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The question is one that torments. Who the hell are Imagine Dragons? A banal pop band that wants to do more but can't, or a band with musical solidity resting on its shining laurels? I started following them from their first album enticed by a friend who I don't think has a great musical aesthetic sense (even though I managed to make him appreciate Dream Theater) and then I never stopped (usually when I venture into a band, I stick with them). Let's say most of the time they seemed to belong to the latter category, but the doubt that they might belong to the former always lingers; at various times, I felt on the verge of being realistic and admitting that they are a dispensable pop band. However, when I saw them live in Rho in 2018, they seemed more or less serious, more or less musicians, enough to make me wonder what they could be if they set aside their monetary ambitions.
"Mercury - Act 1" had made me see a light; it was an album better played than usual and well-produced, with a mostly dignified sound. It didn't sound flat; the band seemed to have really found the right track while maintaining a pop setup. It was an unusually delicate and introspective album that aimed to show us that Imagine Dragons can also take themselves seriously; it seemed like the album of maturity, of a band transitioning from carefree adolescence to adulthood. And this second act released less than a year later? Well... Let's say highs and lows, a slalom between solid tracks and sometimes even high-level and poorly crafted pop with rather sparse arrangements; the strange thing is that there's a considerable gap between the two types of compositions, meaning the pop songs are the most sparse and banal ever composed while some of the more introspective and refined ones are among the finest ever created by the group. At that point, you really start to wonder where these guys truly want to go and what they want to be; they seem almost indecisive, do we become pop puppets and attract flocks of girls, or do we become serious musicians? When they dive into pop songs, they make them sound as pop as possible, or rather, they don't even make them sound, they make them pump; they become protagonists of this noise republic that has lasted for a good thirty years, we're not talking about playing because there's nothing instrumentally relevant here, and you wonder what's there to listen to; when instead they decide to be serious, they almost really do it, with great class they venture into acoustic singer-songwriter-style music, into orchestral with a good level of elegance and, if you want to be daring, even into blues and soul. Needless to say, this kind of makes you mad because you end up wondering what kind of monster (maybe not too evil, let's not exalt them too much now) they could be if they let go of earnings and views and only focused on giving 100%. Let's say they are a bit like Bologna in Guidolin's years or Delneri's Chievo, teams not necessarily champions but ones that aimed for European spots, but they settled for little because their coach kept harping that "the goal is to stay up"; only if they continue to follow the prevailing wind they'll inevitably be sucked in, they will become a truly dull pop band and be relegated to the lower leagues, if not further down.
My advice to Imagine Dragons is simple and direct, although I'm not sure if they'll listen: since you already have the money, you can very well stop being the Spotify or YouTube band you are and concentrate fully on real music. Or maybe it's me who is stubborn with them and keeps giving them credit and trust?
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