I remember when I was in high school, I went through a classical music (read: Ludwig van Beethoven (read: his fifth symphony)) phase, and I asked, if classical music was so good, why wasn’t anyone making it with modern instruments? Like a metal band that makes classical music. Nightwish is not the answer to my query — power metal tends to lean in that direction but not exactly — but if I heard Angels Fall First, which came out when I was in grade 11, or Oceanborn which came out my final year, I would have been quite satisfied. Keyboardist and songwriter Tuomas (pronounced like Thomas, I think) Holopainen (your guess is as good as mine! I just say it like it looks) fancies himself a composer, and perhaps he is. The band’s first vocalist, Tarja Turunen, certainly sounds like an opera singer.

Over the Hills and Far Away (covering Gary Moore, not Led Zeppelin) wasn’t on either of those albums; it came out later. There are a few I like more, but that’s the one I picked. It’s a good introduction to the band. Unfortunately, they had a big, public, and ugly falling out with Tarja, and the second song off their very next album after firing her is a diss track against her, which divided the fans. That album sucked anyway (I do keep going back to it to see if I can find something I love, but I just don’t like it), but their next album, Imaginaerum, is my favourite, though it makes a lot more sense with the film… which did not get wide distribution. You used to be able to watch it on YouTube. Oh. Looks like you still can. They put an extra bit of text on the title, maybe to beat the copyright bots? I dunno. Looks like the whole thing. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cvR11Nd8uOI So yeah, you really should buy it if you can, but if they won’t sell it to you, and you can only import a Blu-ray that won’t play on your player even though you paid for it… just click that link.

Anyway, my introduction to the band was an “anime music video” or AMV, though it wasn’t an anime, it was the video game Final Fantasy 8, and the song was End of All Hope… which is a slightly slower version of their song Wishmaster but with different lyrics. Wishmaster is the way better song, but End of All Hope was how I was introduced to the band. This Russian guy would not shut up about them, and I figured, why the heck not? First listen, I was in love.

But again, with the history. The film Imaginaerum implied they were gonna keep that singer for decades, but after that album (and film), they split with her, too, and now they have a new singer. I’m a bit mixed on her, though European metal fans tend to love her. I liked the first album she made with them, but the last two albums sucked. I think they lost their way. Anyway, I’m not saying this as a Tarja fan. I’m actually on the band’s side — it’s really not the singer that draws me, it’s Tuomas’s creativity. He also did a solo album, a whole ass tribute to Scrooge McDuck (as in, the rich uncle from DuckTales). I shit you not. He did that. It’s not his first tribute to Disney, who he calls “The King of Fantasy” in FantasMic, which is a reference to the Disneyland show, and the whole song is a tribute to Disney films. So yeah, I’m with Tuomas — but I don’t love all the music he makes. As for Tarja, her solo career isn’t anywhere near her stuff with Nightwish, which tells me Tuomas’s writing was what I liked, more so than her (amazing!) vocal talent. However, she did do a song (Paradise (What About Us?)) with Dutch band Within Temptation that seems like it wants to be the theme song for Fallout 3 (the video game from 2008, not the upcoming third season of the Amazon Prime TV show). Just pretend it’s about the Lone Wanderer and Sarah Lyons, especially watching the video. (You did know you’re meant to play that game as a girl, right? That’s why you can’t romance the childhood friend. You can play as a guy, but you still don’t get to date Amata, no matter how much you capitulate to her.)

I just realised I haven’t said anything about the song itself. It’s a Nightwish song, and it’s one of their few covers. It’s also basically The Count of Monte Cristo. And that’s awesome.

Edit: It would seem I left the artist name off of the title. I have fixed that.