NIGHTWISH's Imaginaerum Now streaming
- Thread starter nailz
- Start date
skyrefuge
Member
Citation needed! My understanding (and what Wikipedia now tells me) is that SoundScan reports actual sales figures on a weekly basis, collecting the previous week's data on Monday, and then taking two days to present the compiled data.
This is something quite different than a midnight-day-of-the-release figure rounded to the nearest 10,000 that we got for Nightwish. And yes, I had read the source article, where my parsing of Google's imperfect translation seemed to explicitly suggest it was "units shipped" number rather than a "units sold" number: "Album has been released in advance a whopping 50 000 copies." (emphasis added)
Well, because the 6,000 number was a SoundScan number, which measures units actually sold, not a PR/units-shipped number. (6,100, actually, where rounding-to-hundreds seems to be the implied precision that they use for figures in the 1000-10,000 range). Even if there are no returns of 'Imaginaerum' and every single one of those 50,000 CDs (?) ends up eventually being sold, saying that they were all sold in less than 24 hours tells something quite different than if it actually takes a week or a month or six months to sell them.
In general, I wouldn't be surprised if Nightwish in fact sells 50,000 copies of 'Imaginaerum' (simply because their record company probably had a pretty good handle on how many they need to ship), so I don't dispute at all that a hugely popular band in Finland. The only reason I brought it up is because I just cringe a little whenever I see people reading and repeating a record company's statements as fact.
Neil
mëtålspëd
Umlauts ist Krieg
Busting through it now for the first time.. 'Slow, Love, Slow' is pretty damn cool. The horns in the back remind me a bit of Ulver... excellent stuff.
To also help out, regardless if the album is good or shit (which its not) they are making NEW fans and are to the point where they are bringing in the first time metal head. That is a GREAT THING to happen. Regardless of how awesome or not awesome it is to someone that bleeds metal, new kids are going to start picking up and researching bands that aren't mainsteam because of it. Some little kid (or new adult metal fan) is going to pick up this record since its flooding the media much more than the next band in line and get hooked because its their first taste of metal. These people will start checking out this "metal" genre and (hopefully) that's that! metalhead for life. Face it, I think the return rate of metal heads is a pretty small window.
More fans in general for the genre...... in general. Like Dream Theater getting nominated for a Grammy. That's awesome for our genre. Nightwish will probably be next.
I totally like the fact that Nightwish is expanding their music with this cd...So many bands stay the same from cd to cd, and we complain aout it all the time. Of course there will always be those that complain about it when a band like Nightwish decided to write a song like "Slow Love Slow", which some are saying on other boards is the worst Nightwish song ever(I don't agree)....The bottom line, no matter what Nightwish writes, there will be complainers.....It comes with the territory. I for one love their adventure attitude of really mixing it up on this CD.... Hopefully other Same Ol Same Ol bands can learn from this.
wow, never listened to them much before(just a few from Once and and Century Child) but this sounds awesome. I like Slow, love, Slow, I Want My Tears Back and Last Ride of the Day, but they all are good.
Do you mean the man who redefined Symphonic Metal is leaving the band that defined that very genre in the dust? Surely you jest. This, my friend, is the best stuff he has ever written, period. And, this is coming from someone who still spins Wishmaster and considers that his favorite NW disc. And, why fault a band for becoming popular WITHOUT selling out their core principles? How many bands can say that?
AMBR
Metal Grandma
Ok, I read this whole thread, and like always with unusually innovative bands like NW, there are a lot of interesting and varied opinions. I'm not going to argue for or against any of them. I am going to copy and paste some quotes from Tuomas that appeared in a lengthy article in "Soundi" magazine. Be patient with the English. It is incredible difficult to translate Finnish into English exactly. Thank you The Enigma for the monumental effort.
Holopainen - "Slow, Love, Slow" began from challenging myself. The previous album presented gospel, choir and Celtic influences; now it became jazz. It is a fine music genre, of which I do not understand almost anything. I watched Twin Peaks and listened to Angelo Badalamenti, and from those it began to entwine. The other band members never frowned on this song at all. Actually all said “Wow, right on!” Sure a jazz piece like this will bring some dynamics to the grand and big sound of the CD. I definitely wakes one up when a metal band shifts into a jazz gear.
