Twenty-One Pilots is of course TOP and with their new album Trench they are no longer the top rock band to watch.
Do not be fooled by Stressed Out from the last album and Heathens from the soundtrack for Suicide Squad both of which garnered over a billion views on Youtube. They don’t have a hit of this quality from the album. Jumpsuit is the first single released and so far this has gathered a mere 34 million views and I don’t expect it to surpass 100 million views before their next, hopefully better album.
Jumpsuit to me is only as good as some of the worst songs from Blurryface and Vessel, the previous two solid outings from Twenty-One Pilots. Trench doesn’t come close to its predecessors.
I had so much hope for this new album but realize I had been warned. The two concept songs from Blurryface were Stressed Out and Goner.
In Stressed Out, Blurryface is introduced as, “My name is Blurryface and I care what you think.”
In Goner it’s stated, “I’ve got two faces, Blurry’s the one I’m not. I need your help to take him out.”
I guess the help singer/songwriter/keyboardist/bassist/ukeleleer (any better ideas for that last one?) Tyler Joseph meant was the help of buying the album and the songs.
Well Twenty-One Pilots got the acclaim and sales they were after. They broke the billion viewer barrier before Coldplay and Imagine Dragons are likely to break a billion some time in the future for Thunder. Really, they were on top of the rock world.
Then they put out Trench. I am being harsh about this because Tyler, I care what I think.
It should be noted that for Vessel, Twenty-One Pilots didn’t want to jinx themselves by calling the band, TOP. After the acclaim for this solid outing, on the next album, Blurryface, they called themselves TOP. And why not? They were sill putting out great stuff.
In the credits for Trench, they call themselves TOP again. I don’t think it is deserved. I’ll just let it go because they were at the top for Vessel and didn’t use it then. But, if they continue to use the moniker for subpar albums, I’m going to stop buying those albums.
Really, I have high hopes for Twenty-One Pilots being TOP again at some point. They are still a relatively young band. Hopefully they will get it right in the future.
