People still listen to the radio? These days I find myself woefully behind on what’s a hit song because I just let RUclips create a playlist off of a single song I look for and let it run. If something catches my attention, awesome. I’ll take a closer look. More often than not it’s something at least a couple years old or older.
I feel like most of the hate came from the media miss genreing them as rock. And it really made the rock fanbase mad when billboard made the top 10 rock songs of the 2010's with ID being in the top three. ID has claimed their music as genreless. But the media screws them over by miss labeling them as rock. I guarantee if you search their name up on google, one month it will say Alt Rock, the next it will say pop.
another issue is that most people, like me, have only heard their biggest songs, when it seems like their fans don’t like any of the big hits. i think those hits are not good songs regardless of what genre they are in
@@jenconvertibles selene, bleeding out, dancing in the dark, and nothing left to say / rocks are my favourite imagine dragons song. i don’t listen to all their songs but those are the ones i like the most. but im not a hater of their most popular stuff lol so maybe my taste isn’t that great 😂
I said to my mom one time the fact that he doesn't sing the word "natural" as "nachural" made me feel pretty confident that he'd been a choir kid but a theater kid makes just as much sense
I’ll be mocked mercilessly for this but as someone who mostly listens to rock… I’ve never really minded them much, they’re just not rock, lol. I don’t find their music particularly bad on its own (not something I’d choose to listen to but not totally unlistenable, just mid), but I think their fanbase acting like it’s the MOST INTENSE EPIC THING ON EARTH, and them really leaning into that persona in recent years is what makes them seem so cringe now. I remember a few years back they had more of a wholesome reputation along the lines of owl city or pentatonix
As much as I hate Thunder. Some of their songs are really emotional and metaphorical. The music was good (to me), but I personally liked the lyrics, my most favorite songs from them, are quite full of metaphor. I think the reason I like them was the vibe foremost. It felt nice listening to them. They are not my favorite music makers anymore, (this spot has Two steps from Hell) but I still enjoy them.
I feel like 21 Pilots have that same problem. You can love ‘em, hate ‘em, or something in between,but don’t call them rock. They are an alternative pop/hip hop duo, and there’s no reason I’m aware of as to why they should be labeled anything else.
Imagine Dragons has always been one of my favorites, but I can 100% agree that they're just pop. The music is fun, I vibe with most of their stuff, that's all that matters
The Imagine Dragons reputation has changed so much, I legitimately forgot they are the artist behind “It’s Time.” You just reminded me there actually is an Imagine Dragons song I genuinely enjoy!
I was just thinking this. Nickleback’s first album was mostly written by Chad Kroeger’s cousin who left the band before the second album. They weren’t really innovative but they seemed about on par with a lot of mid tier faux grunge from the mid to late 90s. But there’s a steady shift between 1996 and 2006 where they dropped most creativity, opting for cookie cutter corporate composition while still being played alongside System of a Down on the radio. And even the corporate stuff wasn’t that offensive on its own. It was the juxtaposition of their songs with the work of artists who hadn’t “sold out.” For me the most notable shift was when their lyrics shifted to the childish rhyme scheme and meaningless lyrics. At least their albums prior to 2005 seemed to convey a genuine sense of anguish over losing loved ones to addiction instead of just “we drink and party and get DUIs” 🥴
For me imagine dragons was a good entry level band, it was a good starting point for my music taste in middle school but after smoke and mirrors I stopped listening to them.
@@gabehere i guess, i haven't listened to their most recent tracks. vessel & blurry sound kinda irrelevant now, and trench & scaled and icy just weren't for me anymore
Weird lore for you that only I know. One of my neighbors was a dude named Chad Mustard. Chad was married to Andrew Tolmans sister. Chad is the brother of Donald Mustard who created Fortnite. So the imagine dragon dynasty is technically connected to Fortnite. Weird right?
Chad mustard has a huge RUclips channel called Mustard Plays (m.ruclips.net/user/shortsN30fD1CvRhA) and it’s almost exclusively dedicated to Fortnite. I can’t imagine shilling my brother’s game for a living
In fact, I think the peak of their career was the album Smoke and Mirrors. even after 10 years, I'm kind of shocked by many of the instrumental solutions. It sounds like an amazing album where they found a balance between indie and their signature sound. However, after the vocalist came out from depression in 2016, he stopped writing dark, deep, lyrical lyrics with complex arrangements and switched to extremely exaggerated lifeless pop music. as he wrote himself, he is no longer interested in creating such deep music because his mind has cleared or something like that.
@@ДюсековИльяс deep and meaningfull lyrics don't have to be depressing, nor do you have to currently be depressed to write about the time you were. If anything, overcoming it should be a great artistic inspiration to write music sad songs about your experience and uplifting ones about your triumph over it. Or at least that what artistically driven creators do.
@@renocicchi7346not true. It means he had relatable issues but otherwise has nothing to say. Other artists come out of depression and still write soulful and beautiful music. Mitski is a notable example where there’s a defined period where she was depressed and a period where she was happier. Some fans felt like her music got boring because she got happy, but the vast majority love the new music because it wasn’t mindless and still as deep as it was before lol It’s a huge misconception characteristic of beginners that only depressing stuff/depressed artists can be deep-that’s why so many 14 year olds start out writing edgey things and then mature past it as they grow in their writing.
i’ve been a fan of them since the early days, so it’s cool to see someone who doesn’t have that history with them discussing their discography and history on such a deep level. just wish you had spent more time talking about Smoke + Mirrors because that’s been my personal favorite since it was released, and it often gets completely overlooked when people discuss them as a band.
Smoke and Mirrors is a masterpiece. Night Visions was great, Evolve was okay, but I kind of stopped caring with Orgins and the rest. Luckily I can put Shots on repeat til the end of time.
They are immenselyyy famous and rich, with candycrush moms and white 12 year olds gobbling their songs up, they’re hated by many but i wouldn’t call them crushed by the music industry, they’re the drake of rockbands
@@OysuL sorry of course you’re right. I meant creatively. The band members, as subject in a capitalist society, are doing great. But Drake was always just chasing the bag. Sad to see this band replace its creative drive with corporate accessibility
I didn't know "It's time" was an Imagine Dragons song. I always assumed that was the Killers or something. Wow. Imagine Dragons really changed over time.
As a d1 Imagine Dragons hater, I think what you can’t deny is that there was obviously some lightning in a bottle with their early hits that made people love them. Infusing arena rock with trap was certainly an idea that was unique to them. And I don’t doubt that the members do have talent, the vocalist obviously has some skill. I just do not like any of their songs. And I guess that’s okay.
i was a big imagine dragons apologist as a teen (still kinda have a soft spot for their earlier music, but i was REALLY one when younger), i loved believer and whatever it takes, but even i hated thunder. the inflection dan sings with in that song is obnoxious as is the sped up sampling, with a boring uninspired instrumental
It didnt die, it just hid itself in other corners of music. Bands like Arctic Monkeys, The Strokes, Interpol and Franz Ferdinand all came to fruition around this time as well and all of them are still very successful and respected by the masses
@@-toxicus-8582 In gaming terms, guitar bands all exist with a debuff. They just can't go the distance that they used to, regardless of prowess, and that is what I find sad.
@@oscarguzman3017 well yeah they are no longer solo-focused and shit but tbh that transformation had already happened in the 70s to early 80s through the punk and post-punk movements. I still think there is a lot of creative guitar in today's music. Interpol's riffs are all super catchy and mind-blowing; Radiohead also has great guitar stuff, specially Jony Greenwood's parts which will go down as some of the best guitar works in history; Alex Turner from AM also focuses a lot of his writing on guitar riffs. Overall, guitar never died or went debuffed. People simply stopped trying to show off their cool tapping and shredding and decided to focus on more emotional melodies instead
@@-toxicus-8582I’d still rather see more stuff that makes use of the guitar’s ability to create a wide range of sounds via effects. You know, the kind of stuff that guys like Head and Munky from Korn, Adam Jones of Tool, and Steve Albini (RIP) have been known for.
I was really into Imagine Dragons in middle school. I spent countless hours listening to Night Visions, and when Smoke + Mirrors dropped I listened to that nonstop as well. I started caring less about them around the time Evolve came out, and by Origins I'd checked out entirely. I listened to Eyes Closed out of curiosity recently, but turned it off after a minute due to how cringe it was. I wouldn't say they sold out as much as they flanderized. A lot of the elements of current day Imagine Dragons were present on their first two albums, but they were balanced out by other influences. My suspicion is that, after the more original and experimental (if you can call it that) Smoke + Mirrors underperformed, they tossed any sort of organic or unique sound left over from their early days out the window to begin chasing hits, which would bring them massive success on their follow up (though I will defend Walking The Wire and Whatever It Takes, those are bops).
I think imagine dragons first two albums were ACTUALLY good, being well produced isn’t bad; not everything has to sound like it’s being recorded through a microphone inside a toilet in order to be “good”.
I really enjoyed Imagine Dragons when they released Night Visions, and Smoke + Mirrors is probably my favorite album from them. The latter, for me, is when they struck perfect balance of their old indie sound with the more pop inspired sound that they continued to strive for. I really miss that era and really they’d do more experimentation like what appeared on that album
Smoke + Mirrors is just shy of a masterpiece. if you recut and reordered the album, taking some of the deluxe tracks too, it becomes a 10/10. Thief is their best song period.
i'm with pretty much everyone else in the comments here: Smoke + Mirrors is probably where Imagine Dragons peaked for me. definitely still stadium rock, but had enough rough edges that it didn't feel overproduced and wasn't super samey. there's still a lot of songs i like from that album (and the deluxe release), and i even stayed on board long enough to enjoy parts of Evolve, but in retrospect it was all downhill from Smoke + Mirrors. i do still miss that sound a lot, but hey -- i guess there's old EPs i can go dig up that i didn't know about before!