[FONT="]- The band members said to me after hearing from the movie idea first time that it's the most cool thing, [/FONT]
- Marco and Jukka told me that seeing the manuscript and hearing the finished Imaginaerom demo was good enough to convince them. That every member now had faith in the greatness of the project. That moment in principle secured the birth of the movie, despite the lack of an outside producer and made a rock the size of a mountain drop off from my heart. I had no intention to drop the movie idea at any phase, but the band's unanimous support was the most important thing to me.
On this aspect, Tuomas revealed:
-Next the director (Stobe Harju) wrote some seventy pages of tentative manuscript and soon he presented the idea of adding dialog between the videos. It all actually meant pushing Holopainen's original idea towards a more movie-like outcome.
- I had to chew Stobe's views, because it wiped off my original idea. I intended that the music alone should do the storytelling. Stobe did convince me about the idea that in this case the combination of music and dialog will turn out the best possible result. I remember still the moment when I saw the first visual sketches. I was convinced to my heart.
- After that the Imaginaerum album and the movie went on hand in hand. The names of songs and original visions of over ten music videos were the start of the actual movie. Lyrics and music got the final form based on the long backing stories written by me and Stobe. The detailed manuscript for the movie was then based on the finished songs. The project has proceeded a step by a step.
[FONT="]How much the music on the CD and in the movie will differ?
Tuomas Holopainen:- They are different. The music in the movie will progress on terms of the story. Unfortunately I am yet unable to tell how large a portion of the CD will be playing in the film without edits. I know that every song will be there, at least a small portion of them. Two songs will appear fully untouched but some like “I want My Tears Back” will only play in a short section because we couldn't find space for the full song in the final story. During the dialog parts and other acted scenes the sounds will come from Petri Alanko's pen.
- The original idea was to stay with only Nightwish's music, but then again, can a movie score consist of heavy music alone. We realized that we needed all kinds of musical visualizations and stuff without losing the integrity. Petri Alanko who worked on the Alan Wake game project with Stobe has good command on the techno things, samplers and remixes, hence we decided to hire him to edit the movie score. I gave him all the separate audio tracks to work with while creating some forwarding pieces to add to the movie. The official term goes like this: "Music by Holopainen, overproduced by Petri Alanko".
[/FONT]
Well, we've already heard how the band feels about this project. As for what's next, this is what Tuomas had to say:
- "Like I have said earlier in Soundi: 'An artist has a desire to create something significant. I mean genuinely significant. One wants to make something which will touch people and even maybe change the world better'. Imaginaerum of course is a part of this continuation," Holopainen explains.
[FONT="] - So, first we'd release an album and a movie, then we'd make a visually most impressive world tour ever possible. Then... Well, we'd make like even bigger movie in Hollywood or maybe we'd record a simple acoustic album. Marco was fast and asked Virgin Galctic whether they wanted to hire us for troubadours on the space flights. That'd be something cool!
Whew, long post and probably TMI, but if there's going to be a discussion about this and opinions thrown around, we should at least know what the band has to say about it. Once again, thank you to The Enigma for the arduous translation which can be viewed in its entirety on the OSA forum.
[/FONT]
edit: Fixed the link. Thanks, The Enigma. Didn't know the forum was moving again. Do you have to re-register?
Here are a few excerpts that appear to show how the band feels about the current direction of the music:
Holopainen - "Slow, Love, Slow" began from challenging myself. The previous album presented gospel, choir and Celtic influences; now it became jazz. It is a fine music genre, of which I do not understand almost anything. I watched Twin Peaks and listened to Angelo Badalamenti, and from those it began to entwine. The other band members never frowned on this song at all. Actually all said “Wow, right on!” Sure a jazz piece like this will bring some dynamics to the grand and big sound of the CD. I definitely wakes one up when a metal band shifts into a jazz gear.
[FONT="]- The band members said to me after hearing from the movie idea first time that it's the most cool thing, [/FONT]
- Marco and Jukka told me that seeing the manuscript and hearing the finished Imaginaerom demo was good enough to convince them. That every member now had faith in the greatness of the project. That moment in principle secured the birth of the movie, despite the lack of an outside producer and made a rock the size of a mountain drop off from my heart. I had no intention to drop the movie idea at any phase, but the band's unanimous support was the most important thing to me.
