And there is no Nightwish without Tarya.... d'oh!
Ah, Nightwish, the band destroyed by its own marketing.
Nightwish didn't become known because it was a metal band with a female singer -- there's many of these -- it was a metal band with a
female classical opera singer.
That was new and unique.
It's sort of ironic that Nightwish has both catapulted Tarja to fame (and money...) and tarnished her reputation, as an opera singer associated with metal band is not going to be taken seriously by the opera-attending snobs. But she is indeed a good opera singer on her own, just listen to her rendition of
Ave Maria:
The thing is however that the band was formed in 1997, and Tarja did not start attending opera school until 2000. To see what difference it made, listen to this original version of
Sleeping Sun from 1998:
versus the 2006 version:
Yes, the original lyrics made no sense, but a competent singer would have been able to deliver these in an understandable way anyway.
However, four years of opera school later, Tarja was already a competent vocalist, and Nightwish rose to international prominence with the 2004 album
Once. To see what the band was capable of at its peak, listen to this song:
But, as the old wisdom goes, the triumph contains the seeds of the fall. In this case, the fall was caused by the decision to promote the album not with its best song (
Ghost Love Score), and not even customarily with track #1 (
Dark Chest of Wonders). No, they chose track #3 -
Nemo. But, the track itself was not the disaster. The disaster was the music video:
Now, it is sort of ironic for me to be writing this, because it's this very video which made me aware of the band... Anyway. If you watch the video, you will notice that the video shows mostly the singer or an actress which is very similar to the singer. In fact, you may think that it's the same person, just in different clothes, unless you watch carefully. The rest of the band is shown in passing, it's the support for the diva. Further, the video uses symbolic suicide / death imagery, which of course made it a roaring hit among emo teenagers worldwide, with teenage girls self-identifying with the diva. (Male teenagers bought it the moment they saw that the singer is reasonably attractive.)
Marketing-wise, this was genius. There was one problem, though. If you have made the singer the selling point and the face of the band then it is guaranteed to create tensions. Especially if the band is actually the brain child of the keyboard player -- who happens to be shown in the whole
Nemo video maybe twice, for less than a second.
So the band leader, wanting to regain his own recognition, decides to fire the singer and find a new one. What he doesn't realize is that no professional opera singer will want to work with a metal band. (Remember that Tarja was not a pro opera singer when she joined the band -- she became one during her time with the band). He finally settles on a singer from an Abba tribute band. Then he goes back to composing, and in 2007 he comes up with
Dark Passion Play album:
And you should immediately notice what the problem is. The composition is good. The execution is good. The new vocalist can sing. If you look at it the way a music critic does, the album is definitely on par with
Once.
Except... the new singer has nowhere near the voice range and expression of Tarja.
The magic is gone.
