginaerum

Malice

After over four years Nightwish have finally gotten around to releasing a new album. Scheduled for release this month, I am most definitely looking forward to it.

The first single, Storytime, is below:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5g8ykQLYnX0

Any other Nightwish fans on here?

chin_grin

Jesus that's terrible. I'm never trusting your opinion again. :P

BlaasForRafa

When they get Tarja back I'll listen to them again.

Kess73

Big ABBA vibe going through that song. ABBA I like, the latest Nightwish single I don't.:(

Tauriel

I am a massive Nightwish fan and I think the song sounds great, really looking forward to the new album.

xtradel

Good stuff that....def dont sound like abba to me!! All that kind of operatic rock is like marmite, you either love it or hate it....i love it!

Kess73

xtradel wrote: »

Good stuff that....def dont sound like abba to me!! All that kind of operatic rock is like marmite, you either love it or hate it....i love it!

It sounds like ABBA in terms of how the vocals are structured and not in terms of the guitar sound, drum sound etc.

sentient_6

Imaginaerum?!!!!! BAHAHAHAHAHA!

I have the South Park imagination land song in my head now. :P

blastman

I'd be a fan, all right, first time listening to the new song and I like it so far. I'll be buying the album.

Still miss Tarja, though.... :P

Malice

chin_grin wrote: »

Jesus that's terrible. I'm never trusting your opinion again. :P

I sense a pattern developing. The first single off the previous album was the less than inspiring Eva. That didn't stop the album being well worth a listen.

BlaasForRafa wrote: »

When they get Tarja back I'll listen to them again.

There's no chance of her rejoining the band.

rainbow kirby

Storytime is absolute cack (and she's not even hot in the video, crushing disappointment), but I'll still give the album a listen when it comes out. Would actually love to hear more stuff with the guys singing (think While Your Lips Are Still Red or The Islander) on the new album, but it's unlikely.

viadah

Not a fan of Nightwish, or operatic metal in general, but there is something in the music that appeals to me (I do like Roxette though, and let's be honest any pop band from or drawing influence from continental Europe or Scandinavia loves ABBA, even Scooter). No other Nightwish song has ever drawn my interest, but maybe I really do just have a **** taste in music.

Malice

rainbow kirby wrote: »

Would actually love to hear more stuff with the guys singing (think While Your Lips Are Still Red or The Islander) on the new album, but it's unlikely.

I'd say there will be a lot of Marco singing on there. A few of the tracks from the last album like Amaranth and The Poet and The Pendulum had him on lead vocals in the demo versions and he does have a great voice that really suits that style of music.

slavetothegrind

After reading this thread i think a musical intervention may be needed for one or two posters :eek::P

Amazing that the producers didn't do something about the abbaesque vocal melody, it is very distracting....

Malice

slavetothegrind wrote: »

After reading this thread i think a musical intervention may be needed for one or two posters :eek::P

Well I've said before that the charter should be updated so that professing a dislike for Nightwish is punishable by a ban .

Twilightning

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7kAK6G3zG9g

Samples of the entire album! Can't wait!

kgt

Just a couple of thoughts from a well seasoned person in the music world. I know these people and have had dinner with them. That all comes with the territory of being very involved with the ProgPowerUSA event for 9 years.

I had dinner with Marco and spent basically 3 whole days with him last year when he came to town with Delain (he does several vocals for them) and his resurected band from his college days (TAROT).

I caught absolute hell for 3 full years for 1) taking up for the Annette Olzon selection, and 2) for firmly stating that Dark Passion Play was a work of genius and 3) stating that Tarja was doing some good work separately (I'll always support her, shes earned it).

Now I am about to catch hell again. Marco told me then about the new album and I got the name from him. I WAS THE FIRST TO POST EITHER ON ANY YOUTUBE FORUMS. That was rough, but it was 2 years ago. 2 months ago I got word from Marco that this was the album that would never end. He sounded tired, and not happy.

Now I see why. I got my link to this new "thing" directly from Roadrunner Records a week ago since I have 2 major artist support efforts going on youtube. Because its the new Nightwish I do have it featured at one of them, but after seeing it a dozen times now, I find myself staring at this thing in total disbelief.

Dark Passion Play was so accused of being commercial and "lightweight", that I guess this is featherweight. I mean somehow its missing something. Hell, I'll just say it: ITS MISSING EVERYTHING. Annette was voice coached for a year for this. Word was rampant that Tuomas wanted this to be in the "Tarja" style and more like "Once". They had 2 full years and some real $$$$ to use for this. And what do we get?