On this aspect, Tuomas revealed:
-Next the director (Stobe Harju) wrote some seventy pages of tentative manuscript and soon he presented the idea of adding dialog between the videos. It all actually meant pushing Holopainen's original idea towards a more movie-like outcome.
- I had to chew Stobe's views, because it wiped off my original idea. I intended that the music alone should do the storytelling. Stobe did convince me about the idea that in this case the combination of music and dialog will turn out the best possible result. I remember still the moment when I saw the first visual sketches. I was convinced to my heart.
- After that the Imaginaerum album and the movie went on hand in hand. The names of songs and original visions of over ten music videos were the start of the actual movie. Lyrics and music got the final form based on the long backing stories written by me and Stobe. The detailed manuscript for the movie was then based on the finished songs. The project has proceeded a step by a step.
[FONT="]How much the music on the CD and in the movie will differ?
Tuomas Holopainen:- They are different. The music in the movie will progress on terms of the story. Unfortunately I am yet unable to tell how large a portion of the CD will be playing in the film without edits. I know that every song will be there, at least a small portion of them. Two songs will appear fully untouched but some like “I want My Tears Back” will only play in a short section because we couldn't find space for the full song in the final story. During the dialog parts and other acted scenes the sounds will come from Petri Alanko's pen.
- The original idea was to stay with only Nightwish's music, but then again, can a movie score consist of heavy music alone. We realized that we needed all kinds of musical visualizations and stuff without losing the integrity. Petri Alanko who worked on the Alan Wake game project with Stobe has good command on the techno things, samplers and remixes, hence we decided to hire him to edit the movie score. I gave him all the separate audio tracks to work with while creating some forwarding pieces to add to the movie. The official term goes like this: "Music by Holopainen, overproduced by Petri Alanko".
[/FONT]
Well, we've already heard how the band feels about this project. As for what's next, this is what Tuomas had to say:
- "Like I have said earlier in Soundi: 'An artist has a desire to create something significant. I mean genuinely significant. One wants to make something which will touch people and even maybe change the world better'. Imaginaerum of course is a part of this continuation," Holopainen explains.
[FONT="] - So, first we'd release an album and a movie, then we'd make a visually most impressive world tour ever possible. Then... Well, we'd make like even bigger movie in Hollywood or maybe we'd record a simple acoustic album. Marco was fast and asked Virgin Galctic whether they wanted to hire us for troubadours on the space flights. That'd be something cool!
Whew, long post and probably TMI, but if there's going to be a discussion about this and opinions thrown around, we should at least know what the band has to say about it. Once again, thank you to The Enigma for the arduous translation which can be viewed in its entirety on the OSA forum.
[/FONT]
edit: Fixed the link. Thanks, The Enigma. Didn't know the forum was moving again. Do you have to re-register?
Note:
The official English Nightwish forum was just today moved to www.nightwishforum.com and the old one at the URL AMBR posted above will be shut completely tomorrow.
I have posted the translation of the Soundi article by Timo Isoaho also at the OSA forum here at Ultimatemetal. For anyone interested in reading the whole thing, here's the *link*
And... like AMBR said, I'm not a pro translator, hence my (F)english may sound somewhat gibberish, sorry for that. :Smokedev:
.
The official English Nightwish forum was just today moved to www.nightwishforum.com and the old one at the URL AMBR posted above will be shut completely tomorrow.
I have posted the translation of the Soundi article by Timo Isoaho also at the OSA forum here at Ultimatemetal. For anyone interested in reading the whole thing, here's the *link*
And... like AMBR said, I'm not a pro translator, hence my (F)english may sound somewhat gibberish, sorry for that. :Smokedev:
.
Well, of course much of this comes down to taste and opinion, and all of us have our own on both counts and no conclusions or resolutions are possible. I really like lots of the new record and am enjoying it immensely.
My concern, though, is about what happens when the excess and gimmickry (for lack of a better word) take over the music, when form and content become incongruous, when the WAY the music is made overwhelms the music itself. When does that happen? Does it happen on Imaginaerum? Tough questions. Is Dark Side of the Moon one of the greatest albums ever, or just a really good record with lots of sonic gimmickry making it seem special? Probably the former but one might make the case for the other. Do the orchestra and choirs and violins and percussion and the spoken word at all marginalize the music on Imaginaerum? I think that, yes, sometimes its over the top and detracts from the music. Just my opinion of course.
