Endless Forms Most Beautiful
| Endless Forms Most Beautiful | ||||
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| Nightwish studio album | ||||
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Publication |
March 27, 2015 |
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| Label (s) | Nuclear Blast | |||
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Title (number) |
11 |
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running time |
78 min 39 s |
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| occupation |
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Tuomas Holopainen |
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Studio (s) |
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Endless Forms Most Beautiful is the eighth studio album by the Finnish symphonic metal band Nightwish . It was released on March 27, 2015 via Nuclear Blast and is the first album with the singer Floor Jansen . Endless Forms Most Beautiful is a concept album about Charles Darwin 's theory of evolution and lust for life. The album reached number one on the Finnish and Czech album charts.
Emergence
Line-up change
In the run-up to the album, there were several line-up changes within the band. On October 1, 2012, Nightwish announced on their website the amicable separation from their then singer Anette Olzon . The former after-forever singer Floor Jansen was hired as a replacement . In October 2013 the band announced that in addition to Floor Jansen, Troy Donockley ( Uilleann Pipes , Tin Whistle ) had become a permanent member of the band. With this, Nightwish became a sextet for the first time in their band history .
Finally, in August 2014, the band announced that drummer Jukka Nevalainen would not participate in the recordings and the following tour due to severe sleep disorders . According to Tuomas Holopainen, Nevalainen will remain an integral part of the band. As a substitute, the band signed Kai Hahto , who previously played with bands such as Rotten Sound , Swallow the Sun and Wintersun . In 2019 the band announced that Hahto would be a permanent member of the band and that Nevalainen would retire to the band management in the future.
Songwriting
Most of the music and lyrics on the album were written by Tuomas Holopainen. He wrote the album between late 2013 and early 2014, while working on his solo album The Life and Times of Scrooge at the same time . For Endless Forms Most Beautiful , Holopainen worked mostly at night and in the early morning. In addition to Holopainen, bassist Marco Hietala contributed large parts to the album. He had collected ideas in his own small recording studio and burned them on a CD which he sent to Tuomas Holopainen. In contrast to her old band After Forever or her current second band ReVamp, singer Floor Jansen was not involved in the songwriting.
“I really didn't feel like I had to be a part of this because I knew it was going to be great. [...] I put all my creative energy into singing the songs the way I do. "
According to the co-producer and sound engineer Tero Kinnunen, Jansen has often brought in his own ideas and suggestions, while her predecessors Tarja Turunen and Anette Olzon tend to implement what was given to them. With the bassist Marco Hietala, Jansen developed many vocal harmonies , which was reflected in an increased vocal portion of Hietala. In May 2014, Holopainen and Hietala recorded a demo with twelve songs as a basis for work together with Tero Kinnunen in the southern Finnish city of Hattula .
Troy Donockley checked the texts written by Holopainen, according to Marco Hietala. Since Donockley's mother tongue is English, he was able, according to Hietala, to “correct unintentionally funny or embarrassing passages”.
Recordings
In September 2014, the band rented a house in the scout camp Röskö in the eastern Finnish municipality of Eno , in which a small recording studio was installed. The band recorded drums, keyboards, guitar, bass and vocals. During the recording, the band members were involved in two accidents. First, after a jet ski accident, Troy Donockley suffered an injury to his chest and Marco Hietala suffered a broken rib . A few days later Hietala wanted to jump into the nearby lake, got caught on the railing and broke her hand in the process. According to his own statement, Hietala did not injure his hand for the fretboard of his bass , so that he could play his instrument himself.
Marco Hietala only needed one or two takes to record the bass . Floor Jansen largely used her chest and middle voice ("clear vocals") and belting for the recordings . According to Tuomas Holopainen, only one of the ten songs on the new album asked for Jansen's classical voice. In the track Yours Is An Empty Hope she contributed growls . Troy Donockley was able to record his instruments in good time before the orchestra recordings began after his accident in the "summer camp". In addition to his wind instruments, an Irish bouzouki and a bodhrán were also used. For the song My Walden , he also performs a short text in Welsh .
