Aidon Huck
The great mind Todd in the Shadows once coined the term, The “I’m Back Bitch” Single. A song released by a wildly famous artist to announce that they are, in fact, back. A big, no, massive song to launch them back into the global spotlight and start the momentum for their new album. Summarizing his observations, it’s a gamble for the artist. If it works it can make you an icon. If it underperforms, well, maybe you weren’t as important as we all thought. One of the only specifications for a lead single to be not just a song, but an “I’m Back Bitch” single is that it is about absolutely nothing. It is just about how big and cool they are and the song is big and loud and, hopefully, hard to ignore.
Anyway, Imagine Dragons released their new lead single today.
I basically called all the shots before the song was even out. Not that it’s really hard to do with them. They started with the age old tradition of posting cryptic shit on their Instagram and I knew what was up. Imagine Dragons is no stranger to the IBB single. The lead singles for their third and fourth albums follow this formula to a T. What is Believer about? What is Natural about? Literally nothing. If you want to you can try and say they’re about persevering through struggles or whatever but most of the lines are just filler to get to the big yelling chorus and they worked. Believer is the point where, in my opinion, the moment when Imagine Dragons went from a pretty normal hit-making band to being Imagine Dragons. The gamble paid off.
Their last album broke formula because the lead single was technically about something, but also because they released it with the song Cutthroat as a b-side, which I suppose was experimental for them. A part of me was hoping they would do something a little bit out there for this one but they did not. This song is one of the most nothing songs I have ever heard lyrically. The lines are all just there to sound cool to say but don’t really communicate anything. They released a statement with their Instagram post announcing the song that claims the song is about turning pain and depression into art and it becoming a part of you. In what world is that what the song is about? Let me clarify, I like the message in that Instagram post. I think it’s generally good and poignant. But if you listen to the song you would never be able to tell any of that. If that’s what the song is about then Dan Reynolds is operating on levels of abstraction previously unknown to man. It’s about how the band is back now.
The music video is a strange time as well. It’s part Indiana Jones, part floating cloud island. Imagery that’s theoretically cool but that’s about it. Then at the end Dan meets himself and is guided through a door and then wakes up in a car crash. What? What were you doing with your Eyes Closed Dan? DRIVING??????????
On that note I think it’s funny to mention that three weeks before the song was out it was already being used in a Jeep commercial. I have a running theory that Imagine Dragons is a psyop by Jeep to sell Jeeps. Pretty much every single they’ve released has been in a Jeep commercial. I can’t confirm whether the car in a music video is a Jeep but there’s a probably decent chance.*
Anyway, the music is fine. The production is quality. Modern and electronic. The guitar player is going crazy in the music video but there is definitely not a guitar anywhere in the song. I don’t know what he’s doing. It’s Imagine Dragons you know what to expect.
All that being said, do I hate the song? Probably, right? No. I don’t. It’s about nothing and it kinda sucks but at the same time, I’m a sucker for words that sound cool and it’s at a groovy ~87 BPM so I can’t hate it that much. The middleschooler in me will never be able to truly dislike Imagine Dragons, they’re just in there too deep.
That won’t stop me from making fun of them all the time though keep your eyes on the road Dan.
*Funnily enough, with the help of the Imagine Dragons official discord we managed to track down the car from the video. It's a 2014-2016 Cadillac SRX, so unfortunately not a Jeep. Not that it's important to know but it's absolutely wild that we found it. (...though I was looking in the wrong spot for most of the time. Shoutout to user VO1D for doing basically everything.)