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[dandelionjack]

deeply unserious generation etc etc. i know she wants me carnally

[iimaginedragons]

track review

“jumpsuit” & “nico and the niners” by twenty one pilots

emo alternative hip-hop rap-rock electropop superstars twenty one pilots dropped two songs a few days ago from their upcoming album “trench” to come out later this year; here’s my take on the two very different but very awesome singles.

a note before i start: i have researched a good deal about the meaning of this song by making mental links to the journal entries twenty one pilots have been posting on a cryptic website and by reading up on genius lyrics annotations as well as a decent variety of clique theories. if you haven’t really done this, some of my review may be a little confusing. 

i’ll start right off by saying this; i’ve had both songs on loop for several hours already throughout these past few days and i have to say that i’m pretty impressed. i think that both of these songs are extremely creative, well written, and well produced, and although each, to me, has a very different energy, i love that many aspects of the “blurryface” era were both kept and switched up. overall, i love both songs a lot, yet i do have a couple of nitpicky issues that i’ll address as best as i can in this review. 

let’s begin with “jumpsuit” which is the first of the two. the first thing i have to say is that i am absolutely in love with the baseline, and when those synths and more powerful drums kick in, it feels very much like a mashup of a “vessel” song and a “blurryface” song, which i am absolutely here for. tyler’s vocals sound excellent on the first chorus, though personally i would have perhaps toned down the effect on his voice a little bit. i also really enjoy the simple verse, especially the way he says “friend or foe?”. another highlight of this song is definitely the bridge -- here’s a place where the vocal effect totally works for me and actually enhances the song rather than taking away from it. the piano here is also beautiful. and of course, there’s tyler’s signature screaming and that extra heavy breakdown, which is my personal favourite part of the song in terms of sound.

lyrically, i find the bridge to be the most interesting. some clique theories are saying that based off the music video, these lyrics represent tyler expressing his intentions to blurryface, which are that yes, he will likely be afraid and desperate and sad and hopeless again, but he will not succumb to these things (ergo, to blurryface) without fighting tooth and nail for his sanity and happiness, an intention which he further crystallizes with the powerul screaming of the common line “jumpsuit, jumpsuit, cover me”. i think this is a brilliant message to send and a very clever way to link the blurryface era and the “trench” era. to me, the yellow jumpsuit represents hope and perseverance in the search for happiness (or in the alternate metaphorical world that tyler and josh present to us, the escape from the fictional city of dema, which i think represents depression). i do find the repetition of that one line a bit irritating after many listens, but not enough for me to dislike the song or anything. i just wish tyler had maybe taken a variation on that particular line at certain points in the song, that’s all. overall though, a very solid track in all aspects.

now onto “nico and the niners” which is my personal favourite of the two. the moment i heard the ukulele in the beginning, it made me incredibly happy. my constant fear is that artists will omit or at least gloss over with too much production some of their signature instruments or sounds in their further work (for example, i always fear that further fall out boy work will lack catchy but intricate guitar riffs (and unfortunately that fear became a reality with the release of “m a n i a”)), so i was glad not to see the disppearance of the ukulele which was so well-used, especially in the blurryface era. the hip/hop reggae mixed hook is absolutely incredible, encompassing a lot of meaning and solid sound in only a few short lines. the bass and vocals also really contribute to that reggae vibe when tyler sings the line “my jumpsuit takes me so high” (among others), while the percussion is what makes me think of hip/hop. i really like those very subtle notes in the background of the second hook, although i still can’t tell if they’re guitar or keyboard. the quick rap part is a highlight of this song as well -- it sounds awesome and it’s incredibly meaningful as well. sound wise, there really isn’t a thing i dislike about this particular song.

