Imaginaerum
| Imaginaerum | ||||
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| Nightwish studio album | ||||
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Publication |
November 30, 2011 |
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Spinefarm Records (Finland) Nuclear Blast (Europe) Roadrunner Records (North America, Australia) |
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Format (s) |
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Title (number) |
13 |
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running time |
74 min 40 s |
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Studio (s) |
Petrax Studios, Hollola |
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Imaginaerum is the seventh studio album by the Finnish symphonic metal band Nightwish . The album was released on November 30, 2011 in Finland and on December 2, 2011 in German-speaking countries. Imaginaerum reached number one on the Finnish album charts and was awarded double platinum just two days after its release .
Emergence
In June 2009 Tuomas Holopainen stated in an interview with the Finnish music magazine Soundi that he had started work on a new album. At the beginning of June 2010 the pre-production could be finished. Shortly afterwards, the musicians, without their heavily pregnant singer Anette Olzon , gathered in a "summer camp" in the Finnish village of Sävi to view and arrange the material. Bassist Marco Hietala sang all the lyrics for the recorded demo .
The studio recordings for the album began on October 16, 2010. The drums , bass and guitars were recorded first. In February 2011 the orchestra and choirs were recorded. As with Dark Passion Play, the arrangements for this were worked out by Pip Williams. Williams stated in an interview that it took him six months to arrange. While he only needed three days for the song Slow, Love, Slow , the work for Scaretale dragged on over a month.
On February 10, 2011, the band announced the album title Imaginarium . The band also stated that they are also working on a film of the same name that will be released in 2012. According to Holopainen, the album and film title describes "the power of imagination and the roller coaster ride of life".
In March 2011 the singing should be started. This process had to be postponed due to two accidents. First Anette Olzon should start singing. When she was about to answer an email in her apartment and was about to hand her son over to her significant other , she fell over a toy and broke several ribs . Thereupon the recordings of Marco Hietala should be brought forward, but he slipped in his icy back yard and suffered a muscle strain . Despite the pain, Hietala recorded his singing. The recordings were finished in mid-April 2011.
The album was mixed between April and June 2011 by Mikko Karmilla in Finnvox Studios in Helsinki . The mastering was done by Mike Jussila. To avoid confusion with other things called Imaginarium, the spelling of the album and the film was changed to Imaginaerum at the end of August 2011 . At the same time the band extended their contract with Nuclear Blast Records.
publication
The album was released as a regular CD in a jewel case and as a limited digipak , which includes a CD with the instrumental versions of the songs as a bonus. On record appeared Imaginaerum as a double LP on gray and transparent vinyl and as a picture disc . In addition, Nuclear Blast Records released a so-called Mailorder Edition , which is limited to 1,000 copies. This edition includes the album in digipack, the one-track single Rest Calm in the demo version , in which the song is sung alone by Marco Hietala and a wall mirror .
The song Storytime was released as the first single in November 2011 . The single was released on CD and in various vinyl versions and, in addition to the album version, also contains the shortened radio version and an instrumental version of the song. The second single is the ballad The Crow, the Owl and the Dove . In addition to the three versions of this song, the 5-track single contains the previously unreleased song The Heart Asks Pleasure First . This is a cover version from the soundtrack of the film Das Piano . The original version comes from the English composer Michael Nyman .
The songs
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According to Tuomas Holopainen, the lyrics of the album summarize the lyrics of the six previous albums. In an interview he stated that the content of his current texts is “a celebration of his existence”. Holopainen was again inspired by the American poet Walt Whitman . Holopainen stated that he "found many of his own thoughts in Whitman's work".
With Slow, Love, Slow the band wrote a jazz song for the first time . Tuomas Holopainen explained that he always wanted to write a slow song about love . In I Want My Tears Back it comes into his own childhood back. In an interview, Tuomas Holopainen explained that a child can cry with all their heart , which he thinks is a liberating feeling. The bagpipes were recorded by Troy Donockley . It's the only song on the album that doesn't feature a choir or orchestra.