When TT was on board doing her opera thing the bands sound was enormous. By Century Child and Marco in the fold, the band featured two powerhouse vocalists, but the opera was toned way down, the orchestra was present and the path to current day Nightwish charted. But a wonderful song like Ever Dream, which featured both singers and orchestra, is vastly different than the some of the bombastic elements on the last several discs.
I wonder why TH chooses, on a song like I Want My Tears Back, to use violin for that cool lead line rather than synths and/or guitar. Its cool and all but it would have been just as cool hey, its a great song - if both he and EV played the thing together. In other words, let the BAND do the work. Why not?
Slow, Love, Slow. There are always quiet songs, many are really good but others often wind up being too much mushy pop. Why not a jazzy thing instead? A nice change.
I am glad the others in the band are on board. If they werent, then what? What I said was total conjecture. Not even that really. Thanks to AMBR for doing that work. I dont have the time nor the inclination to dig that deep. And yes indeed it does seem that TH is quite influential these days. The newest Blind Guardian would suggest that.
At the end of the day, its mostly taste and opinion, but healthy discussion, and yes some skepticism too, is always a good thing.
All this being said, I will continue to enjoy the new record and look forward to seeing them, as long as they stop in Dallas, next year.
My concern, though, is about what happens when the excess and gimmickry (for lack of a better word) take over the music, when form and content become incongruous, when the WAY the music is made overwhelms the music itself. When does that happen? Does it happen on Imaginaerum? Tough questions. Is Dark Side of the Moon one of the greatest albums ever, or just a really good record with lots of sonic gimmickry making it seem special? Probably the former but one might make the case for the other. Do the orchestra and choirs and violins and percussion and the spoken word at all marginalize the music on Imaginaerum? I think that, yes, sometimes its over the top and detracts from the music. Just my opinion of course.
When TT was on board doing her opera thing the bands sound was enormous. By Century Child and Marco in the fold, the band featured two powerhouse vocalists, but the opera was toned way down, the orchestra was present and the path to current day Nightwish charted. But a wonderful song like Ever Dream, which featured both singers and orchestra, is vastly different than the some of the bombastic elements on the last several discs.
I wonder why TH chooses, on a song like I Want My Tears Back, to use violin for that cool lead line rather than synths and/or guitar. Its cool and all but it would have been just as cool hey, its a great song - if both he and EV played the thing together. In other words, let the BAND do the work. Why not?
Slow, Love, Slow. There are always quiet songs, many are really good but others often wind up being too much mushy pop. Why not a jazzy thing instead? A nice change.
I am glad the others in the band are on board. If they werent, then what? What I said was total conjecture. Not even that really. Thanks to AMBR for doing that work. I dont have the time nor the inclination to dig that deep. And yes indeed it does seem that TH is quite influential these days. The newest Blind Guardian would suggest that.
At the end of the day, its mostly taste and opinion, but healthy discussion, and yes some skepticism too, is always a good thing.
All this being said, I will continue to enjoy the new record and look forward to seeing them, as long as they stop in Dallas, next year.
How can you call violins, celtic precussion, and orchestras gimmicks? One of the best songs he has ever ritten in my opinion was "Creek Mary's Blood" that Native American cedar flute was so hauntinly beautiful. It made the entire album one of the best. Dark Side of the Moon will probably go down in history as one of greatest albums ever done, despite your reference to sonic gimmickry. From what you have said in the above and other posts concerning "Imagainarium" you just plain don't like it and are just trying to come with justification. If you don't like it say so, it's your opinion.
A band needs to grow, their sound needs to grow. When Tarja was in the band it was "ALL" opera style, granted it was good, now i see Nightwish's sound reaching closer to the pinnacle of what Tuomas has been trying to accomplish, will he ever get there? Who knows, when you are a musical genius like him it will never stop.