Imagine Dragons and many 'modern' rock acts fall under the category of 'pop/rock' as well as the 'soft rock' sub genre. These sub-genre's have always blurred the lines between rock and pop. And this is not a new phenomenon either, the Beatles are basically the forefathers of the entire sub-genre's and are a classic example of how the line is blurry between Rock and Pop, people were having debates in the 60's about whether certain acts should be classified as pop or rock or both or neither. Imagine Dragons are obviously not as good as the Beatles, but they are a good example of the problems of classifying genre's. Especially now with the continued success of Pop Rock alongside the resurgence of Country Rock (combining American Country Music with Rock Elements), Pop Punk (combing Pop with Punk rock elements) as well as so called 'emo rap' (combining Rap music with Emo rock elements).
There is something important between the transition from Smoke + Mirros to Evolve, being that the their music was seeing like "depressive and sad music" by the media, the main singer didn't like the fact that they were being seen like this and this being the reason why the singer wanted to make a total different approach to their music in Evolve, I think that they are interviews where he talks more about this. But what is sad to me is that Smoke + Mirrors is such a beautiful album and the instrumentation sounds gorgeous, the implementation of multiple instruments lead to a beautiful sound and all of this was replaced for a less composed songs, songs that are overall boring and nothing so deep, interesting o being made with the same passion as their songs from previous albums. Great video, is cool to see someone giving a different approach to the general opinion.
the hell and silence ep and the smoke and mirrors album are legitimately good, creative and pleasing listens. everything that came after those went downhill honestly
I made the same conclusion you did. They're very good musicians independently but their niche doesn't allow those talents to shine. They put out a live album relatively recently and all the songs sound a lot heavier with more prominent electric guitar, drums, etc. They actually sound like a rock band on some of these songs and imo sound way better. I still have a soft spot for the band since they were the first band that really got me into music.
This video (and this comment?) came out before LOOM, and I'd agree that it's an improvement on a lot of their previous stuff. Not that Mercury was terrible.
People who say rock is dead just aren’t paying attention to the scene. It’s alive and honestly gaining more and more traction. Like look at Turnstile and tell me rock is dead
I'm going to be real, I've always been a pretty die-hard fan for these guys and I think people give them a lot of shit that's undeserved. I was listening to their stuff back in 2010 and my sister got to see them perform on a rooftop in Provo, so when they blew up after Night Visions released, it was kind of a culture shock for me and my family who also loved their music lmao - I know that at least Dan used to be LDS (Mormon) and performed in the Salt Lake City area, which is how they got on our radar because my family is also part of the same church. Something I've always loved about them that they still have in my opinion is that it feels like every song of theirs (at least before Evolve) felt like it came from a different genre. Like, they all sounded so different from each other and didn't have that samey feel or very obvious musical tie-in that most albums do that you would expect from mainstream album releases. I'm trying to think of a better way to word it-- it's most obvious in the Hell and Silence EP and the Smoke and Mirrors album, where you're expecting a similar sound from the next track based on the one you're listening to, but I remember loving how I was always surprised by the difference in sound from track to track. Smoke and Mirrors is my favorite of their released albums and Hell and Silence my favorite of their EPs for this reason. Like the jump from the track 'Smoke and Mirrors' to 'I'm So Sorry' and then to 'Bet My Life' is so strange compared to the regular flow I'm used to from music albums. I really like that about their music, and I still think they have that, though not as strong as it used to be. I agree that the Evolve album is where I started to see songs I didn't click with as much- after that released I didn't closely follow them as much as I used to, but the Mercury albums are actually really nice, there's a few songs in there that I really love. It's interesting because I could see the shift in feel that they went through once they blew up in 2012; since I've been following them for 12-13 years I've been able to see the whole thing happen over time. Imagine Dragons was kind of the poster child for family-friendly 'rock', and a lot of that came from there being such a large Mormon following, and I saw how that pressure to release that kind of mild, mainstream, pop-sounding music every time started to show a whole lot more over the years, specifically following Evolve. Both the industry and the religious pressure was insane at that time, since everyone was expecting very specific things from them, and a bit later Dan announced that he was leaving the Mormon church. He wrote a song about trying to reconcile his feelings about the LGBTQ+ community and his faith, one that hits pretty hard for me, but after completely separating himself, the band has definitely leaned a lot harder into rock genre. The Mercury album feels like the band testing the waters with harder sounding music, along with including a lot of aspects of mental health, depression, and internal struggles, which is what drew me back to the band. 'Giants' is definitely my favorite track from the two albums. It just feels more genuine and from the heart than the previous few albums when they were in the mainstream spotlight, and I'm actually really excited to see what they come up with next if this is the direction that they're going!
They still are in the mainstream/public spotlight. It is common for musicians to go to their serious phase. So it's expected that Imagine dragons would tell such stories through their music.
Used to run into Dan Reynolds at the Target up the street from my house every few months. He was always really nice and would sign autographs for kids and their moms. The drummer used to buy herb at a dispensary not far from my house as well. He always blended in and hid like no one knew who he was.
I love Night Visions and Smoke+ Mirrors, both albums showcased some really interesting music with something to say, the problem is that they stopped making that kind of music. At the time I kind of liked Evolve because I felt a few of the songs in that album really resonated with me but nowadays I don't really think about that album at all, I find myself revisiting their first 2 albums more often. I stopped listening after their fourth album because all the spark of the first two was gone by then.
Something I’ve been saying for a while now is that their best stuff tends to be the songs that didn’t blow up. I’m not even just talking about their older music, I think a lot of the songs on their recent albums that you wouldn’t hear on the radio are actually really good. But they’ve definitely gone more in the pop direction of pop rock over the years, so I get why plenty of people stopped caring for them enough to actually go and listen to those less popular songs.
I'm glad I'm relatively offline when it comes to music bc I never knew Imagine Dragons had haters. I'm not obsessed with them anymore but they still consistently drop bangers like Enemy and Bones and they've maintained their own unique sound that nobody else compares to as far as I know. I never would have considered them rock tho, that's weird
imagine dragons are one of the most hated bands like ever. obviously they have their huge fanbase of die hard fans who don’t care about music quality or online reception etc, but like every album and almost song of theirs has been critically panned. and outside of their fanbases, public reception is overwhelmingly negative. also people do compare to them. the issue is their sound isn’t unique, like at all. if you think they sound unique, you just don’t listen to enough music.
@@cwega2463 Every normal person I know either enjoys or doesn't care about Imagine Dragons. I have one friend who hasn't been into them since Evolve but even he liked Enemy. Can you give an example of a band or artist that sounds like them? When I hear a new song in the grocery store I can immediately tell it's Imagine Dragons despite never hearing the song before
Imagine Dragons really fueled my imagination as a teen, I think Radioactive came out when I was really into Hunger Games so those tie together in my mind a bit. No matter what anyone says, the songs of theirs I love will be important to me. I implore anyone reading this to share your favorite Imagine Dragons song below! (Mine are Warriors, Radioactive, and Monster!)
I really fckn like Believer 🤷♀️ I dgaf if it's pop or rock or what frikkin genre it is, I can make a dope-ass AMV in my head to that song. Also Natural and Enemy.
Bro I was the most diehard fan of imagine dragons in middle school (circa 2018), so much so that I had gone all the way back to speak to me and knew all the band lore. While my musical taste has evolved (no pun intended) a lot since then, I still retain a certain fondness for them, and felt very validated when you talked about their earlier stuff (hell and silence is also my favorite stuff by them). Anyway, my continued affection for them led me to check out mercury part 1 when it came out, and honestly, it was pretty surprising. Some songs (giants, dull knives) have legit screaming on them, and one of my favorite takes is that the song cutthroat sounds like if limp bizkit and Hamilton had a baby 💀. I never got around to listening to mercury pt 2 when it dropped, but I have to say in terms of mercury pt 1, I’d say it still has some of those deep cut, more experimental songs on it. But anyway as someone who has the imagine dragons lore implanted in their mind, this was a very fun video for me.
