NIGHTWISH ALBUM RANKING GAME: #5 REVEALED

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JudasMyGuide said:
Fun fact - I don't collect bootlegs and I dislike the general community attitude towards that - you know, the secrecy, the self-importance, the insanity... well, for someone who doesn't collect bootlegs, I was kinda surprised when I found out I have about 90 Nightwish audio bootlegs on my harddisk (and about 20-30 video ones). I think it started with me wanting to have some more stuff from the very early years besides From Wishes to Eternity and then... it... kinda grew, I guess.
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I've been checking the Imaginaerum-era ones and I once again must say the overall rumours of Anette being terrible live feel greatly exaggerated. Also, Tuomas might have helped, if he wanted to - like he didn't have to put Planet Hell near the end of the set.
The overall setlists are cool, though, a cool combination of old and new, sometimes intriguing sequencing...

But yeah, Ghost River is wobbly in the studio and much wobblier live. Such a waste of such a cool guitar+orchestral riff.
 
That moment when Turn Loose the Mermaids is the first result on Google for "turn loose". I thought it's a common idiom.
 
I think Imaginaerum is a wonderful album, and nostalgia definitely plays a big part in that.

It came out at a time when I considered Nightwish one of my favourite bands, perhaps second only to Maiden, and it's the last album that fully met all of my expectations.

The songs are varied and executed very well - right off the bat "Taikatalvi" is a simple but gorgeous piece of music that sets the tone so well; "Storytime" is just a classic Nightwish banger; "Ghost River" has one of the band's best ever riffs, and contrary to most I absolutely love the chorus.
I admit that I'm getting a little tired of "I Want My Tears Back", but I still appreciate it in the context of the album.

Another element that I think works so good here is Anette's voice. I will always be on Team Tarja, but I don't think that Tarja could pull off most of these songs, and neither could Floor for that matter. Take "Scaretale" for example - it's supposed to be theatrical and way over the top, of course, but Anette does it in a fun, campy way that the other two would never be able to. Come to think of it, Anette's firing shortly after the album's release is actually where I started losing interest in Nightwish, little by little. No one is denying that Floor is more than competent, but she never felt quite the perfect fit for the band in my mind. It doesn't help that Tuomas generally has been writing a lot of uinteresting material since she joined, but that's something for another day.

Anyway, "Rest Calm" is another personal favourite of mine; doomy and melancholic, while "Last Ride of the Day" is decent enough, though more by the numbers. "Song of Myself" is excellent up until the spoken part, which I usually skip. And finally, "Imaginaerum" is a kinda pointless end, though I suppose it somewhat makes sense if you look at it as a bridge between the album and the movie. At least it's not occupying an entire extra disc, y'know?

All in all, Imaginaerum sits firmly at #3 in my rankings, and I don't think that's about to change.
 
So far these rankings have mirrored my personal rankings.

Imaginareum is definitely placed correctly here. For as much as it is Tuomas' most ambitious work, it's also his most frustrating.

Positives:
- the melodies are astoundingly catchy
- the overall vibe is magical and interesting
- Marko has a lot of nice vocal moments
- Anette sounds good sometimes

Negatives:
- the melodies seem to repeat 1000x times per song
- the variety in the songs can be a bit of a whiplash (and I actually love the more adventurous stuff like Slow Love Slow)
- Anette has some weird vocal moments, too
- Song of Myself has 3 minutes of goodness and then the worst moment in Nightwish history
 
1:
2:
3:
4:
5:
6: Wishmaster
7: Imaginaerum
8: Human :||: Nature
9: Angels Fall First

Highest score: 9 (@JudasMyGuide)
Lowest score: 2 (@Diesel 11)

Wishmaster ended up quite a bit lower than I was expecting (again reiterating that I am a very casual Nightwish fan and don't really have a strong pulse on where the fans land on a lot of these albums). To me, Wishmaster is their first great album and sets the template along with some of their most enduring and iconic moments (MASTER! APPRENTICE!). Sure the production is still somewhat crude, but it's competent enough and over time I think they traded in interesting songwriting and riffs for cleaner production. The orchestrations aren't really there, but I love Tuomas' keyboard sounds on this album. Really lush and immersive. To me this album is what Nightwish is all about, so I will be excited and listening to the remaining five albums with an open mind to try and understand why this one ended up relatively low. I imagine that, in addition to production, a lot of it has to do with the lack of orchestrations and male vocals from Marko, which became Nightwish staples.

This is one album that a lot of folks were pretty unified on. Most people actually ranked it #6, which is where it landed, with several additional members putting it one spot higher. Obviously only one #1 ranking, but there were quite a few lists that had it at #2 (including mine). The album as a whole was only four points away from #5, further illustrating how close a lot of these rankings came.
 