A 4 min long CHORUS! I mean its a great chorus, BUT WHERE IS THE SONG? This is THE most premiere symphonic band in the world. And yet, this video is not music.....ITS A TV AD FOR CIRQUE DE SOLIEL! Tell me I'm wrong? If there was a song wrapped around that chorus it could be great.

Compare 2 other 4 min pieces by them. One by each different female lead: 1) Nemo/Tarja, & 2) Amaranthe/Annette. Both of those seem like 8 min because of all the complicated elements. Storytime seems like 2 min. I can only think about that horrible katy perry, Fireworks tune & video when I watch this.

Some more bad news.....a couple of the tracks are outright JAZZ, and a couple are outright POWER METAL (Judas Priest/Metallica). OK, when did this band wake up AND NOT KNOW THEY WERE NIGHTWISH. The standard bearer for ALL SYMPHONIC METAL.

So I reason with this, and I came to a terrible conclusion.....they Pink Floyded themselves. If you look that band up, it says officially that they recorded 6-7 albums. REALLY? NO THEY DIDNT. They recorded Dark Side of the Moon and nothing else they ever did MATTERED. The bar had been raised so high it made them obsolete.

Dream Theater did a MASTERPIECE album in 1991: Images and Words. Thats one of the top 25 best produced albums of all time and they have labored in vainity for 21 years to produce anything half as good as that.

Journey, Foriegner, and RUSH didnt do awsome albums BECAUSE THEY KNEW BETTER. They just worked for great albums. Rush had a string of nine great albums. Journey & Foreigner had strings of around 7. Once you get to that ultra status....its over. Journey came close to that with Escape, and Foriegner with Foriegner 4. Its a hard business in reality and sometimes it all goes to hell and you are over. EUPHORIA is the best album Def Lepppard ever did, but Pyromania was thier Waterloo.

So guys we have to face it, we were so spoiled and accustomed to the greatness that is (was) Nightwish that the plane has gone down and we still think we see the dot on the radar. Thats the IMAGINARIUM kicking in. And no we're definately in kansas anymore.....that band isnt either.

Malice

Welcome to the forum kgt, hope you stick around .

I've been listening a few songs from the album. The first thing to strike me is that the instrumental versions are, in some cases, better than the ones with vocals. The Jazz track (Slow, Love, Slow) will probably strike me as a nice change of pace once I get used to it. Right now I don't like it. There are some typically bombastic tracks on there - I Want My Tears Back in particular. Overall it's definitely an evolution from Dark Passion Play but I'm not too sure it's in the right direction.

rainbow kirby

While Nightwish lyrics can be corny at the best of times, there are some seriously funny ones on this album. Case in point: ANYTHING from Song of Myself.

Malice

rainbow kirby wrote: »

While Nightwish lyrics can be corny at the best of times, there are some seriously funny ones on this album. Case in point: ANYTHING from Song of Myself.

Heh, that's quite right. I love the Wishmaster one. Hamster, Apprentice, hard porn, Steve Seagull indeed

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gg5_mlQOsUQ

Some of this is good too. I particularly like the reference to Bleem:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DWd6j5rphtg

Twilightning

Album's fantastic. If anyone was weary of Anette not being worthy to fill those diva's shoes this album should set them straight. Storytime is a typical single with a catchy chorus but the rest of the album is much better. Slow, Love, Slow hit me like a truck because I don't think anyone was expecting a slow, jazzy number from them. I like how the album can be so balanced and versatile in different areas. From that slow jazz-like song to tracks like I Want My Tears Back with strong traditional Irish influence, awesome heavy guitar riffs like the tune to Ghost River to the title-track which sounds like something directly out of a film score, a very fitting ending for the album

Malice

Twilightning wrote: »

If anyone was weary of Anette not being worthy to fill those diva's shoes this album should set them straight.

I don't know about that but I really don't want to open that can of worms. Suffice to say, as I think I said before on here, Tarja is a far better singer but with Anette it becomes more of a band.

Twilightning

Malice wrote: »

I don't know about that but I really don't want to open that can of worms. Suffice to say, as I think I said before on here, Tarja is a far better singer but with Anette it becomes more of a band.

I think in terms of technicality, Tarja does take the crown but she was fired in the band in 2005 and people are still going on about it, 7 years later. It's much the same on Nightwish's page on Last.fm, people frequently upvoting photos of the band for the main page with Tarja in them and saying they're sellouts or 'not Nightwish' anymore because she's not there.

Malice

Sadly one of the drawbacks of the Internet age is that idiots get a medium to demonstrate their idiocy. I don't mean you Twilightning , rather the clowns on Last.fm.

What do you think of the instrumental tracks?

kgt

Concerning Imaginarium: 1) Nightwish has disabled all comments functions at all of that bands websites. 2) just last week Tuomas makes an apologetic explaination for this work.