@@cl8804They were my first ever live concert I chose to go to myself, having seen many legendary live acts and concerts since then, those memories still hold a special place in my heart and I thought they put on a hell of a show for the time even by today's standards. Yes songs like Thunder and even their newest "Nice To Meet You" suck ass, but they were a genuinely impressive live force in their beginnings
despite being ambivalent to their newer stuff, i’ve always loved the majority of night visions, especially the bonus tracks on the deluxe version. now it makes perfect sense, knowing that those tracks were from their early EPs. i’ll have to check those out
@@holderrrrnameex actually. well, they havent called themselves that but wont raise their kids around it and donated a multi million dollar home in a very mormon area for kicked out lgbtq+ kids. they’ve got a soft spot for ex mormons. LDS is **REALLY** hard to mentally leave yourself from. a good amnt of their stuff is about feeling like going to hell for the greater good bc thats why they left lds. over queer kids
@jmiller08 Nah they're exmormon I'm pretty sure. Dan used to not like it but tried to make changes from the inside but he's given up and fully embraced being an exmormon more recently
@@holderrrrname ex mormon lol. I remember a post from Dan promoting some way to get out of the church (they apparently kinda stalk u to go back if u try to leave) also the lyrics of believer are really telling💀
Maybe I'm a sheep, but I tend to enjoy their music--the heavy beats, the energy, and especially Dan's vocals. I started to like them more when I got the Imagine Dragons pack on Beat Saber because their songs are the most fun to play imo. I never understood the hate, but hearing about their fanbase and their claim to be rock makes some sense. I wouldn't call them rock either.
they don’t claim to be rock. they have said they are “genre-less” and all their songs are very different from each other (i really really love some but others suck ass- there’s a wide spectrum of what genre their songs are). however people just like sticking things in categories- they got put into the rock category; people said it wasn’t rock; they got put into pop, and pop is cringe :/
it’s so nice to see someone talking about imagine dragons like this! I discovered them through night visions when it first blew up and fell in love with their earlier EPs. pistol whip has been one of my favorites of theirs for a long time. thanks for talking about it and their other early works, they truly deserve a lot more credit than they get
I was so obsessed with the early EPs as an early teen, it was so frustrating being obsessed with songs as obscure as they were at the time. Really cool to see these covered in a video!
their first EP as imagine dragons was in the same vein as Kings Of Leon’s biggest album. there’s an alternate universe where they carry the torch for the post punk revival movement that spawned in the late 90s and early 00s
I really really like the first two albums. Then with Evolve a lot of the lyrics got really full of themselves and humble-braggy and I didn't like it much. There's still a good song here and there but a lot of their music now seems to lean into this weird pop rock/"hip-hop w/o actually being hip-hop" sound that bugs the hell out of me. It's hard for me to describe. But the vibe changed once they got super successful.
laughing at "bullet in a gun" protesting about being called sell-outs bc like... you did sell out tho. you literally changed your sound to be more poppy bc it made you more popular after smoke + mirrors failed to have as much impact as night visions bc it sounded closer to rock. just own it
@@Tendo641"just own this narrative that I decided was true and projected onto the people I don't know". maybe that's just not how they feel about it. their art is literally just them expressing their opinions and if they disagree with your opinion that they sold out then they're going to express that and you saying that they should just own it like they're lying to you is ridiculous. people can just actually have a different perspective and opinion on situations than you that doesn't make them a liar. to be clear just because someone changes their sound to be more pop doesn't mean they're selling out. you don't know the reason why they chose that just because it was more popular and made more money doesn't mean that's why they chose to do it in the first place nor did they have some sort of guarantee that it would make them successful when they started it. and to be clear I don't even listen to them but it's the fact of the matter that you're just assuming you know stuff about strangers because of some of their music that you've listened to. it's such a weird attitude I see all over the Internet everybody just assumes that they know so much about a situation that involves people they will never meet and it's bizarre. the idea that they sold out is also kind of weird because if they started making music to make money in the first place then how is it selling out if they want to make more? that's just them doing their job well and pursuing the goals they already set out. unless you're saying that they initially claimed that they wanted to do one thing and then they turned around and did another it's weird to say that an artist sold out just because they're successful and they made themselves more successful. if that's what they always wanted to do and they never said they were going to do anything other than that then it's not selling out. all artists are different and make art for various reasons. we live in a terrible cutthroat capitalist society and they did their job and made money what's the big deal? it's not selling out just cuz it's successful. like how do you know they're not making the music they want to make? that this isn't the stuff they enjoy ? there's no way for you to know that. the idea of them selling out for money is this idea that they would rather be making something more experimental and artistic but you have no way of knowing that just because they did something that you think is more experimental in the past.
I believe its what the gen x-ers used to call 'selling out', and I imagine it's as old as the music industry. Kings of Leon is another example from a few years earlier.
Gen X-er here. This is exactly what we called selling out. I mean, maybe not in this case because (fun fact) not a single one of us has ever heard an imagine dragons song, but I remember seeing them in a TV ad once. Fair or not, there was no faster way to get your sell-out card punched in our day
thank you for remembering the first EPs. really, thank you so much. when i came to the fandom in 2017 (💀) i've started to listen ALL of their songs, really, all of them, especially the early ones. and these songs are the ones that imagine dragons need to be loved by, seriously. i forgot that and you've reminded me. thank you.
I'm a very big ID fan but I gotta admit Evolve is far from their best album. However, Mercury is really good. It reminds me of Smoke and Mirrors a lot. Their new albums always have a few more mainstream aimed songs that tend to be the most well known ones, but when you get past them you find really great intimate songs. For every Enemy, Bones and Sharks there is a Wrecked, Waves and They Don't Know You Like I Do
YES!!!! YOU GET IT!! Giants is my favorite from the Mercury album, the whole thing feels more of like a return to form and leaning away from the mainstream sound
For anyone the only knows the singles, I highly recommend try with this one: --Shots (S&M) --Smoke and Mirrros (S&M) --Dream (S&M) --Hopeless Oppus (S&M) Yeah, I truly love S&M but sadly is their less known album :,).
I liked their songs. Lost all respect when they played in Azerbaijan, and then spinelessly said their music should not be politicized and should not depend on the actions of the world leaders, even tho they cancelled their concert in Russia when the latter first invaded Ukraine. Either way, playing in a country that's actively committing atrocities and then trying to somehow justify it is absolutely scummy.
Amsterdam and It’s Time were my favourite songs to put on in the car with my dad. ❤ We always give their new albums a listen but the last couple have been rough to get through.
Imagine Dragons saw a trend as it was happening, played into it, and managed to find a lucrative audience who could support them.... It's just too bad for anyone who cares about art that that audience was corporate advertisers.
Finally I have some companies by my side when I said the new Imagine Dragon was bad music trend and someone does recognize the important of their old EPs. I really don't like how most trending 'rock' reviewer despise them as a whole, saying that they don't deserve to be rock, along with Coldplay; that's not true! I was ABLE to enjoy their music up passed Smoke and Mirror, then I listened to Evolve and surely did I notice something was lost behind all of those trendy booming sound; then after that I tried to catch on to the other recent albums but it lost within my ears and my minds, nothing good was recorded in my head. Then recently I was catching onto all of their first EPs and I cried, I cried out for the distastefulness of reality and that of their music, that they have to run after trends to survive and sell themselves off. Those EPs were too good, they were such a good roots and they have to cut if off. Shoutout to Pantomime, Amsterdam, Look How Far We've Come, Destination, Drive and Clouds Redeem yourself and finish up ' I wish you well' And a BIGGGG Middle finger to 'Giants', 'Bone' and 'Thunder'. Giants was just a mess that they tried to get back to whatever 'rock' they thought of with that yelling, such a pain. And the other two, no words!
They don't have to do anything they don't want to do. They're choosing to chase after these trends because they know that it's making them successful. There how many albums in? It's not like they were on the first album where the record company was probably controlling them. At this point they've chosen commercial success which is very fleeting and very fickle over authenticity. I'm sure those guys are great human beings but musically they're rubbish
It’s sad. I genuinely can’t bear to listen to most of their new stuff, but I still sometimes listen to their old stuff, like hear me, round and round, Amsterdam, pantomime, the river, look how far we’ve come, and America Same goes with Coldplay.
Your talking points and criticisms are completely valid. Coming from a long time fan of the band, I grew up listening to night visions, that album inevitably peaked my interest into listening to all genres of music, despite this impact the album had on me I never once considered them a rock band though. For me, the group got my attention the most with some songs I find to be very underrated on Evolve (walking the wire, and rise up are some examples.) it wasn't for the fact that they *sound* like this genre/group, but rather how some of the songs where written. This group helped me recognize very early into my life the emotion, expression, and storytelling that can packaged with a song/album, and set me on a journey to discover plenty of other artists and groups that I might find more or less interesting depending on who you ask, Because it's all 110% subjective. This video taught me a lot about them! awesome job!
I heard "It's Time" on the radio today and went to listen to it on RUclips, then wondered "hey, why do people hate them again?" Then I found this video, lol. Thanks for the breakdown!
It wasn’t until I started listening to a bunch of different music that I realized Imagine Dragons lacks any kind of creativity and they are the industry plantiest industry plants out there. Their music is still nostalgic for me though, so I can still appreciate it a little
@@oh.sorry.dont.mind.meeeee Nah because once they signed with a record they were instantly popular because the record label had them make boring over produced pop music
I was a teenager when this band got big. I already knew it was as bad as what coldplay have become. Call me underground or whatever but when a band goes to comon sense, it gets easy to digest and trash.
Can you advice some groups with creative music? I’m not being toxic right now, I just like imagine dragons very much and I want to know some better groups
@@user-oe9gi8zi2x Idk about groups because nowadays most artists work on their own. Some of my favorite artists are Tame Impala, Tyler the Creator and Radiohead (which is a group)
Finally! Someone brings a great point to the Imagine Dragons discourse, growing up they were one of my favorites cause of these deep cuts, and the big hits were decent enough to not mind them. I completely gave up on their new material until further notice (and i don't blame them, get the bag), but their early discography run still holds a special place for me
Really enjoyed this! Hope you do more videos covering different bands or genres of music, it was rlly interesting looking at Imagine Dragons' older EPs. I don't like them at all but seeing their evolution was intriguing to say the least
Their initial EPs were great. It was really fun and energetic. I think they blew up when Radioactive came out because it was the song for a Stephanie Meyer movie (not Twilight, her other book). They still have some fun songs in their current album, but I only like a handful of their songs. I agree labeling them as "indie rock" was a bad idea, but their earlier sounds were pop-rock. Personally, I love Hell and Silence, Tokyo, and Uptight. Edit: I forgot to add "30 Lives" in the list
interesting. i used to listen to them quite a bit when i was like 14 and stopped once I found out good music exists. Selene was a track I really continued to like, which makes sense now
I believe the re-recorded version of “Amsterdam” is their best song. It sounds like an actual band playing and has a great melody and even a breakdown in the bridge section. It still is somewhat pop but has great balance between a rock band and pop act.