With Arabesque and the title song Imaginaerum there are two instrumentals on the album this time . The title song is a medley compiled by Pip Williams from the twelve other songs on the album. In the song Turn Loose the Mermaids , Holopainen deals with the death of his grandfather.
“My grandfather only had a few minutes to live. I said goodbye and in the hallway imagined mermaids carrying him away. "
Holopainen wrote the song Song of Myself for himself. The lyrics cover his experiences and range from love for life to self-hatred. In the poem part of the song, the voices of friends, relatives and other people close to the band can be heard. According to his own statement, Holopainen worked on the text of the poem for months. The lyrics to The Crow, the Owl and the Dove, however, were written within 15 minutes. The latter song was written by Marco Hietala. Tuomas Holopainen asked him not to use this song for his band Tarot when Hietala played it for him.
reception
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Reviews
According to Stefan Popp from the online magazine metal1.info , the band has "succeeded in creating an all-out masterpiece". By now at the latest Nightwish would have become “a completely unique band that cannot be compared to any other group”. Popp awarded ten out of ten points for the fact that the album " creates goose bumps from start to finish and gets under your skin". For Andreas Schulz from the online magazine Musikreviews.de , Imaginaerum "impressively illustrates the exceptional position of the band and presents any genre competition with an insurmountable hurdle". Schulz rated the album with 13 out of 15 points.
Siegfried Samer from the Austrian online magazine Stormbringer criticized that Nightwish “fell short of their compositional possibilities” and that the singer Anette Olzon “seemed overwhelmed, especially with the powerful passages”. He gave the album three out of five.
Chart placements
The album Imaginaerum immediately reached number one on the Finnish album charts. For the band it is the fifth number one album in a row. In Germany, the album debuted at number six. Third place was achieved in Switzerland and ninth place in Austria. The first single, Storytime , entered the Finnish single charts at number one. This was the twelfth time the band reached the top position. The single reached 39th place in Germany, 31st in Switzerland and 57th in Austria.
Awards
In the first two days after its release, over 50,000 copies of the album were sold in Finland, for which the album was awarded double platinum. The band benefited from the fact that the Finnish section of the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry reduced the limit for awarding platinum awards in 2010 from 30,000 to 20,000 units. In Germany, the album received a gold record for 100,000 units sold in early January 2012 . The album was also awarded a gold record in Greece.
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b blabbermouth.net: NIGHTWISH's 'Imaginaerum' Sells 50,000 Copies In Finland In First Two Days Of Release
- ↑ blabbermouth.net: NIGHTWISH Completes Work On New Pre-Production Demo
- ↑ blabbermouth.net: NIGHTWISH Mainman Issues New Album Update
- ↑ Gunnar Sauermann: "The Classic". In: Metal Hammer, January 2012, page 25
- ↑ blabbermouth.net: NIGHTWISH mainman Talks About New Album, Movie
- ↑ a b c Gunnar Sauermann: “Crazy Visionaries”. In: Metal Hammer, January 2011, page 22ff.
- ↑ blabbermouth.net: NIGHTWISH Announces Album, Movie Title Change
- ↑ a b Conny Schiffbauer: Games and fun in the summer camp . In: Rock Hard, January 2012, page 20
- ↑ Leopold Lukas: "The Flight on the Snowman". In: Blast !, issue 96, p. 10.
- ↑ finnishcharts.com: Nightwish in the Finnish charts
- ↑ musicline.de: Nightwish in the German single charts ( Memento from July 8, 2013 on WebCite )
- ↑ musicline.de: Nightwish in the German album charts ( Memento from September 27, 2012 in the Internet Archive )
- ↑ swisscharts.com: Nightwish in the Swiss charts
- ↑ austriancharts.at: Nightwish in the Austrian charts
- ↑ metal1.info: Nightwish - Imaginaerum - CD review
- ↑ musikreviews.de: Nightwish: Imaginaerum (review / criticism)
- ↑ stormbringer.at: STORMBRINGER-Review: NIGHTWISH - Imaginaerum (CD)
- ↑ blabbermouth.net: NIGHTWISH: 'Imaginaerum' Certified Gold In Germany
- ↑ facebook.com: Official Facebook page of the band , accessed on January 9, 2012