While Nightwish have only recorded demos before the recordings for orchestra and choir in London, the band was able to present completely finished recordings for the first time at Endless Forms Most Beautiful . The band was in contact for a long time with Pip Williams, who was responsible for arranging the orchestra and choir. If the band had changed the structure of a song, Williams had to discard existing ideas. According to Williams, this particularly affected the cellos and basses . In total, a 52-piece orchestra and a 38-piece choir can be heard on the album.
Mixing and mastering
The mixing took over as the previous albums Miko and Mika Jussila Karmilla, both were assisted by Tuomas Holopainen and Tero Kinnunen. Due to the complexity of the music, with each song having more than 200 audio tracks , the process took a longer time than usual. The final song The Greatest Show on Earth even has 630 tracks. While Miko Karmilla takes two weeks to mix for normal production, Endless Forms Most Beautiful took two months. His colleague Mika Jussila needed 70 hours for mastering , seven times as long as normal. The album was completed in mid-December 2014.
publication
During the creation process, the band published short video trailers on the YouTube platform at regular intervals , showing the band working on the new album. In contrast to the previous albums, the band and their record company Nuclear Blast refrained from sampling the press in advance with the new album . This measure was intended to prevent the album from appearing on the Internet before the release date . The first single Élan was already a few days before the planned publication on the Internet.
In addition to the regular CD version, the album was released as a limited digibook containing a bonus CD. All tracks on this CD are available in instrumental versions. In addition, a limited earbook with a 48-page booklet was published, which, in addition to a CD with instrumental versions, also includes a CD with the orchestral versions of the songs. The album was also released as a limited double LP in different colors or as a picture disc . The album cover was designed by the Finnish artist ToxicAngel (civil: Janne Pitkänen ).
On October 30, 2015, the so-called "Tour Edition" of the album was released. This edition of the album is limited and includes a bonus DVD. The DVD contains the 21 video trailers from the album creation process. In addition, the DVD contains two unpublished live recordings of the songs Yours Is an Empty Hope and Stargazers , so-called “Specials Clips” of the songs Planet Hell , Last of the Wilds , Storytime , Arabesque and Last Ride of the Day and a photo gallery with more than 400 images. The DVD is also available separately from the Nuclear Blast online shop. In addition, Nuclear Blast offers a "Mailorder Tour Edition", consisting of the CD, the DVD and an exclusive patch .
In advance, the song Élan was released as a single on February 13, 2015 . In addition, a music video was shot and published. The single contains the song Sagan as an encore , which was not released on the album. The theme song Endless Forms Most Beautiful will be released as the second single on May 8, 2015 . This single contains an instrumental version of the song Sagan as bonus material . On the occasion of Record Store Day on April 16, 2016, a third single was released with My Walden . This single is limited and will be released as a 12 "single on gold or dark green vinyl. The B-sides of the single include live recordings of the songs Ghost River and Ghost Love Score , both of which were recorded when the band performed at Wacken Open Air in 2013 .
content
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The album title
The title of the album is taken from the book On the Origin of Species by Charles Darwin. There it says in the final sentence:
“There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved. "
“There is truly something sublime about the view that the Creator breathed the seed of all life that surrounds us into only a few or even only one form and that, while our earth moves in circles according to the laws of gravity, from one In such a simple beginning an infinite number of the most beautiful and wonderful shapes was created and continues to develop. "
concept
According to Tuomas Holopainen, the idea of writing an album about the theory of evolution arose during the tour of the previous album Imaginaerum . At the time, Holopainen had studied the literary works of science writers such as Richard Dawkins and Carl Sagan . On a day off, Holopainen, Troy Donockley and Jukka Nevalainen were watching videos by British scientist Richard Dawkins on the Internet in a hotel room in New Zealand . Donockley then had the idea to sign Dawkins for the album and wrote a letter to Dawkins, which was initially not answered.