One of my favorite songs from Imagine Dragons comes from Evolve: I’ll Make It Up To You. It brings the lovable feeling of pop with a sense of 90’s rock with the guitar outro! If we had more of that sound during Evolve, I think it would be a great album to listen to!
I remember hearing somewhere that they had some connections with the heads of iHeartRadio or something and that their continued relevance is at least partially due to someone behind the scenes pushing them onto radio playlists
They are a band that exists that's for sure, certainly not one of the best bands that have ever lived but also not as bad as the edgy "I HATE IMAGINE DRAGONS, LOOK AT ME, I'M SUCH A TRUE MUSIC ENJOYER" jokes would have you believe.
Just my personal opinion, but Night Visions (and the EP before that) were surprisingly strong, and fit into that OneRepublic/The Fray/Walk the Moon/etc pop rock genre really well. As their career went on I vibed with less of it, and occasionally I think a song surprises me (I will defend Bad Liar) but most of it is just really doesn't sound good for the last 8+ years
Wow, well done video! I was a huge fan of their's when I was younger, before Evolve dropped. I was in their EP's RUclips comments and everything. I was really excited to listen to it, but I dont recall if I ever finished the album. Which is a shame. Still, a lot of their songs I enjoy to this day and hold a special place in my heart. They're not harming anyone with their music, and if they're happy, then it's all okay
You should def check out mecury act 1. This album is genuinely so different for them and they explored a lot of rock moments, while still mixing the album with their “Imagine Dragons” songs within the album
@@LumiNyte Yeah Mercury Act 1 was a solid return to form but they didn't really stick to it with Mercury Act 2 unfortunately. Mercury Act 2 had a few great tracks but felt like lazy songwriting and wayyyy too many really short tracks
Thanks for such a great and comprehensive video with a very levelheaded take! I got into Imagine Dragons in the early days, seeing them 3 times during my freshman year of college in a tiny venue. And they put on such amazing, high energy shows. During the early EP days, I was describing them as having an indie synth vibe similar to the old Killers, so you hit the nail on the head. I gave up on them sometimes around the Smoke and Mirrors era, but I still like going back to those early EPs that were made when they sounded like an actual band.
As a kid, i would always write them as my favorite band, not because of specific passion and love for their songs, but solely because i thought their name was cool.
![BLACK BAG - Official Trailer [HD] - Only in Theaters March 14](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/Du0Xp8WX_7I/mqdefault.jpg)
Commenting here because I’m your 10k sub 🎉
Thank you so much, you're a part of GregCubed history!
That's pathetic
@@OffendingTheOffendable They used ta' call me pathetic back in college!
@@PerfectedCeII g
no way perfect cell made the channel number a perfect 10k
I'd call them the Maroon 5 of the 2010s if not for the fact that Maroon 5 also managed to stick around in the 2010s.
i mean i'd say they're more like nickleback of their time if nickleback were somehow worse
that is a disservice to nickleback
I don't try to line them up in ranking butt these three bands stick together for me in a sense when I think of 'pop music' from 2000's.
@@newon2014 For real, Nickelback at least had one really good album
I'd take Maroon 5 over Imagine Dragons any day. ID commits the cardinal music sin of being boring. At least Maroon 5 is upbeat most of the time.
Are you on the radio because you're popular? Or are you popular because you're played on the radio?
Throughout heaven and earth, I alone am the imagined dragon
@@shaunbarber2325 imaginary technique: dragons
People still listen to the radio? These days I find myself woefully behind on what’s a hit song because I just let RUclips create a playlist off of a single song I look for and let it run. If something catches my attention, awesome. I’ll take a closer look. More often than not it’s something at least a couple years old or older.
Do you make good music?
Well, some might say I don’t…
But are you bad?
Nah, I’m radioactive.
can you get on the radio without being popular? all stations i've listened to that play new music only play what's on the charts.
"Imagine all the dragons" - John Lennon
I was just imaging the other day a mashup of Imagine with an Imagine Dragons song lol
Should've imagined no 38 revolvers instead
Someone should cover "Imagine" in Imagine Dragons style.
Breathin' chemicaaals, yoo-hoo-ooo
John Lennon high on heroine
I feel like most of the hate came from the media miss genreing them as rock. And it really made the rock fanbase mad when billboard made the top 10 rock songs of the 2010's with ID being in the top three. ID has claimed their music as genreless. But the media screws them over by miss labeling them as rock.
I guarantee if you search their name up on google, one month it will say Alt Rock, the next it will say pop.
another issue is that most people, like me, have only heard their biggest songs, when it seems like their fans don’t like any of the big hits. i think those hits are not good songs regardless of what genre they are in
@@_Medley_ someone who likes their own comment and only ever heard their radio hits and not their entire discography. Smh.
@@jenconvertibles selene, bleeding out, dancing in the dark, and nothing left to say / rocks are my favourite imagine dragons song. i don’t listen to all their songs but those are the ones i like the most. but im not a hater of their most popular stuff lol so maybe my taste isn’t that great 😂
Irregardless of genre there sound is commercial music, and I even really loved radioactive
I misread that as misgendering
so they started off as theater kids? honestly checks the fuck out
Honestly, lol
I said to my mom one time the fact that he doesn't sing the word "natural" as "nachural" made me feel pretty confident that he'd been a choir kid but a theater kid makes just as much sense
@@amoureux6502 don't forget about accents
We don't claim them.
I’ll be mocked mercilessly for this but as someone who mostly listens to rock… I’ve never really minded them much, they’re just not rock, lol. I don’t find their music particularly bad on its own (not something I’d choose to listen to but not totally unlistenable, just mid), but I think their fanbase acting like it’s the MOST INTENSE EPIC THING ON EARTH, and them really leaning into that persona in recent years is what makes them seem so cringe now. I remember a few years back they had more of a wholesome reputation along the lines of owl city or pentatonix
This. All of this.
As much as I hate Thunder. Some of their songs are really emotional and metaphorical. The music was good (to me), but I personally liked the lyrics, my most favorite songs from them, are quite full of metaphor. I think the reason I like them was the vibe foremost. It felt nice listening to them.
They are not my favorite music makers anymore, (this spot has Two steps from Hell) but I still enjoy them.
Yeah it's not at all rock for me and it seems a bit "edgy" but i like it 👌
I feel like 21 Pilots have that same problem. You can love ‘em, hate ‘em, or something in between,but don’t call them rock. They are an alternative pop/hip hop duo, and there’s no reason I’m aware of as to why they should be labeled anything else.
@@eeyorehaferbock7870 Yeah exactly, actually playing instruments doesn’t automatically make you a rock band
At first it shocked me on the musical theatre vibe of their original music, but then it started to make sense that Imagine Dragons would be into that
Yeah, perfect sense to me. Then came the inevitable turning point where they chose between mattering to pop music or mattering to music
Imagine Dragons has always been one of my favorites, but I can 100% agree that they're just pop. The music is fun, I vibe with most of their stuff, that's all that matters
agree!
Yup, if you like it that's good. So long as people find some kind of music they enjoy it's great
Dull Knives and I’m So Sorry aren’t pop
@strikerbowls791 strikerbowls791 finds out majority pop acts can make non-pop songs at times
It’s just a genreless group I guess
The Imagine Dragons reputation has changed so much, I legitimately forgot they are the artist behind “It’s Time.” You just reminded me there actually is an Imagine Dragons song I genuinely enjoy!
Have you listened to love of mine, it was an old night visions demo they released and I think it’s now my favorite song from them
Yeah their early stuff was pretty good, but they lost me at smoke + mirrors
@@ricemartini2135not the only
@@ricemartini2135 white pony spotted in the wild
It's Time is so good though @@ricemartini2135
I remember seeing some bathroom graffiti that said, "Imagine Dragons is just spicy Nickelback".
Spicy in the way that "Baja sauce" from Taco Bell is spicy. You know, too much spice for full bodied, 2006 low-end SUV drivin soccer ma's.
I was just thinking this. Nickleback’s first album was mostly written by Chad Kroeger’s cousin who left the band before the second album. They weren’t really innovative but they seemed about on par with a lot of mid tier faux grunge from the mid to late 90s.
But there’s a steady shift between 1996 and 2006 where they dropped most creativity, opting for cookie cutter corporate composition while still being played alongside System of a Down on the radio.
And even the corporate stuff wasn’t that offensive on its own. It was the juxtaposition of their songs with the work of artists who hadn’t “sold out.”
For me the most notable shift was when their lyrics shifted to the childish rhyme scheme and meaningless lyrics. At least their albums prior to 2005 seemed to convey a genuine sense of anguish over losing loved ones to addiction instead of just “we drink and party and get DUIs” 🥴
Not really tho. You can’t just call everything spicy for no reason, it’s annoying as hell.
They’re both the blandest form of music, no spice involved.
