Thing is, TOP has generally gotten more acclaim than artists like Imagine Dragons and Maroon 5, their sound is a lot more unique (even if it might be grating to some), and they put more care into albums and their rollouts than almost any artist alive, which is so rare these days. They have the same crew they had from the beginning, having largely been homegrown. They still operate out of Columbus and really distanced themselves from the LA machine (which could be good or bad depending on your viewpoint) and still own it. Their live show is so carefully thought out. Their care for their fans is off the charts. Etc. I have a largely uncontroversial list of favorite artists to my friends, but TOP always seems to stick out like a sore thumb. It's odd to me. I don't think they're the greatest out there, but they deserve so more much respect in circles of "higher" art.
I agree. While I am definitely a more fair weather fan - but it surely seems like they are just genuinely good mid-west homies. Glad to hear that holds up.
I think Blurryface is my favorite. I had discovered them/Vessel the summer of 2014 and got me hooked. So when a new album was announced, I was super excited. It just seemed like such a cohesive album with some bangers. I didn't even get into the "lore" stuff until recently, but that has further cemented my joy of this band.
Overcompensate is better than anything off their last record and feels like a spiritual follow up to their best record Trench so I’m actually excited for this record now. Wow. I didn’t see that coming.
Overcompensate is fine. Surprised it’s a first single and the intro song. Kind of reminded me a lot of Heavydirtysoul. First time I listened I had trouble deciphering lyrics and some of it felt off beat but I’ve listened four or five times now and it’s growing on me. Also heard it already on XM in my wife’s car.
Interesting that they seem to be going so much into the "lore" on this one when it was really just in the background until now. I never even really paid attention to it until now I think the song is really good though, his rapping is extremely hit or miss for me usually but I thought it was great here. S&I was their worst album but I'll always look forward to seeing what these guys try next
This is pretty good. Wish the first part of the song lasted longer but I'm glad it seems to be more in line with Trench than the last album, which I honestly don't recall anything from.
Respectfully, comparing them to Maroon 5 and Imagine Dragons is absurd. edit: this read more “in your face” than I intended @Frank Lapidus. Genuinely, no offense meant. I would just say that between 1) knowing some of their backstory and 2) knowing how “weird” they are willing to get both with their songs and the “lore,” I wouldn’t categorize them with those bands whatsoever. I don’t know who I’d categorize them with ha
To me that’s the great thing about this band. You can love em or hate em, but they really don’t sound like anyone else. when I put on a Twenty One Pilots “radio” on Spotify , it just plays a lot of 1975, cage the elephant, Portugal the man, arctic monkeys, other recent “alt” stuff that would slot along next to it on the radio, not really any bands that SOUND like them.
Genuinely asking because outside of some early songs (Holding On To You was my jam back in the day) and Trench, I've mostly been a passive listener... but since when do they have lore? First time I've heard about it. Can someone give a summary of what it consists of?
This video is really the best to get into it. As a long time hardcore fan the lore is all pretty secondary to me but it's always a little fun.
I think the crazy thing about “the lore” is there is so little of it actually in the songs themselves. It didn’t really exist during Blurryface and most of how that seems to be tied in is retroactive. There’s like 3-4 songs on Trench that actually mention it on a surface level. Same with Scaled and Icy, very little that’s in the songs too. It’s almost entirely from the music videos and the online world they’ve created.
Yeah, the whole lore thing is extremely far-fetched and to me, has almost entirely nothing to do with 90% of their music.
I haven't heard it yet. But reading comments on Reddit has me very curious... I've heard that it's punk rock, the most emotional song they've ever done, should've been the closer on Clancy, sounds like Linkin Park, sounds like My Chemical Romance...what on earth is this song haha
Verses sound like The Killers instrumentally at some points. I really dig this. Very far out there for them but they've done a great job of it.