It was only after a second letter in which the band explained their motives that Nightwish received Dawkins' approval. According to Tuomas Holopainen, Dawkins had never heard of the band at the time and was researching the band's music on the Internet. In a studio in Oxford Dawkins contributions to the album were recorded after the orchestra recordings in London. He read excerpts from his books, which were used in the songs Shudder Before the Beautiful and The Greatest Show on Earth .
controversy
The band's announcement that Richard Dawkins would appear as a guest on the album caused controversy among creationists in the United States . Tuomas Holopainen reported in an interview with the German magazine Metal Hammer that some fans in the USA had returned the concert tickets they had already bought. One fan even burned his Nightwish albums. Holopainen was surprised by these protests, while Floor Jansen spoke of " medieval reactions". She made it clear in the interview that the band doesn't want to ridicule anyone or gain supporters from Darwin. Only Troy Donockley had expected protests.
“Reality is beautiful and science reveals it to us. Why should people fear it? Anyone who questions gravity cannot fly away anyway. But are we supposed to believe unseen in talking snakes, flying horses and a man who rises from the dead ? "
Meanings of the songs
At Our Decades in the Sun, according to Tuomas Holopainen, the band members pay tribute to their respective parents. It was the most difficult song for him to create. The song Edema Ruh is about a group traveling musician and according Holopainen a song about the band itself Inspired, he was supported by the book. Trilogy The King Killer Chronicles American US of Fantasy - writer Patrick Rothfuss . At Alpenglow it were, according to Holopainen to a song about love. He also emphasized that he attaches great importance to approaching universal topics such as death, desire or love from a different point of view and that the most important secret is above all to translate these stories and emotions into music. The Eyes of Sharbat Gula refers to the Afghan woman Sharbat Gula . She became known through a portrait by photographer Steve McCurry , which shows her as a twelve year old in a Pakistani refugee camp . The picture graced the cover of National Geographic magazine in June 1985 . The song describes the theme of children in war . Since it was difficult for Holopainen to write a suitable text, it eventually became an instrumental. A children's choir can be heard during the course . During the song The Greatest Show on Earth , cries of primates can be heard. According to Tuomas Holopainen, this should symbolize the transition from apes to humans .
reception
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Reviews
For Gunnar Sauermann from the German magazine Metal Hammer, Endless Forms Most Beautiful has "endless excitement to offer". The album would "love for details, complex and multi-layered for astonishment and always new discoveries". Since Nightwish are the measure of all things in their genre, Sauermann awarded the highest score of seven points. Christian Ulbrich from the Austrian magazine Stormbringer.at described Endless Forms Most Beautiful as a “damn coherent and moving work” that is “very accessible and at the same time very progressive”. Only the song The Eyes of Sharbat Gula would be too long and go under completely. Ulbrich awarded four out of five points.
Daniel Køtz from CDstarts.de , however, judged that, especially after the “fantastic” Imaginaerum and Holopainen's solo album Music Inspired by the Life and Times of Scrooge, “it was a disappointment”. Køtz described the material as "too uninspired in places, too routine and poor in real highlights". He awarded five out of ten possible points.
Chart placements
The album debuted at number one on the Finnish album charts. For Nightwish it was the sixth studio album in a row that made it to the top of the Finnish album charts. The album reached another number one placement in the Czech Republic . The album took second place in Germany and Switzerland and third place in the Netherlands . The album reached number four in Austria and Sweden . Endless Forms Most Beautiful achieved further top ten placements in Mexico (sixth place), Greece (ninth place) and in France and Poland (tenth place each). In the US album charts , the album was number 34 and sold around 18,000 times in the first week after its release.
The first single Élan rose to number three in the Finnish single charts. In Germany and Switzerland the single reached number 33, while in Austria it reached number 53.
Awards
The band received two Emmas , the Finnish equivalent of the Grammy Awards . Nightwish won the Metal Album of the Year and Export of the Year categories . With 14 Emma's now, Nightwish are the most successful artists in Emma's history. The song Shudder Before the Beautiful won the Metal Anthem category at the 2015 Metal Hammer Awards . The album was nominated for the German music award Echo in 2016 in the group rock / alternative (international) category, but the award went to the British band Iron Maiden for their album The Book of Souls .