Oddly enough I'd say it's the other way around lol
It's the other way around
For me imagine dragons was a good entry level band, it was a good starting point for my music taste in middle school but after smoke and mirrors I stopped listening to them.
yeah imagine dragons and tøp were my gateway drug to alt/indie lol
@@godzdead except tøp is still good
@@gabehere i guess, i haven't listened to their most recent tracks. vessel & blurry sound kinda irrelevant now, and trench & scaled and icy just weren't for me anymore
@@godzdead i liked trench, better overall than blurry.
Trench is arguably their best
"Do not kill the part of you that is cringe - kill the part of you that cringes"
--Sun Tsu
Thank you sun tsu for the wise words 🙏
Sun Tzu rolling over in his grave at this one
Aint no way he said that
Weird lore for you that only I know. One of my neighbors was a dude named Chad Mustard. Chad was married to Andrew Tolmans sister. Chad is the brother of Donald Mustard who created Fortnite. So the imagine dragon dynasty is technically connected to Fortnite. Weird right?
Weird but surprisingly fitting lol
That explains a lot actually.
I refuse to believe there's an actual person named Chad Mustard for some reason.
@@juanblanco7898 Sounds like a shitpost name
Chad mustard has a huge RUclips channel called Mustard Plays (m.ruclips.net/user/shortsN30fD1CvRhA) and it’s almost exclusively dedicated to Fortnite. I can’t imagine shilling my brother’s game for a living
In fact, I think the peak of their career was the album Smoke and Mirrors. even after 10 years, I'm kind of shocked by many of the instrumental solutions. It sounds like an amazing album where they found a balance between indie and their signature sound.
However, after the vocalist came out from depression in 2016, he stopped writing dark, deep, lyrical lyrics with complex arrangements and switched to extremely exaggerated lifeless pop music. as he wrote himself, he is no longer interested in creating such deep music because his mind has cleared or something like that.
"mind had cleared" its just an excuse for becoming mind-numbingly lazy with his lyrics lmao
@@Sahnie-Eidk not wanting to write depressing lyrics, because you're no longer depressed seems like a perfectly fine reason
@@Sahnie-Eit’s a sad reality that sad people make great artists
@@ДюсековИльяс deep and meaningfull lyrics don't have to be depressing, nor do you have to currently be depressed to write about the time you were. If anything, overcoming it should be a great artistic inspiration to write music sad songs about your experience and uplifting ones about your triumph over it. Or at least that what artistically driven creators do.
@@renocicchi7346not true. It means he had relatable issues but otherwise has nothing to say. Other artists come out of depression and still write soulful and beautiful music. Mitski is a notable example where there’s a defined period where she was depressed and a period where she was happier. Some fans felt like her music got boring because she got happy, but the vast majority love the new music because it wasn’t mindless and still as deep as it was before lol
It’s a huge misconception characteristic of beginners that only depressing stuff/depressed artists can be deep-that’s why so many 14 year olds start out writing edgey things and then mature past it as they grow in their writing.
i’ve been a fan of them since the early days, so it’s cool to see someone who doesn’t have that history with them discussing their discography and history on such a deep level. just wish you had spent more time talking about Smoke + Mirrors because that’s been my personal favorite since it was released, and it often gets completely overlooked when people discuss them as a band.
I don’t like any of their new stuff but smoke and mirrors is genuinely a good album fr
smoke + mirrors my beloved ❤❤
Literally their best album. They truly peaked with that one.
Smoke and Mirrors is a masterpiece. Night Visions was great, Evolve was okay, but I kind of stopped caring with Orgins and the rest. Luckily I can put Shots on repeat til the end of time.
I gotta agree, smoke and mirrors was just something else, but they started falling off after that
Their mainstream singles are mid, but their smaller songs buried in the albums are actually quite cool
Polaroid is one of my favorites of theirs, and I have honestly never seen a single other person talk about it.
@@SaltDoesArt remember this one, it's definetly nice
Thats such a hipster takw
@@SaltDoesArtPolaroid is one of their top tier songs, but songs that "speak to me" from them are Shots and Gold.
Hear me is so good and it gets lost with the mainstream ones 😭
Still think Amsterdam is one of the best songs of the early 2010s, really wish they'd stuck with that sound
Same
Amsterdam and Hear Me are really good
@@1brytolHear Me is really good
Rocks is a good, relatively unknown song
Smoke and Mirrors in its entirety is an album I'm quite fond of
@@1brytol round and round is cool too
Idk but I really love Selene. It just hits that perfect spot in my brain, and I feel like it's a very underrated song.
Now they make me more sad than angry. A couple of theatre kids crushed by the music industry
They are immenselyyy famous and rich, with candycrush moms and white 12 year olds gobbling their songs up, they’re hated by many but i wouldn’t call them crushed by the music industry, they’re the drake of rockbands
@@OysuL sorry of course you’re right. I meant creatively. The band members, as subject in a capitalist society, are doing great. But Drake was always just chasing the bag. Sad to see this band replace its creative drive with corporate accessibility
@@vraisairs9201 He was also chasing Children but yeah
@@reigoemon2229ouch 😅
I didn't know "It's time" was an Imagine Dragons song. I always assumed that was the Killers or something. Wow. Imagine Dragons really changed over time.
Dan's voice is pretty distinct to imagine dragons so that's surprising
@@hamzerpanzer I think is crazy to confuse the voice in "it's time" with the voice from The Killers! hehe
As a d1 Imagine Dragons hater, I think what you can’t deny is that there was obviously some lightning in a bottle with their early hits that made people love them. Infusing arena rock with trap was certainly an idea that was unique to them. And I don’t doubt that the members do have talent, the vocalist obviously has some skill. I just do not like any of their songs. And I guess that’s okay.
Thunder is one of the worst songs ever
Fr
One of the worst songs?, no. One of the worst choruses in song history?, yes.
The worst song ever*
i was a big imagine dragons apologist as a teen (still kinda have a soft spot for their earlier music, but i was REALLY one when younger), i loved believer and whatever it takes, but even i hated thunder. the inflection dan sings with in that song is obnoxious as is the sped up sampling, with a boring uninspired instrumental
It’s not even their worst song imo. Have you heard the screaming on Giants?
Why did the guitar have to die? There are phenomenal guitar bands that are creating fantastically creative sounds that will never get their roses. 😢
It didnt die, it just hid itself in other corners of music. Bands like Arctic Monkeys, The Strokes, Interpol and Franz Ferdinand all came to fruition around this time as well and all of them are still very successful and respected by the masses
@@-toxicus-8582
In gaming terms, guitar bands all exist with a debuff. They just can't go the distance that they used to, regardless of prowess, and that is what I find sad.
@@oscarguzman3017 well yeah they are no longer solo-focused and shit but tbh that transformation had already happened in the 70s to early 80s through the punk and post-punk movements. I still think there is a lot of creative guitar in today's music. Interpol's riffs are all super catchy and mind-blowing; Radiohead also has great guitar stuff, specially Jony Greenwood's parts which will go down as some of the best guitar works in history; Alex Turner from AM also focuses a lot of his writing on guitar riffs. Overall, guitar never died or went debuffed. People simply stopped trying to show off their cool tapping and shredding and decided to focus on more emotional melodies instead
@@-toxicus-8582I’d still rather see more stuff that makes use of the guitar’s ability to create a wide range of sounds via effects. You know, the kind of stuff that guys like Head and Munky from Korn, Adam Jones of Tool, and Steve Albini (RIP) have been known for.
I was really into Imagine Dragons in middle school. I spent countless hours listening to Night Visions, and when Smoke + Mirrors dropped I listened to that nonstop as well. I started caring less about them around the time Evolve came out, and by Origins I'd checked out entirely. I listened to Eyes Closed out of curiosity recently, but turned it off after a minute due to how cringe it was. I wouldn't say they sold out as much as they flanderized. A lot of the elements of current day Imagine Dragons were present on their first two albums, but they were balanced out by other influences. My suspicion is that, after the more original and experimental (if you can call it that) Smoke + Mirrors underperformed, they tossed any sort of organic or unique sound left over from their early days out the window to begin chasing hits, which would bring them massive success on their follow up (though I will defend Walking The Wire and Whatever It Takes, those are bops).
Checking out Eyes Closed was what inspired me to make this lol, I really did not like it either
Same here. Smoke and Mirros was my favourite album until I got into The Strokes and forgot ID even existed
Everything you just said echoes my own relationship with this band, i couldnt have said it better myself
@@alcedob.5850we have followed the same path
Pretty much the same experience here. A shame because I really liked smoke and mirrors. Friction goes pretty hard.
I think imagine dragons first two albums were ACTUALLY good, being well produced isn’t bad; not everything has to sound like it’s being recorded through a microphone inside a toilet in order to be “good”.
I really enjoyed Imagine Dragons when they released Night Visions, and Smoke + Mirrors is probably my favorite album from them. The latter, for me, is when they struck perfect balance of their old indie sound with the more pop inspired sound that they continued to strive for. I really miss that era and really they’d do more experimentation like what appeared on that album
Smoke + Mirrors is just shy of a masterpiece. if you recut and reordered the album, taking some of the deluxe tracks too, it becomes a 10/10. Thief is their best song period.
i'm with pretty much everyone else in the comments here: Smoke + Mirrors is probably where Imagine Dragons peaked for me. definitely still stadium rock, but had enough rough edges that it didn't feel overproduced and wasn't super samey. there's still a lot of songs i like from that album (and the deluxe release), and i even stayed on board long enough to enjoy parts of Evolve, but in retrospect it was all downhill from Smoke + Mirrors. i do still miss that sound a lot, but hey -- i guess there's old EPs i can go dig up that i didn't know about before!
