![gold imagine dragons album gold imagine dragons album](https://www.rollingstone.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/IMAGINE-DRAGONS-2019-by-Eric-Ray-Davidson.jpg)
So they’re exploring the boundaries of popular music from the inside, never straying out of sight of the listener. Imagine Dragons grabbed fans early, whomever would jump on, and don’t want to let go of them.
![gold imagine dragons album gold imagine dragons album](https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/hIcAAOSwqDJfEGOL/s-l300.jpg)
“Smoke + Mirrors” is sure to delight fans of placeholder bands, and probably won’t win anyone over. The most subtle (and likely accidental) is in “Trouble,” which shares too many similarities to Linkin Park’s (yep) “Nobody’s Listening.” The less accidental are vocal and lyrical nods to the Steve Miller Band’s “The Joker” in “Polaroid,” and to Pat Benatar’s “Heartbreaker” in “Smoke and Mirrors.” They’re surely done in appreciation, but they don’t sound like it. They’re clearly talented musicians, but it almost always sounds like they’re restraining themselves for fans. They’re trying many things, and if they spent time expanding one sound, it could be strong. They never turn the volume up enough to be interesting, they never fully commit to hip-hop beats, and they don’t fully adhere to their ballads. But it’s not (may I direct you to these opening lines?), and they almost never work. The album’s opening line is “I’m sorry for everything I’ve done,” and it’s done in a way that makes it sound like an ‘edgy’ way to start an album. The lyrics throughout the whole album sound like words picked out of a radio rock lyric generator. It’s Imagine Dragons at their heaviest and most inclusive, but that’s still not overly impressive.Īnd when this album is bad, it’s bad. “Friction” is centered around an Eastern stringed instrument and has an urgent feeling to it that no other song on the album does. There’s also “Friction,” at the halfway point. And once the band flows through all the loud stuff they want to do and settle into toned-down tracks, we get two more good songs – “Trouble,” a somewhat fun and rhythmic song with no declarations, and “Summer,” a decent ballad. Second track and second single “Gold” really isn’t a bad song it follows a hip-hop beat, possibly inspired by their great Grammy’s performance with Kendrick Lamar last year. “Smoke + Mirrors” has to be reviewed on a track-by-track basis, because there are some surprisingly good tracks. There’s nothing challenging, nothing that isn’t self-serving, not a single thing you don’t expect from Imagine Dragons. But every song on this album – regardless of genre – is dead-set on radio. That’s not entirely true, of course, they weren’t planning on 13 singles. The result, from someone who isn’t a fan, is that it sounds like Imagine Dragons are pulling songs straight from the oven and feeding them directly to the radio. It’s a weird discord, and I honestly don’t know if I’ve seen any band fall into this rhythm before. But Imagine Dragons are too exciting to be repetitive too repetitive to be exciting. And no, bands don’t always have to be original to be successful if that were the case, AC/DC would’ve been out of business in 1976. They try a whole number of things on this album, but they’re all things that have been done before. They exist in a world where they’re both daring – for going outside of any one genre – and not daring whatsoever. Imagine Dragons have built themselves a weird, contradictory niche. Their sophomore album, “Smoke + Mirrors,” is just that. Along came Imagine Dragons – loud, bland, talented, unoriginal, (white,) and willing to play whatever will get them on the radio. The gold medal placeholder band has been Muse, for years, but it’s been a few years since that last album, and that last album was bad even by the most forgiving of objective standards, so America turned to someone else. Problem is, there’s no point to the music. They’re like a lounge singer who’s actually got some talent and creates original music. They’re a band that comes out, plays a few selections of music that’s popular right now for a while, and disappears.
![gold imagine dragons album gold imagine dragons album](https://ae01.alicdn.com/kf/H75366104e11d430cbb4b79ab681badf9U/Imagine-Dragons-Music-Album-History-Canvas-Painting-Posters-And-Prints-Wall-Art-Picture-Decoration-Home-Decor.jpg)
Imagine Dragons are what I like to call a “placeholder” band.