Imagine Dragons: The story of success

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Aleksandra Tysmbal

A photo from “Imagine Dragons”’s concert in Washington DC.

Imagine Dragons is an American band that was formed in 2008 in Las Vegas, Nevada, and became one of the most recognizable bands in the world in 2012. Vocalist Dan Reynolds met drummer Andrew Tolman at Brigham Young University both as students in 2008. They soon recruited Andrew Beck, Dave Lemke, and Aurora Florence to put together a band. The name Imagine Dragons is an anagram, and only group members officially know the meaning. The band’s participants were constantly changing. Now “Imagine Dragons” consists of Dan Reynolds (vocals), Wayne Sermon (guitar), Ben McKee (bass) and Daniel Platzman (drums). T is an alternative rock band, which contains elements of pop, rock, and electronic music to storm the mainstream music charts.

Single “It’s Time” in 2012  was the first Imagine Dragons’s single and had great success, which helped them to publish a new album “Night Visions”. All of their albums are cool and unforgettable. Overall Imagine Dragons have 6 big albums: Night Visions (2012), Smoke + Mirrors (2015), Evolve (2017), Origins (2018), Mercury – Act 1 (2021), and Mercury – Act 2 (2022), ten extended plays and twenty-seven singles.

The top 5 most popular songs are “Radioactive”, “Believer”, “Demons”, “Enemy” and “Thunder” 

  1. “Radioactive” was the bands first single that exploded in popularity. It became their first top-five hit on the Billboard Hot 100 and spent 87 total weeks on that chart. “Radioactive” was also an awards breakthrough, earning a Grammy nomination for Record of the Year and winning Best Rock Performance. “Night Visions” went multi-platinum and “Radioactive” was certified diamond.
  2. “Believer” peaked at number four on the US Billboard Hot 100, becoming the band’s third top ten single. It also reached the top ten in Austria, Canada, Czech Republic, France, Italy, Poland, Portugal, and Switzerland. The song received great popularity after it was used in the season finale of the first season of the CW’s Riverdale.  It became the fifth best-selling song of 2017 in the United States and one of the best-selling singles of all time.
  3. “Demons”: Alex Da Kid and the producer’s engineer Josh Mosser wrote the song along with the band. It finds lead singer Dan Reynolds warning a loved one not to get too close to him as he is “dark inside.” He is more than aware of his imperfections and wants to protect the loved one from himself.
  4. “Enemy” was recorded for the animated Netflix series Arcane, which premiered on November 6, 2021. The inspiration behind the song was the video game League of Legends, with the band having previously recorded the song “Warriors” for the 2014 League of Legends World Championship.
  5. “Thunder”: As Dan Reynold said in one of his interviews, this song is about his childhood. Dan is taking the listeners back to when he was a kid and a dreamer. He dreamed of the amazing things he wanted to do and didn’t let his peers (who didn’t want to dream) keep him back. “Thunder”, also, went on to peck at number four on the Billboard Hot 100 and were nominated at the 2018 Billboard Music Award for Top Selling Song.

Speaking of my personal experience, I have been to the “Imagine Dragons” concert on December 1st, 2022 in Washington DC. It took place at One Capital Arena, which made this concert absolutely unforgettable and magical for every single visitor. I was so impressed by the way the band performs on the stage and what they say before each song. They were super positive, and wanted to make that day literally the best day of everybody’s lives.