I feel the same
Imagine Dragons and many 'modern' rock acts fall under the category of 'pop/rock' as well as the 'soft rock' sub genre. These sub-genre's have always blurred the lines between rock and pop. And this is not a new phenomenon either, the Beatles are basically the forefathers of the entire sub-genre's and are a classic example of how the line is blurry between Rock and Pop, people were having debates in the 60's about whether certain acts should be classified as pop or rock or both or neither.
Imagine Dragons are obviously not as good as the Beatles, but they are a good example of the problems of classifying genre's. Especially now with the continued success of Pop Rock alongside the resurgence of Country Rock (combining American Country Music with Rock Elements), Pop Punk (combing Pop with Punk rock elements) as well as so called 'emo rap' (combining Rap music with Emo rock elements).
After the first two albums, I think they stick more into the pop label
"Emo rap" has zero emo elements like fucking zero not even little like just zero
@@MandyCandy13xxxtentacion made a few emo rock tracks.
@@borginburkes1819 wich ones?
i remeber there being an emo rapper that actually applied samples from emo songs not sure who that was
@@MandyCandy13 look up the song “King”.
There is something important between the transition from Smoke + Mirros to Evolve, being that the their music was seeing like "depressive and sad music" by the media, the main singer didn't like the fact that they were being seen like this and this being the reason why the singer wanted to make a total different approach to their music in Evolve, I think that they are interviews where he talks more about this.
But what is sad to me is that Smoke + Mirrors is such a beautiful album and the instrumentation sounds gorgeous, the implementation of multiple instruments lead to a beautiful sound and all of this was replaced for a less composed songs, songs that are overall boring and nothing so deep, interesting o being made with the same passion as their songs from previous albums.
Great video, is cool to see someone giving a different approach to the general opinion.
i don’t know how else to put this, but you look like if Weird Al and Mic The Snare had a kid, love the vid though!
Ey, Michael T Snare mention! I never see anyone discuss his work, and it's a damn shame
He does look like weird al😂
I love how this is the only unhearted comment 😂😂😂
Tiptoe saved me back in 9th grade, same goes for Monster.
I’m glad they did ❤
I’m surprised nobody replied “if they saved you, you deserved to die” because that sounds like something somebody would say
the hell and silence ep and the smoke and mirrors album are legitimately good, creative and pleasing listens.
everything that came after those went downhill honestly
You could say it went “all downhill from here”
@@holderrrrname"who'll save us? its all downhill from here" lol
Evolve is flawed, but relatively decent enough. (The vocoder on Thunder is horrible though).
Downhill after that? Definitely.
I made the same conclusion you did. They're very good musicians independently but their niche doesn't allow those talents to shine. They put out a live album relatively recently and all the songs sound a lot heavier with more prominent electric guitar, drums, etc. They actually sound like a rock band on some of these songs and imo sound way better. I still have a soft spot for the band since they were the first band that really got me into music.
This video (and this comment?) came out before LOOM, and I'd agree that it's an improvement on a lot of their previous stuff. Not that Mercury was terrible.
I used to think rock was dead and then I found King Gizzard.
I’ve never understood anyone that tried to claim Rock was ever dead. Josh Homme has been consistently keeping Rock fresh for the last 25+ years.
Rock is alive and well with bands like Royal Blood, Nothing But Thieves, King Gizzard, Don Broco, Friday Pilots Club, Brkn Love, and The Blue Stones.
If u like King Gizzard, give Geese a try
People who say rock is dead just aren’t paying attention to the scene. It’s alive and honestly gaining more and more traction. Like look at Turnstile and tell me rock is dead
Cage the elephant as well
I'm going to be real, I've always been a pretty die-hard fan for these guys and I think people give them a lot of shit that's undeserved. I was listening to their stuff back in 2010 and my sister got to see them perform on a rooftop in Provo, so when they blew up after Night Visions released, it was kind of a culture shock for me and my family who also loved their music lmao - I know that at least Dan used to be LDS (Mormon) and performed in the Salt Lake City area, which is how they got on our radar because my family is also part of the same church.
Something I've always loved about them that they still have in my opinion is that it feels like every song of theirs (at least before Evolve) felt like it came from a different genre. Like, they all sounded so different from each other and didn't have that samey feel or very obvious musical tie-in that most albums do that you would expect from mainstream album releases. I'm trying to think of a better way to word it-- it's most obvious in the Hell and Silence EP and the Smoke and Mirrors album, where you're expecting a similar sound from the next track based on the one you're listening to, but I remember loving how I was always surprised by the difference in sound from track to track. Smoke and Mirrors is my favorite of their released albums and Hell and Silence my favorite of their EPs for this reason. Like the jump from the track 'Smoke and Mirrors' to 'I'm So Sorry' and then to 'Bet My Life' is so strange compared to the regular flow I'm used to from music albums. I really like that about their music, and I still think they have that, though not as strong as it used to be.
I agree that the Evolve album is where I started to see songs I didn't click with as much- after that released I didn't closely follow them as much as I used to, but the Mercury albums are actually really nice, there's a few songs in there that I really love. It's interesting because I could see the shift in feel that they went through once they blew up in 2012; since I've been following them for 12-13 years I've been able to see the whole thing happen over time. Imagine Dragons was kind of the poster child for family-friendly 'rock', and a lot of that came from there being such a large Mormon following, and I saw how that pressure to release that kind of mild, mainstream, pop-sounding music every time started to show a whole lot more over the years, specifically following Evolve. Both the industry and the religious pressure was insane at that time, since everyone was expecting very specific things from them, and a bit later Dan announced that he was leaving the Mormon church. He wrote a song about trying to reconcile his feelings about the LGBTQ+ community and his faith, one that hits pretty hard for me, but after completely separating himself, the band has definitely leaned a lot harder into rock genre.
The Mercury album feels like the band testing the waters with harder sounding music, along with including a lot of aspects of mental health, depression, and internal struggles, which is what drew me back to the band. 'Giants' is definitely my favorite track from the two albums. It just feels more genuine and from the heart than the previous few albums when they were in the mainstream spotlight, and I'm actually really excited to see what they come up with next if this is the direction that they're going!
They still are in the mainstream/public spotlight. It is common for musicians to go to their serious phase. So it's expected that Imagine dragons would tell such stories through their music.
hey! now that loom is out what are your thoughts about it?
Used to run into Dan Reynolds at the Target up the street from my house every few months. He was always really nice and would sign autographs for kids and their moms. The drummer used to buy herb at a dispensary not far from my house as well. He always blended in and hid like no one knew who he was.
that’s hilarious lmao
I love Night Visions and Smoke+ Mirrors, both albums showcased some really interesting music with something to say, the problem is that they stopped making that kind of music. At the time I kind of liked Evolve because I felt a few of the songs in that album really resonated with me but nowadays I don't really think about that album at all, I find myself revisiting their first 2 albums more often. I stopped listening after their fourth album because all the spark of the first two was gone by then.
“Look around you. Imagine…Dragons.”
-Dr. Eggman
Something I’ve been saying for a while now is that their best stuff tends to be the songs that didn’t blow up. I’m not even just talking about their older music, I think a lot of the songs on their recent albums that you wouldn’t hear on the radio are actually really good. But they’ve definitely gone more in the pop direction of pop rock over the years, so I get why plenty of people stopped caring for them enough to actually go and listen to those less popular songs.
One of my favorite songs from them is Machine from the Origins album and it’s definitely underrated, I agree with this
@@ohsnapitzambrose tbh a bunch of songs from both origins and mercury are really underrated
Thunder is Imagine Dragons’ Beverly Hills
Except Beverly Hills is fun to listen to.
that would imply that radioactive is on the level of say it ain’t so
Beverly Hills hurts in a good way
I'm glad I'm relatively offline when it comes to music bc I never knew Imagine Dragons had haters. I'm not obsessed with them anymore but they still consistently drop bangers like Enemy and Bones and they've maintained their own unique sound that nobody else compares to as far as I know. I never would have considered them rock tho, that's weird
Also you have the Quentin Reviews voice. I promise that's a compliment 😂
imagine dragons are one of the most hated bands like ever. obviously they have their huge fanbase of die hard fans who don’t care about music quality or online reception etc, but like every album and almost song of theirs has been critically panned. and outside of their fanbases, public reception is overwhelmingly negative.
also people do compare to them. the issue is their sound isn’t unique, like at all.
if you think they sound unique, you just don’t listen to enough music.
@@cwega2463 Every normal person I know either enjoys or doesn't care about Imagine Dragons. I have one friend who hasn't been into them since Evolve but even he liked Enemy. Can you give an example of a band or artist that sounds like them? When I hear a new song in the grocery store I can immediately tell it's Imagine Dragons despite never hearing the song before
Imagine Dragons really fueled my imagination as a teen, I think Radioactive came out when I was really into Hunger Games so those tie together in my mind a bit.
No matter what anyone says, the songs of theirs I love will be important to me. I implore anyone reading this to share your favorite Imagine Dragons song below!
(Mine are Warriors, Radioactive, and Monster!)
My favs are I'm so sorry, hear me, tiptoe and round and round (that last one I also associate it with thg, don't ask)
mine are Release, Amsterdam, Smoke and mirrors, Gold, Tip toe and Polaroid
I really fckn like Believer 🤷♀️ I dgaf if it's pop or rock or what frikkin genre it is, I can make a dope-ass AMV in my head to that song. Also Natural and Enemy.
radioactive, demons, walking the wire, whatever it takes, warriors, believer, on top of the world, and natural (i was a huge fan in middle school 💀)
My favorite is birds easily
"Look around you, imagine... dragons"
-Dr.Eggman
Based Snapcube reference
I’m glad you liked the EPs. As an ex-fan of theirs, I still really enjoy those. Thanks for giving those more recognition.