A band needs to grow, their sound needs to grow. When Tarja was in the band it was "ALL" opera style, granted it was good, now i see Nightwish's sound reaching closer to the pinnacle of what Tuomas has been trying to accomplish, will he ever get there? Who knows, when you are a musical genius like him it will never stop.
spag
I am a leaf on the wind
The album is not a slam dunk IMHO, but I do like it. Just enough stuff I don't like to keep it from being way up there on my list. Annette is better than on the last album, but I still don't like her voice. Marco is awesome as usual, and the music is first rate. I don't care about any perceived gimmick. A gimmick is like that Van Canto BS...this is just well orchestrated power metal to me, and sucks more bands can't put it together as well. After two spins, my favorite track is probably "I Want My Tears Back." Least favorite is "Slow, Love, Slow." My favorite will probably change over time. The whole album may grow on me more over time.
Virtual Scott
Allroundniceguy™ and Musical Mastermind.
As expected, A-MA-ZING. Far and away with the most potential for my DISC OF THE YEAR for 2012... baring another Oceans of Night CD, that is.
I couldn't get into Nightwish with Tarja, so DPP was an excellent "break" into the new era and this just even smokes that CD which I loved as well.
Can't wait to get my feisty little fingers on this in January.
Rawk!
I couldn't get into Nightwish with Tarja, so DPP was an excellent "break" into the new era and this just even smokes that CD which I loved as well.
Can't wait to get my feisty little fingers on this in January.
Rawk!
Orion Crystal Ice
Rider of the Astral Fire
I was going to post what I thought, and then I remembered the way differing opinions are treated on here these days, and decided to rejoin the ranks of once-posters, now-lurkers (who are such for that very reason).
AeonicSlumber
srs
- Aug 14, 2008
- 4,893
- 0
- 36
Correct.
There isn't really a way to tell how many units of a product sold within one day, period, with our current technology. I don't know the full story (so I could be wrong), but when they say 50,000 copies sold in one day, they probably mean shipped and not sold. That being said, given this band's popularity I would not be surprised to see 50k sold in a week (which if I'm not mistaken is platinum status in Finland).
Yeah, there is no way for every music shop both retail and digital in the country to report sales figures within a 24 hour period. I suspect that they shipped that many copies (or maybe they shipped 75 k with the expectation to sell 50 k) with the intent to sell them in a week (or over the weekend, etc). This is not unlike when you hear a news article about how Alice In Chains is "expected" to sell between 150-220,000 albums within the first week. The major labels (and Nightwish is signed to a major label), have sales teams who specifically keep track of shipped units and can predict VERY WELL the first week sales of a record based on those shipments/orders.
Harvester
The Promoter
That is a total cop-out and horseshit.
Respect on this forum is earned through intelligent, well-written critiques or praise instead of insult/counter attack just because you may find yourself in the minority on a post. There are numerous posters on here that go against the majority and no one thinks twice. In fact, some of them are the most respected on the forum (Zod) even by those that disagree the most.
Man up, post, and stand up for what you believe in an intelligent, well-spoken manner.
"The loudest one in the room is the weakest one in the room."
-Denzel Washington (American Gangster)
I think you are totally wrong by saying this. Glenn summed it up pretty well, but my opinion is, if you come across disagreeing in a personal/attacking way, that's when the shit hits the fan, but as long as your are civil with your disagreements, it's cool!!.... I've posted replies a few times on certain bands/albums I didn't like, and laid out in detail why with good explanation and everyone on this board was really cool to me!! I can't say that's true about other sites, but this board is top notch!.... Myself, I've never had a problem with anyone on here.....
AngraRULES
Member
Dude, Zod is 6'5", jacked as shit and can probably beat the seven circles of shit out of 8 of us at a time. Even you would think twice.
AMBR
Metal Grandma
Ah, finally got my hands on this. I decided to try something different and listened to the instrumental CD first. This turned out to be an excellent way to absorb the enormous complexity of the album without any distractions. Hearing the music without trying to figure out and assimilate the lyrics really gave it more power and allowed me to really absorb the beauty of the music first. I could fully appreciate what Tuomas had in mind musically and atmospherically. After two rounds, I listened to the version with vocals and was equally pleased. I need a few more spins before I can attempt to critique it or determine my favorites. So far, the first one to knock me out was "Slow, Love, Slow." I don't care a bit about how it fits into the genre or whatever, it's just a phenomenal song.
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