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c d e f g Gunnar Sauermann: Darwin, Dawkins, gratitude . In: Metal Hammer , April 2015, pages 16-23.
- ↑ Nightwish: Long-term separation planned? Rock Hard , accessed March 22, 2015 .
- ↑ Swen Reuter: NIGHTWISH: Floor Jansen is officially the permanent voice. Powermetal.de , accessed on March 22, 2015 .
- ↑ NIGHTWISH drummer JUKKA NEVALAINEN Forced To Take Break From Band Due To Health Issues. Blabbermouth.net , accessed March 22, 2015 .
- ↑ NIGHTWISH - Making of new album 2015; Episode 3 (OFFICIAL TRAILER). Nuclear Blast , accessed March 23, 2015 .
- ^ A b Christian Ulbrich: Nightwish. Stormbringer.at, accessed on March 24, 2015 .
- ↑ a b Lisa Marie Wirries: "Endless Things Most Beautiful" - Interview with Floor Jansen and Marco Hietala from Nightwish. Metal.de, accessed April 9, 2019 .
- ↑ NIGHTWISH's TUOMAS HOLOPAINEN Records Demo Of 12 Songs For Next Album. Blabbermouth.net, accessed March 23, 2015 .
- ^ Gunnar Sauermann: Back on the island . In: Metal Hammer, November 2014, page 42
- ↑ a b c d Jan Jaedike: Mission accomplished . In: Rock Hard , March 2015, page 7
- ↑ Gunnar Sauermann: In the intoxication of the Finnish sounds . In: Metal Hammer, March 2015, page 124
- ↑ Jens Peters: A Brief History of the World . In: Rock Hard, April 2015, page 26
- ↑ NIGHTWISH - "Endless Forms Most Beautiful" - strictly limited tour edition, released today. Nuclear Blast, accessed April 20, 2016 .
- ↑ quoted from the translation from 1963 by Carl W. Neumann for the edition by Verlag Philipp Reclam jun., Stuttgart.
- ↑ Frank Jaeger: NIGHTWISH: Interview with Tuomas Holopainen. Powermetal.de , accessed on April 22, 2015 .
- ↑ Tuomas on writing lyrics (Rytmimanuaali). Retrieved December 16, 2017 (American English).
- ↑ Nightwish in the Finnish charts. Hung Medien, accessed March 27, 2015 .
- ↑ Nightwish - Endless Forms Most Beautiful. GfK Entertainment, accessed April 9, 2019 .
- ↑ Nightwish in the Swiss charts. Hung Medien, accessed March 27, 2015 .
- ↑ Nightwish in the Austrian charts. Hung Medien, accessed March 27, 2015 .
- ↑ Nightwish in the UK charts. Official Charts Company, accessed April 9, 2015 .
- ↑ Nightwish Chart history. Billboard , accessed April 9, 2015 .
- ^ Nightwish - Élan. GfK Entertainment, accessed April 9, 2019 .
- ^ Gunnar Sauermann: Nightwish - Endless Forms Most Beautiful. Metal Hammer. Retrieved March 27, 2015 .
- ^ Christian Ulbrich: Endless Forms Most Beautiful. Stormbringe.at, accessed on March 24, 2015 .
- ^ Daniel Køtz: Endless Forms Most Beautiful. CDstarts.de, accessed on March 27, 2015 .
- ↑ NIGHTWISH: More 'Endless Forms Most Beautiful' First-Week Chart Positions Revealed. Blabbermouth.net, accessed April 9, 2015 .
- ↑ NIGHTWISH's 'Endless Forms Most Beautiful' Cracks US Top 40. Blabbermouth.net, accessed April 9, 2015 (English).
- ↑ NIGHTWISH Wins Two More EMMA Awards. Blabbermouth.net, accessed March 18, 2016 .
- ↑ Sebastian Kessler: METAL HAMMER Awards 2015: Winner + first photos from the black carpet. Metal Hammer. Retrieved September 19, 2015 .
- ↑ The nominees. ARD , accessed on April 9, 2019 .
Web links
- Endless forms most beautiful at Allmusic (English)