RE that explaination, at least he did the right thing and let some of us in on what this is about. He told a group of people in a live chat (myself included) that : "Sometimes when you get into the whole 'creativity' thing, that it may go into some places that are somewhat strange and not anticipated. And it was such with this album. I know it is not what our core base of followers were looking for or expecting and we should have done more along those areas, however, with it being nearly 3 years since our last album producing, and with not being for certain for a time if Annette would feel she could continue with us, it left a lot of questions and pressures to get an album out. I can see and hear now that many of the songs are feeling 'incomplete' and 'unfinished'. I am hoping that at least the film portion of this project works well so that it will all count for something. People do not realize just how fragile this whole 'magical world of music' really is. That leaves many of the writers and musicians having great success one day and then its somewhat like; 'What is this?'. SO for our core group of fans we as a band are hoping you will understand and go forward with us. When we tour this album, we are planning to add some of the songs also from Dark Passion Play as that album was so popular. Then we will regroup and try to work on this thing and try to do somethings the older and most loyal fans will relate too."

And so that was it. All quoted. I said it was a live chat, but it was a one way thing and he said his piece and it was all over. I saved the message and here you have it as well. I can say that after that, I am feeling better. And he did touch on the fact that most of the songs in this are incomplete.

Storytime for instance. Its a GREAT CHORUS. It just needs a song to go with it. The video production values were high, just vague. The 3 year thing had really made a difference and suddenly maestro is rusty. I hate when that happens. So, I do not plan on buying the cd for awhile, and all the hoopla dies down. That bands library is large enough that I have Nightwish for a long time without getting anywhere near Imaginarium. Tarja has released some new stuff too this last year. One positive here MAYBE....

Several of the songs are in an octave range very simailar to Annettes Alyson Avenue stuff. Although if that was the mission, they may as well have gone more over to that bands style. I am totally scratching my head over the "jazz" thing. I know Tuomas LOOKS LIKE YANNI, but Yanni hes not. That man is extrodinary in his style of music which is worlds away from anything Nightwish as far as genre. I am feeling for them as they are friends of sorts in the business.

I dont know why they didnt just get some writers to work up a stage production similar to Within Temptation; Black Symphony which is incredible. Maybe that will be next. Its got to get better. As far as this album..... its all in out imaginarium.

blastman

I have to say, I've listened to the album a bit more and I like it so far. There's a lot of variety in there and to me, it sounds like this is the problem most people who profess not liking it are having i.e. it's not "Nightwish" enough.

And when I looked there were 17 5-star (out of 22) reviews on Amazon (I realise that it's the hardcore fans that will buy and review first, but still, these are the people supposedly not happy with the album).

Malice

I don't know how much of a hardcore fan I'd consider myself but they are one of my favourite bands and frankly this album has definitely grown on me. The clue was when I was humming the chorus to Storytime while preparing last night's dinner .
I have to drive to Dublin on back on Sunday and I fully intend to be blasting the album out through the speakers for at least part of the journey!

Dark Artist

I've read a lot of negativity in this thread regarding this album and frankly I'm shocked. This album is pretty much outstanding. Tuomas has once again proved himself as an incredible writer who really knows the essence of what makes a song good. Every song works on its own and the album as a whole has to be considered one of their best, in my opinion. I get the impression that many people went into this with the intention of being extremely critical and forgot to actually give the music a chance to sink in.

Once and Dark Passion Play were great... had their weak moments but this album really hits the nail on the head for me.

As for the Tarja VS Anette thing... totally over it, they are both really talented singers in their own ways.

Twilightning

It's definitely been a grower for me too. Ghost River, I Want My Tears Back, Song of Myself, Slow, Love Slow and Last Ride of the Day are my favourites, I Want My Tears Back probably being the definitive favourite off the album for me. I've listened to it a good few times now since release and it's definitely as solid as the rest of their discog, although I feel any 10 minute+ epic Tuomas churns out in the future will never hold a candle to Ghost Love Score or The Poet and the Pendulum!

Malice

viadah wrote: »

No other Nightwish song has ever drawn my interest

What other Nightwish stuff have you listened to because I'm sure there's something in their back catalogue you'd like? I could post a dozen YouTube videos but that'd be a bit of a waste of time if you've listened to them all already.

Malice

Twilightning wrote: »

I Want My Tears Back probably being the definitive favourite off the album for me. I've listened to it a good few times now since release and it's definitely as solid as the rest of their discog, although I feel any 10 minute+ epic Tuomas churns out in the future will never hold a candle to Ghost Love Score or The Poet and the Pendulum!

I Want My Tears Back is definitely a cracker. As for ten minute epics you forgot Beauty of the Beast:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fzYzlI2jre4