Another case where my love for each album ended up meaning that a great one was going towards the bottom of my list. I think what I ended up ranking Wishmaster lower for was down to that mix of their Oceanborn power metal sound with their future symphonic metal approach. "Dead Boy's Poem" definitely paved the way for all of Century Child. In that sense, why go for Wishmaster when you can hear those sounds being fully executed other records? Tuomas also considers it the least-personal album he's ever written and I can definitely agree up to EFMB and H/N. The personal lyrics are definitely a big part of Nightwish's appeal for a lot of people including myself.

But there's so much great stuff on this album. "She Is My Sin" and "The Kinslayer" are an insane opening double-punch, and Emppu's riffing throughout the record is killer. It's their last album before they detuned (Marko doesn't like playing bass in standard and they accommodated him, that's why during the Decades Tour they were playing all of these songs in a different key). You get way more crunch from Emppu in future records (Kerrang called it a diesel chug and I happen to love that term), but the guitar playing on Oceanborn and Wishmaster manages to blister and soar in great ways even though at this point his work is less fiery. I also think that this album has a ton of hidden gems, especially "Two for Tragedy" which is wrongly maligned in the fanbase. Beautiful ballad.
 
I really like Wishmaster, but I also ended up rating ut pretty low. This just shows how strong their discography is. The first three songs are legendary, same about Dead boy’s poem. FantasMic is a very underrated Nightwish song. Both Emppu and Tuomas play at their finest here, and Tarja sings amazingly. They sound so much more professional here, and it certainly defined their sound when it came out.
 
Wishmaster is the first album where Tuomas really nails what he is going for, but he is far from perfecting it. There’s not really a bad song on it and yet it simply doesn’t measure up to the better albums in the discography.

Pretty much every song on Wishmaster fails to reach the top tier, despite being mostly good. There’s a lot of promise on Wishmaster that will later be fulfilled tenfold on the subsequent albums.
 
I will have to spend more time with Oceanborn as I remember feeling like it lacked enough standout tracks to be held up against Wishmaster. It also didn’t feel like the symphonic metal sound had really developed much at that point. I can see the appeal of Century Child over this though.
MrKnickerbocker said:
Pretty much every song on Wishmaster fails to reach the top tier, despite being mostly good.
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This is where I differ and probably hold the album in higher esteem than others on here. I think there are several songs that make for some of Nightwish’s most memorable material. The title track, She Is My Sin, FantasMIC, Bare Grace Misery, all top tier songs in my book.
 
Dead on for me at #6. Theoretically this should be right up my alley, but it hasn't clicked, notably the title track, Dead Boy's Poem and Fantasmic which I understand to be fan favourites. There's something jagged about the songs here, they aren't as purely PM as on Oceanborn but not quite hitting it on the Century Child formula either, and some parts don't flow well. Two For Tragedy and Deep Silent Complete are enjoyable but just breeze by. That said, most of the songs here I like and it has only climbed with each listen. Come Cover Me, Crownless and especially Bare Grace Misery are probably my favourites, but like @MrKnickerbocker wrote even they don't make me wow.
 
1:
2:
3:
4:
5: Endless Forms Most Beautiful
6: Wishmaster
7: Imaginaerum
8: Human :||: Nature
9: Angels Fall First

Highest score: 9 (@Mosh @Night Prowler)
Lowest score: 2 (@JudasMyGuide @Sth2112)

Starting off our top five is Floor's Nightwish debut. As extensively discussed in this thread and among the Nightwish fanbase, the change in vocalists represented not just a pivot in who fronts the band, but a pivot in the band's lyrical approach. From the fantasy/folklore influenced lyrics of past albums to songs inspired by natural science and Darwinism. I can understand it being a controversial move and wish for the band to go back to their lyrical roots some, although on this particular album I find that it mostly works OK as a one-off.

Generally the rankings for this album varied quite a bit. It seems for every top 5 ranking, there is a bottom 4 ranking as a response (illustrated somewhat by two lists putting the album right at the top while two lists have it second to last). So the album landing right in the middle is probably the most appropriate placement possible. I also think it's appropriate that the remaining four albums represent the band's more traditional fantasy approach.

For my own tastes, it mostly comes down to the higher production quality, orchestrations, and (most of all) Floor. I think Floor is the best possible choice in vocalist for Nightwish. Her style is more in the vein of Anette, but she isn't lacking the technical prowess or power that Tarja brought to the band. I think she is a better performer than Tarja and her versatility carries the songs in a way I don't feel Anette was particularly capable of.

Stylistically I don't find the album to be that much of a derivation from Imaginaerum, but the songwriting is much more focused and they mostly* get rid of the more experimental elements that don't really play to their strengths. Instead, it feels like the band was laser focused on making each song a "classic" Nightwish track and playing to their own strengths. So in a way it feels like a Nightwish greatest hits, but it also ends up being the strongest showcase of what they do best, at least for my tastes. Songs like Elan, Shudder Before the Beautiful, Edema Ruh, all stuff we have heard before but maybe not quite as refined as on this album.

