Rocktimism

Who's afraid of Imagine Dragons?

21 Aug

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Molly Mary O’Brien on Dan Reynolds as quarterback.

Imagine Dragons are about to play a concert at Las Vegas's Allegiant Stadium, and as frontman Dan Reynolds prepares to take the stage, he looks more like a football player than a rock star. He is muscly as hell—in 2019 he was profiled in Men's Health and praised for his transformation "from skinny-fat to shredded"—and his pre-show demeanor suggests a quarterback in a state of quiet contemplation before a Big Game. His tight, white t-shirt looks like it has sweat-wicking capabilities. After lovingly etching a black straight-edge X on his hand, he hits the stage to join his three bandmates, and they launch into "My Life," the first song of their 2-hour Hulu concert special, Imagine Dragons Live In Vegas. All that is missing is a referee whistle to start the game.

A healthy society should always have room for at least one rock band whose popularity is inversely proportional to their coolness. At this point in time, Imagine Dragons are a kind of shorthand for big, empty, embarrassing corporate rock; when they recently joined the Netflix picket line to play an acoustic rendition of their mega-hit “Radioactive,” some folks wisecracked that their presence was an attempt at strikebreaking, not solidarity. Imagine Dragons aren't arty like The 1975, or hardcore like Turnstile, or Italian like Måneskin. They are merely massive, and their bigness is the most interesting thing about them. Imagine Dragons have sold 74 million albums, a wild accomplishment for a band formed nine years after the founding of Napster.

Comedy writer Mike Ginn once tweeted, "Why must a movie be "good"? Is it not enough to sit somewhere dark and see a beautiful face, huge?” I would argue the same could be true with a band. I watched their Hulu special to understand why Imagine Dragons could be so popular, and to see if I was missing out on something. After all, even nu-metal and Nickelback have gotten critical reappraisals. Why wait 10 years for Imagine Dragons to become “actually pretty good”? Poptimism has supplanted rockism, which means we might be ready to make the world safe for rocktimism.