“Of course, Neverlands vary a good deal”
–J. M. Barrie as quoted by Alan Moore in Lost Girls.
Recently, Arthur Von Nagel, via Facebook, linked me to an article on the Metal Pigeon blog about top 10 lists and, among other things, power metal. It’s a flawed read, but a critical one. Pigeon takes the blogosphere to task for ignoring genres which receive less critical attention: classic metal and power metal. My associate Mr. Street-Jammer has also returned the importance of power metal to my attention. Though the genre rarely grabs me the way contemporary black metal does, the blog did stir a confession in me, which I must divulge to you all.
Nightwish made a metalhead out of me.
Sure, I owned most of Metallica’s back catalog at that point in time (circa 2003), but I also had a vested interest in Dance Dance Revolution soundtracks. Listing Master of Puppets as one’s favorite album does not signify a dedication or passion for the artform of metal—loving Metropolis doesn’t make one a film buff. Tarja Turunen and company caused me to chose this particular lifestyle and kindled an interest in more traditional metal and prog bands. My infatuation with Tuomas Holopainen’s playing led me to discover Rick Wakeman’s solo work; I also know for a fact I googled “Iron Maiden” after seeing shirts with their logo at a Nightwish concert.
Nightwish’s stop at the Cleveland House of Blues on their first-and-only US tour with Tarja as lead singer was my first large-scale concert of any sort. I remember the long car ride being my first exposure to Dream Theater (pretty cool at the time) and that we spent the day at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (pretty lame, still). I remember standing front-row center while holding hands with my then-girlfriend.
Originally, this article was meant to be a review of their new album, Imaginaerum. After a single listen that task became impossible. The album puts me in an odd state of mind-one which I find uncomfortable. Perhaps as a result, I’ve been possessed by an urge to revisit their older records rather than dwell too much on Imaginaerum itself.
An uncanny quality permeates Imaginaerum: an acute disconnect between performer and work stemming from the album’s central conceit of exploring Neverlands, Wonderlands, and other such narrative dream worlds. The subject matter, particularly in “Storytime”, feels pedophilic when I juxtapose it against the image of shirtless and muscled Jukka Nevalinen banging skins during a live performance of the song, and lends Tuomas’ ubiquitous top-hat a sinister nature in my mind’s eye. Of course the subjects of Neverlands and dream worlds are staples of classic literature, but literary critics also often assert that Lewis Carroll and J.M. Barrie were, arguably, pedophiles.
. . .
Nightwish – “Storytime”
. . .
The irony of such an album spawning from a band I loved in my formative years is not lost on me. It’s difficult to believe that the members of Nightwish didn’t foresee this predicament: sexuality has been instrumental to their success. Tarja acquired a sexual totem status in my adolescence just as Christina Scabbia has for many of my peers and just as, I imagine, musicians like Doro Pesch and Joan Jett did for my forebears. Comparatively, new singer Annette Olzon feels like the Barbie to Turenen’s Marilyn Monroe—fetishized, but not sexualized. Her sexless bubblegum history of covering ABBA, and the more staccato pure-toned voice that accompanies it, only affirms this.
The Neverland subject matter yielded similarly strange fruit for two other contemporary artists, both in other fields—Alan Moore and Steven Spielberg. But Hook and Lost Girls gleefully filled the material with real (often homoerotic) sexual tension—they were works for adults. However, with the notable exception of “Slow Love, Slow”, Imaginaerum directs itself to young listeners more than any other Nightwish release. Perhaps I’m just too old, but that friction bugs the hell out of me.
That real discomfort becomes comic and then quite suddenly pitiful during the colossal misfire that is “Scaretale”—the weakest song in the band’s catalog (perhaps the power metal song I’ve enjoyed least in my lifetime).
. . .
Nightwish – “Scaretale”
. . .
“Slow Love, Slow”, however fires on all cylinders—and it’s the most understated song on the album. Re-imagining Nightwish as a sexy jazz band lets them settle into a great meandering structure that teases rather than follows the ‘arena rock’ song structure that overstayed its welcome on 2004’s Once and 2007’s Dark Passion Play. That said, the creep factor covering Imaginaerum doesn’t leave “Slow Love, Slow” completely untouched.
. . .
Nightwish – “Slow Love, Slow”
. . .
If “Slow Love, Slow” is any indication, Tuomas and company may remember that ‘understated’ and ’sexy’—both adjectives that seldom describe good metal—were two of the things Nightwish did best (see: the quiet guitar sections on 1997’s Angels Fall First, as well as songs like “Walking in Air”). Nightwish has mostly abandoned such things since around the time I dove into their music and that decision worked out alright; they’ve successfully survived a lead singer swap, sell out arenas, and make metal music with expensive production values the likes of which may never be made again. Imaginaerum shows every year that’s gone into its creation and every dollar of its production value: the arrangements are richly layered, and the sound is so diamond-plated that I feel bourgeois just for listening to it. For that reason, it feels wrong to speak ill of Imaginaerum or its predecessor—who makes an endangered species the butt of a joke?
But after a few listens, my imagination remains unkindled. My desire to revisit the keyboard-worshipping prog metal of Oceanborn and the quirky folk-opera of Angels Fall First, however, is burning stronger than before.
. . .
Oh Christ.
I’m not the only one. I had a friend show me them early I’m highschool and they were the first left-of-center metal band I knew. Everything went from there.