Bro I was the most diehard fan of imagine dragons in middle school (circa 2018), so much so that I had gone all the way back to speak to me and knew all the band lore. While my musical taste has evolved (no pun intended) a lot since then, I still retain a certain fondness for them, and felt very validated when you talked about their earlier stuff (hell and silence is also my favorite stuff by them). Anyway, my continued affection for them led me to check out mercury part 1 when it came out, and honestly, it was pretty surprising. Some songs (giants, dull knives) have legit screaming on them, and one of my favorite takes is that the song cutthroat sounds like if limp bizkit and Hamilton had a baby 💀. I never got around to listening to mercury pt 2 when it dropped, but I have to say in terms of mercury pt 1, I’d say it still has some of those deep cut, more experimental songs on it. But anyway as someone who has the imagine dragons lore implanted in their mind, this was a very fun video for me.
Thank you for acknowledging that EPs 2 3 and 4 are fire, you've done us real life Imagine Dragons fans justice
i didn't know that fire means mediocre
@@cl8804 Have you even heard of the EPs, they are pretty good and even the video says so too.
@@LumiNyte it do. it just that there are modes between "great" and "terrible"
maybe they reely are great; who knows
@@cl8804then why you give an opinion if you have not heard the eps, wtf. stfu...
@@cl8804They were my first ever live concert I chose to go to myself, having seen many legendary live acts and concerts since then, those memories still hold a special place in my heart and I thought they put on a hell of a show for the time even by today's standards. Yes songs like Thunder and even their newest "Nice To Meet You" suck ass, but they were a genuinely impressive live force in their beginnings
I don’t care what anyone says, some of their songs ARE bangers. Radioactive, warriors, believer, it’s time, deamons, all bangers
:(
Enemy also
There's a live version on Spotify of Radioactive that makes me actually like it
@@ziglaus debatable
Also "On Top of the World", "Hear Me", and "Bleeding Out"
despite being ambivalent to their newer stuff, i’ve always loved the majority of night visions, especially the bonus tracks on the deluxe version. now it makes perfect sense, knowing that those tracks were from their early EPs. i’ll have to check those out
They're a pop band. Their songs are nostalgic to me since I'd hear them everywhere when I was in middle school. But that's about it.
the theater sound really does make me think oh that’s why they’re lgbtq allies
I can't tell if you're being mean to the theatre or if you yourself are a queer/ally in theatre
It’s kinda ironic since they’re Mormon/LDS/whatever the cult was I forgot (this might be heresay, I heard it years ago)
@@holderrrrnameex actually. well, they havent called themselves that but wont raise their kids around it and donated a multi million dollar home in a very mormon area for kicked out lgbtq+ kids. they’ve got a soft spot for ex mormons. LDS is **REALLY** hard to mentally leave yourself from. a good amnt of their stuff is about feeling like going to hell for the greater good bc thats why they left lds. over queer kids
@jmiller08 Nah they're exmormon I'm pretty sure. Dan used to not like it but tried to make changes from the inside but he's given up and fully embraced being an exmormon more recently
@@holderrrrname ex mormon lol. I remember a post from Dan promoting some way to get out of the church (they apparently kinda stalk u to go back if u try to leave) also the lyrics of believer are really telling💀
Maybe I'm a sheep, but I tend to enjoy their music--the heavy beats, the energy, and especially Dan's vocals. I started to like them more when I got the Imagine Dragons pack on Beat Saber because their songs are the most fun to play imo. I never understood the hate, but hearing about their fanbase and their claim to be rock makes some sense. I wouldn't call them rock either.
they don’t claim to be rock. they have said they are “genre-less” and all their songs are very different from each other (i really really love some but others suck ass- there’s a wide spectrum of what genre their songs are). however people just like sticking things in categories- they got put into the rock category; people said it wasn’t rock; they got put into pop, and pop is cringe :/
I wonder if in 10 years we’ll start getting nostalgia for them like how we all of a sudden started appreciating Creed.
People like fucking creed now?
@@ksodz1397yeah, idk why, I don’t care what everyone else suddenly thinks now, I just think they’re super mid
it’s so nice to see someone talking about imagine dragons like this! I discovered them through night visions when it first blew up and fell in love with their earlier EPs. pistol whip has been one of my favorites of theirs for a long time. thanks for talking about it and their other early works, they truly deserve a lot more credit than they get
I still love the later EPs, Its Time EP especially has such a cool sound that they never really achieved after
5:31 A certified hater would not be _relieved_ but disappointed. A true hater loves nothing more than something deeply deserving of their hatred.
I was so obsessed with the early EPs as an early teen, it was so frustrating being obsessed with songs as obscure as they were at the time. Really cool to see these covered in a video!
You're so goated for using the sonic mega collection ost in this lol
their first EP as imagine dragons was in the same vein as Kings Of Leon’s biggest album. there’s an alternate universe where they carry the torch for the post punk revival movement that spawned in the late 90s and early 00s
I really really like the first two albums. Then with Evolve a lot of the lyrics got really full of themselves and humble-braggy and I didn't like it much. There's still a good song here and there but a lot of their music now seems to lean into this weird pop rock/"hip-hop w/o actually being hip-hop" sound that bugs the hell out of me. It's hard for me to describe. But the vibe changed once they got super successful.
laughing at "bullet in a gun" protesting about being called sell-outs bc like... you did sell out tho. you literally changed your sound to be more poppy bc it made you more popular after smoke + mirrors failed to have as much impact as night visions bc it sounded closer to rock. just own it
@@Tendo641"just own this narrative that I decided was true and projected onto the people I don't know". maybe that's just not how they feel about it. their art is literally just them expressing their opinions and if they disagree with your opinion that they sold out then they're going to express that and you saying that they should just own it like they're lying to you is ridiculous.
people can just actually have a different perspective and opinion on situations than you that doesn't make them a liar.
to be clear just because someone changes their sound to be more pop doesn't mean they're selling out. you don't know the reason why they chose that just because it was more popular and made more money doesn't mean that's why they chose to do it in the first place nor did they have some sort of guarantee that it would make them successful when they started it.
and to be clear I don't even listen to them but it's the fact of the matter that you're just assuming you know stuff about strangers because of some of their music that you've listened to.
it's such a weird attitude I see all over the Internet everybody just assumes that they know so much about a situation that involves people they will never meet and it's bizarre.
the idea that they sold out is also kind of weird because if they started making music to make money in the first place then how is it selling out if they want to make more? that's just them doing their job well and pursuing the goals they already set out. unless you're saying that they initially claimed that they wanted to do one thing and then they turned around and did another it's weird to say that an artist sold out just because they're successful and they made themselves more successful. if that's what they always wanted to do and they never said they were going to do anything other than that then it's not selling out.
all artists are different and make art for various reasons. we live in a terrible cutthroat capitalist society and they did their job and made money what's the big deal? it's not selling out just cuz it's successful. like how do you know they're not making the music they want to make? that this isn't the stuff they enjoy ? there's no way for you to know that. the idea of them selling out for money is this idea that they would rather be making something more experimental and artistic but you have no way of knowing that just because they did something that you think is more experimental in the past.
@@oh.sorry.dont.mind.meeeee good lord bro, it's not that deep. i don't even really care if they did or didn't, my comment wasn't even that serious
@@Tendo641 It is that deep bro, homie was spitting facts, don't be ignorant and stay off the high horse
@@champgaminghero ok
Imagine Dragons made us as a society realize we were way too hard on Nickelback
We were always way to hard on Nickelback considering Maroon 5, and Train also exist
@@radfatdaddy4169yeah but Hey Soul Sister makes me want to jump off of a bridge every time I hear it
I believe its what the gen x-ers used to call 'selling out', and I imagine it's as old as the music industry. Kings of Leon is another example from a few years earlier.
Or, as another good example:
Gen X-er here. This is exactly what we called selling out. I mean, maybe not in this case because (fun fact) not a single one of us has ever heard an imagine dragons song, but I remember seeing them in a TV ad once. Fair or not, there was no faster way to get your sell-out card punched in our day
They should take a break from imagining dragons and start imagining some good fucking music.
Lmao I snorted💀
maybe they could write some good music about dragons
Eyes Closed
@@Its_Only_Chill mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmid
@@AstralApparently nope, your opinions mid
thank you for remembering the first EPs. really, thank you so much. when i came to the fandom in 2017 (💀) i've started to listen ALL of their songs, really, all of them, especially the early ones. and these songs are the ones that imagine dragons need to be loved by, seriously. i forgot that and you've reminded me. thank you.
I'm a very big ID fan but I gotta admit Evolve is far from their best album. However, Mercury is really good. It reminds me of Smoke and Mirrors a lot. Their new albums always have a few more mainstream aimed songs that tend to be the most well known ones, but when you get past them you find really great intimate songs. For every Enemy, Bones and Sharks there is a Wrecked, Waves and They Don't Know You Like I Do
I find I Wish to be another pretty good song from mercury
YES!!!! YOU GET IT!! Giants is my favorite from the Mercury album, the whole thing feels more of like a return to form and leaning away from the mainstream sound
Imagine Dragons music isn’t that deep, but it’s absolutely fantastic to put on while doing chores, and they make for great fandom edits.