*Mostly. The album is capped with one of the band's biggest missteps, the 24 minute Greatest Show On Earth. Similar to Song of Myself, there's a lot of interesting musical material here but none of it is really developed and the whole thing ends up getting bogged down in self indulgence and pseudo-philosophy. A lot of the musical fragments feel like things that could have been fleshed out into full songs but in the current form it feels like material that wasn't good enough to be made into a complete song, so basically a compilation of leftover material that you would find on a bonus disc. When a proper song develops around the 7 minute mark, it's OK but it quickly switches gears into unrelated material. I don't mind a little disjointedness, being a prog fan and all, but I like to expect at least some coherency between parts in long epics. Greatest Show feels more like a collage of unrelated material without any real effort to arrange things in a way that makes sense. To me, it feels like a great 10-12 minute song is in there but I have to listen to a bunch of lame spoken word sections and meandering orchestral/ambient bits to get there, which makes none of it worthwhile.

I went back and forth on putting this album as my #1 as Greatest Show really is a mess. Ultimately I decided that without Greatest Show you still have a full length set of 10 great songs and I really have to struggle to find any fault with the previous 10 songs, not to mention several of them are my go-to tracks when I want to listen to Nightwish. None of their other albums really have that staying power with me.
 
Endless Forms Most Beautiful is a very good album. I go back and forth as to whether or not I'd rank it at #3 or #4 on my own list.

Every song is solid, some are great. Floor sounds very good, but never quite hits the peaks of which we know she is capable. Some of Nightwish's heaviest moments live here (Yours Is An Empty Hope) and I simply love that.

I agree with @Mosh that there's a pretty great 10-12 minute song within TGSOE, but it's completely overstuffed and a bit aimless. The band plays this shortened version live and it's much better (though I hope I never have to see it again at a gig*) ((*if they ever gig again))

Middle of the pack makes sense based on the general opinion of FloorWish around here and I think it's justified. The 4 albums remaining are pretty massive steps for the band (or for the genre of symphonic metal as a whole) and Endless Forms is merely just a very good Nightwish album.
 
I'll post my write-up for Wishmaster first. (like I said, I'm dealing with other issues, so I'm doing the best I can).

I was honestly shocked and appalled at the ranking of the album, moreso by the fact most members seemed to be agreeing. I admit, some of it might be because I'm a Wish-era boomer (it was precisely around that album when I first heard the band and Wishmaster was for some time the only album by the band I had - borrowed from my father on a CD with burnt MP3s which he got...somewhere - ah, the early 00s), but I strenuously deny the notion that it's only nostalgia that keeps it in my personal number one - in fact, I'd say that Wishmaster is pretty much the only perfect album, much as I like the band in general. The birth pains are gone, the spirit is still young, Tuomas is still aiming primarily to be vigorous than epic.

Diesel 11 said:
In that sense, why go for Wishmaster when you can hear those sounds being fully executed other records?
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Unless you mean Oceanborn, I'm not really sure what you're talking about, because - while tastes differ and all and you may like the latter form more - the switch in style came immediately after this album and there are no other songs on the following albums like FantasMic (with that pseudo-Medieval interludes and all), Bare Grace Misery also sounds like early-Tarja and not much like what they'd be doing from Century Child onwards, Wishmaster too, definitely, I'd even argue Two for Tragedy doesn't have any "siblings" on the later albums, nor does Deep Silent Complete, really, but most of all - Crownless would be the last power metal song by the band, a strain that would disappear completely after this album.

Anyway, like I already said, to me the consistency of this album edges it out from the no. 1 spot against Oceanborn. She Is My Sin is a perfect early hit, The Kinslayer, despite being quite topical, has a killer riff and a driving tempo (they would try to recreate this again and again, already with End of All Hope on the next album) and Come Cover Me AND Deep Silent are among the pinnacles of the Tarja-era - also because of the fact none of the other singers would be able to truly recreate those, even if they tried.

It's the middle of the record where the album really soars high for me - Wanderlust has a rather complex and irresistible riff and main vocal melody and a peculiar dissonance between its two halves, Bare Grace Misery is to me personally among the catchiest songs by NW, the haunting night-time atmosphere and the beautiful wordless chorus of Deep Silent Complete makes it stand out even in their discography (and what a queer choice for a single, indeed!) and the already mentioned Crownless is... well, is exactly the type of song I love and something I'd love them to revisit. Well, revisit back then, probably not nowadays.

Oh, and despite me nominating Beauty of the Beast for the Greatest Metal Song Cup (I figured people would like it more; serves me right that it was eliminated immediately), I guess FantasMic is my favourite Tarja-era epic - and therefore my second favourite NW epic overall - being neither as plodding as Beauty, nor as Morriconish as Ghost Love Score and not as weird as Creek Mary's Blood.

Truly, Wishmaster is the deserted island NW pick for me and one of my top 5 albums overall, no contest.
 
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