It’s actually a huge relief knowing I’m not the only black metal fan who arrived here through such u expected means.
http://i511.photobucket.com/albums/s357/Jakriil/HA_HA_HA2C_OH_WOW.jpg
Neither rote, nor poseur.
I don’t want to be trollish, but I always hated Nightwish and could not understand how Tarja was considered “sexy”. For my ears, this band (like most power metal) sounds like a very gay Iron Maiden mixed with Abba and Spinal Tap.
I remember seeing them on the Once tour and noting the distinct presence of small groups of tween and teen girls there with a chaperoning parent or two, each girl wearing a Tarja-dominated Nightwish t-shirt. In that case I think Tarja was functioning as some sort of creative role model for them as an operatically trained singer, a woman fronting a metal band, etc.
Same tour. Which date?
I see her fulfilling that role as well. How do you think Olzon compares in that regard?
I saw them in San Fransciso.
I’m not sure how Olzon compares in that regard as I didn’t see the DPP tour and haven’t really followed them since Tarja left. From what I know of her she’s a competent singer but so is Amy Lee and Cristina Scabbia and neither of those women seem to have the same following as Tarja. Pure speculation on my part though.
I don’t give a flying fuck about Nightwish, but this piece kept me engaged anyway. Nice job, duder.
Joseph,
I’m so sorry. This must have left you terribly scarred.
Listen to “The Rack,” “Killers,” and Black Sabbath’s debut on solid rotation and you should be ok.
Wishing you a speedy recovery.
Justin, I lol’d at work. You’re a gentlemen and a scholar, you jerk!
For that it’s worth, I’m trying my first spin at Satanic Warmaster at the moment, trying to clear all the MIDI out of my head….
I think you better to talk to Grim Kim about this. Nothing worse when trying to kvlt than finding out the band you’re listening to is NS. No use spreading more hate.
I know for a fact I just googled “Satanic Warmaster.” Oh shiiii
This write up reminds me so much of this scene in Airheads:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mPGf6RebLhM
Nothing as bad as “I googled ‘Iron Maiden’”
Hey, we all get here somehow. I had to wade through a lot of horrible industrial before I landed at the feet of In Flames, who are more than a little embarrassing these days, too.
I came via nü-metal/alternative rock. Oh god, the shame.
My last.fm history is embarrassing if you go back a few years. There’s a lot of DragonForce on there. Oh GOD the shame, it buuuuuurrrrns.
I was fortunate enough to start with Black Sabbath’s Sabbath Bloody Sabbath at the tender age of six. Lucky (ancient) me…
Thanks for sharing the above clips. It’s good to know Nightwish do in fact suck exactly as hard as I always assumed they would.
Metal is such a vast landscape. I get that there’s the temptation to demean certain subgenres as “less metal” than others, or embarrassing, but I don’t see it that way at all.
Oops, Wash, that was meant to be a reply to the post, not to you.
No worries!
I am, for the record, a serious Blind Guardian nerd, so I ain’t lookin’ down on any Nightwish fans for their taste in cheesy metal.
Nice write up, it’s fun to look back and see how you got to where you are and what it took to form your taste, sometimes you look back and cringe but that is part of life. I always wonder about these trolls making fun of people, clearly they were born with full on underground cred and listening to pestilence demos when they were four years old.
“An uncanny quality permeates Imaginaerum: an acute disconnect between performer and work stemming from the album’s central conceit of exploring Neverlands, Wonderlands, and other such narrative dream worlds. The subject matter, particularly in “Storytime”, feels pedophilic when I juxtapose it against the image of shirtless and muscled Jukka Nevalinen banging skins during a live performance of the song, and lends Tuomas’ ubiquitous top-hat a sinister nature in my mind’s eye.”
Wait… what?! I’m having trouble understanding the correlation. Surely you can divorce the content of the album from something as arbitrary as photos of the band members, or how the appear onstage right?
The band members’ appearance on stage is hardly arbitrary, and while they’re playing a song live in whatever appearance they’ve chosen to use, separating the music from that appearance is an artificial (at best) separation. Aural and visual elements are all of a piece given the commercial underpinnings of music in our society.
I think Glenn is quite right.
what I’m saying is, “Storytime” just felt odd, and THEN I thought about what it would be like to see it live, and felt creeped out. It wasn’t creepy until I had that thought.
I’m trying to see where you’re coming from but I really can’t. I take the Imaginaerum album’s concept for what it is, and see the songs as fitting in loosely throughout that overall subject matter. Reading lyrics in a song like “Storytime” such as “a silent kite against a blue, blue sky / every chimney every moonlit sight” hardly conjures up imagery of pedophilia. What lyrics are you referring to specifically?
And in regards to divorcing the subject matter on the album (underline album) from the appearance of the band onstage, I’m sorry, when I listen to this album in the confines of my headphones or in my car, the last thing I’m thinking about is band members’ physical appearances. What does come to mind is the imagery that’s actually conveyed in the lyrics.
I suppose its all a matter of personal perspective when listening to an album so we’re going to naturally differ. The correlation just took me by surprise.
JP, you could have told me I was mentioned in an article of yours
for any readers who care I’m the ex who took him to Nightwish. Wee I feel sort of special lol take care JP I’ll be reading more of you’re articles.
With love, EmsGoods