Very true, I've seen some cool edits that use their music.
For anyone the only knows the singles, I highly recommend try with this one:
--Shots (S&M)
--Smoke and Mirrros (S&M)
--Dream (S&M)
--Hopeless Oppus (S&M)
Yeah, I truly love S&M but sadly is their less known album :,).
I liked their songs. Lost all respect when they played in Azerbaijan, and then spinelessly said their music should not be politicized and should not depend on the actions of the world leaders, even tho they cancelled their concert in Russia when the latter first invaded Ukraine. Either way, playing in a country that's actively committing atrocities and then trying to somehow justify it is absolutely scummy.
But they first playing in usa no? As problematic country as russia.
Amsterdam and It’s Time were my favourite songs to put on in the car with my dad. ❤ We always give their new albums a listen but the last couple have been rough to get through.
i’m typically not a fan of imagine dragons but the song “it’s time” is kind of a banger idk
Imagine Dragons saw a trend as it was happening, played into it, and managed to find a lucrative audience who could support them.... It's just too bad for anyone who cares about art that that audience was corporate advertisers.
Finally I have some companies by my side when I said the new Imagine Dragon was bad music trend and someone does recognize the important of their old EPs. I really don't like how most trending 'rock' reviewer despise them as a whole, saying that they don't deserve to be rock, along with Coldplay; that's not true! I was ABLE to enjoy their music up passed Smoke and Mirror, then I listened to Evolve and surely did I notice something was lost behind all of those trendy booming sound; then after that I tried to catch on to the other recent albums but it lost within my ears and my minds, nothing good was recorded in my head. Then recently I was catching onto all of their first EPs and I cried, I cried out for the distastefulness of reality and that of their music, that they have to run after trends to survive and sell themselves off. Those EPs were too good, they were such a good roots and they have to cut if off.
Shoutout to Pantomime, Amsterdam, Look How Far We've Come, Destination, Drive and Clouds
Redeem yourself and finish up ' I wish you well'
And a BIGGGG Middle finger to 'Giants', 'Bone' and 'Thunder'. Giants was just a mess that they tried to get back to whatever 'rock' they thought of with that yelling, such a pain. And the other two, no words!
They don't have to do anything they don't want to do. They're choosing to chase after these trends because they know that it's making them successful. There how many albums in? It's not like they were on the first album where the record company was probably controlling them. At this point they've chosen commercial success which is very fleeting and very fickle over authenticity. I'm sure those guys are great human beings but musically they're rubbish
@@Bradley-nn8it And you are absolutely right.
It’s sad. I genuinely can’t bear to listen to most of their new stuff, but I still sometimes listen to their old stuff, like hear me, round and round, Amsterdam, pantomime, the river, look how far we’ve come, and America
Same goes with Coldplay.
Your talking points and criticisms are completely valid. Coming from a long time fan of the band, I grew up listening to night visions, that album inevitably peaked my interest into listening to all genres of music, despite this impact the album had on me I never once considered them a rock band though.
For me, the group got my attention the most with some songs I find to be very underrated on Evolve (walking the wire, and rise up are some examples.) it wasn't for the fact that they *sound* like this genre/group, but rather how some of the songs where written.
This group helped me recognize very early into my life the emotion, expression, and storytelling that can packaged with a song/album, and set me on a journey to discover plenty of other artists and groups that I might find more or less interesting depending on who you ask, Because it's all 110% subjective.
This video taught me a lot about them! awesome job!
Love this vid! My Uncle is Andrew Tolman and now he is currently on tour with them replacing Daniel platzmen and is now back recording with them!
Imagine dragons starting off as theatercore explains everything
I heard "It's Time" on the radio today and went to listen to it on RUclips, then wondered "hey, why do people hate them again?" Then I found this video, lol. Thanks for the breakdown!
It wasn’t until I started listening to a bunch of different music that I realized Imagine Dragons lacks any kind of creativity and they are the industry plantiest industry plants out there. Their music is still nostalgic for me though, so I can still appreciate it a little
does "industry plant" just mean "popular music I don't like" now?? I think that term has lost all meaning.
@@oh.sorry.dont.mind.meeeee Nah because once they signed with a record they were instantly popular because the record label had them make boring over produced pop music
I was a teenager when this band got big. I already knew it was as bad as what coldplay have become. Call me underground or whatever but when a band goes to comon sense, it gets easy to digest and trash.
Can you advice some groups with creative music? I’m not being toxic right now, I just like imagine dragons very much and I want to know some better groups
@@user-oe9gi8zi2x Idk about groups because nowadays most artists work on their own. Some of my favorite artists are Tame Impala, Tyler the Creator and Radiohead (which is a group)
Imagine Dragons is the Fortnite of music.
In wich sense?
Like they have the same quantity of good and bad songs?
Pls tell me
@@lorenzo5643generic trying to appeal to the most common denominator and make uninspired corporate slurry
@@joned1000 👍
I've always loved their music since maybe the 5th grade 😭
Finally! Someone brings a great point to the Imagine Dragons discourse, growing up they were one of my favorites cause of these deep cuts, and the big hits were decent enough to not mind them. I completely gave up on their new material until further notice (and i don't blame them, get the bag), but their early discography run still holds a special place for me
Really enjoyed this! Hope you do more videos covering different bands or genres of music, it was rlly interesting looking at Imagine Dragons' older EPs. I don't like them at all but seeing their evolution was intriguing to say the least
Their initial EPs were great. It was really fun and energetic. I think they blew up when Radioactive came out because it was the song for a Stephanie Meyer movie (not Twilight, her other book). They still have some fun songs in their current album, but I only like a handful of their songs. I agree labeling them as "indie rock" was a bad idea, but their earlier sounds were pop-rock.
Personally, I love Hell and Silence, Tokyo, and Uptight.
Edit: I forgot to add "30 Lives" in the list
interesting. i used to listen to them quite a bit when i was like 14 and stopped once I found out good music exists. Selene was a track I really continued to like, which makes sense now
I believe the re-recorded version of “Amsterdam” is their best song. It sounds like an actual band playing and has a great melody and even a breakdown in the bridge section. It still is somewhat pop but has great balance between a rock band and pop act.
One of my favorite songs from Imagine Dragons comes from Evolve: I’ll Make It Up To You.
It brings the lovable feeling of pop with a sense of 90’s rock with the guitar outro! If we had more of that sound during Evolve, I think it would be a great album to listen to!
I remember hearing somewhere that they had some connections with the heads of iHeartRadio or something and that their continued relevance is at least partially due to someone behind the scenes pushing them onto radio playlists
They are a band that exists that's for sure, certainly not one of the best bands that have ever lived but also not as bad as the edgy "I HATE IMAGINE DRAGONS, LOOK AT ME, I'M SUCH A TRUE MUSIC ENJOYER" jokes would have you believe.
God I used to love them in 7th grade so much. Some of their newer famous stuff was so mid or bad
Just my personal opinion, but Night Visions (and the EP before that) were surprisingly strong, and fit into that OneRepublic/The Fray/Walk the Moon/etc pop rock genre really well. As their career went on I vibed with less of it, and occasionally I think a song surprises me (I will defend Bad Liar) but most of it is just really doesn't sound good for the last 8+ years
As someone who always listened mostly exclusively to rock , punk and metal i never considered imagine dragons as a rock band.
band of theseus
Wow, well done video! I was a huge fan of their's when I was younger, before Evolve dropped. I was in their EP's RUclips comments and everything. I was really excited to listen to it, but I dont recall if I ever finished the album. Which is a shame. Still, a lot of their songs I enjoy to this day and hold a special place in my heart. They're not harming anyone with their music, and if they're happy, then it's all okay
You should def check out mecury act 1. This album is genuinely so different for them and they explored a lot of rock moments, while still mixing the album with their “Imagine Dragons” songs within the album
Am I tripping. I thought the intro voiceover was all Quinton reviews
2011-2015 imagine dragons ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
2016-2018
👍
2019-today
😬
pretty much my opinion exactly lol. evolve and origins were ok if not as good, but after that they just lost everything that made their sound unique
I’d argue
2008
Wtf is this
2009-2011
Great
2012-2015
Decent to good
2016-2020
Bad
2021
A potential return to form???
2022 - today
Nope
@@LumiNyte Yeah Mercury Act 1 was a solid return to form but they didn't really stick to it with Mercury Act 2 unfortunately. Mercury Act 2 had a few great tracks but felt like lazy songwriting and wayyyy too many really short tracks
Downfall started with evolve, 2017.
I don’t like most of their newer songs but I really enjoyed children of the sky
At 3:23 when you said the word I just screamed "yeeeeeeeah!" out loud. Thank you for that
Thanks for such a great and comprehensive video with a very levelheaded take! I got into Imagine Dragons in the early days, seeing them 3 times during my freshman year of college in a tiny venue. And they put on such amazing, high energy shows. During the early EP days, I was describing them as having an indie synth vibe similar to the old Killers, so you hit the nail on the head.
I gave up on them sometimes around the Smoke and Mirrors era, but I still like going back to those early EPs that were made when they sounded like an actual band.
As a kid, i would always write them as my favorite band, not because of specific passion and love for their songs, but solely because i thought their name was cool.
the act of imagining a dragon is much more exciting than listening to imagine dragons
Smoke + Mirrors went so hard with its cover and some of its tracks, it's an album I don't mind revisting every now and then
i used to really fuck with tiptoe because the snyths scratched the ear to me but the rest of their music isnt my thing at all