in terms of lyrics, i find this track to be stronger than jumpsuit, partly because it has a good bit less of repetition, but also because of the meaning behind the lyrics. the hook is extremely catchy, i love that “east is up” kicks off those first three lines; it really grabs my attention and gets me to listen closely to what he’s going to say next -- sidenote: this is a prime example of repetition being used accordingly and very well. according once again to the clique and to genius lyrics annotations, nico is rumoured to be the name of one of the nine bishops that rule over dema, each bishop representing an insecurity, fear, etc. that holds tyler back from getting out of his depression (aka escaping from dema). what i then interpret is that tyler explains that “dema don’t control us” and that even when the “bishops come together” (when tyler’s struggles rise and become greater and perhaps cumulative), he understands that he can still control his own mind and make his own path away from depression. this part really made me think of the lyrics from “holding onto you” in which tyler describes tying a leash around his mind in order to gain control over it. the entire song is pure lyrical genius to me, especially the quick rapping part, where tyler says that the escape from dema will be “funded” by all the money that razorblade stores have made, and that they have so much that they could “start a concert, a complete diversion” to help them get out. these lines could mean so many different things, both together and on their own. what i get from them is that there’s this vicious cycle of self-harm/suicide, getting clean/bringing awareness to it or mourning the person, and then falling back into it all over again/forgetting about it. this cycle happens so often that if we were to turn around and crush these things by actually using or channelling that strength, time, resolve, etc. that is being taken away from us by depression into working for our escape instead, we’d be able to buy a racehorse, fund a concert, etc., all very expensive things, so basically we’d find the means to get out, and not just be “not depressed” but actually be happy because of this surplus of lost potential that we have. for me it really refers to the ability we have as people to take control of our lives, purely because we are able to be so down and sad and lost; why shouldn’t we have that very same ability to be so high and happy and grounded in our lives and in who we are, seeing as we can be such polarized beings (see what i did there)? instead, however, we fall back into our old habits. basically, i see these lines as a discussion about all of our wasted/buried potential even as depressed humans, which in itself is either sad or hopeful. i could be dead wrong on this interpretation, but either way, overall, these lyrics are extremely deep and incredibly clever.

now, i did say i say i had a couple of nitpicky criticisms. i mentioned one above which was a little sound thing in “jumpsuit” -- my only other criticism relates to both songs, and it is that both of these tracks, though especially “nico and the niners”, have direct references to the entire fictional universe of dema, clancy, the bishops, etc.. since i consider myself a pretty devoted member of the clique, i’ll go out and research all this stuff because i enjoy it so much. however, for someone who enjoys twenty one pilots but is not that invested in them or in music in general, these songs, at times, make little sense. i think anyone could catch onto the fact that the jumpsuit is this idea of shielding yourself from your struggles, of striving towards recovery, but in “nico and the niners”, tyler talks about dema, the bishops, the banditos, etc. and i don’t think that these references are obvious enough for a more casual fan to really catch onto. that is not to say that these are bad lyrics; far from it -- i just mean that i don’t think that they can really be appreciated by those who are not crazily dedicated to this band or to music, and may be written off as meaningless shit that just sort of sounded good, so tyler and josh made it into a song. we had a few direct mentions of blurryface in the past album, in both “stressed out” and “goner” yet blurry was always a slightly more abstract concept than what we’re seeing with dema and the whole rest of the “trench” stuff, making it so that if a casual fan listened to the entire blurryface album, they’d probably be able to understand some sort of progression or evolution in going from “my name’s blurryface and i care what you think” in “stressed out” to “i got two faces, blurry’s the one i’m not” in “goner” even without totally knowing what blurryface himself represents. if you want to argue and say “who cares, this is for the clique anyway” i’ll just stop you right there because i honestly disagree. it’s totally okay for tyler to make all of these direct references to this beautiful and brilliant concept that he’s creating, but i don’t think that a song should require hours (okay, exaggeration, i know) of online reading for just an average fan to even understand. i think that a song should be mostly able to stand alone, without the concept of the album doing most of the work in holding it up as a quality piece of work. i’m not for albums that are all over the place or singles that just don’t fit either, don’t get me wrong; i just mean that i want the song to be cohesive so that it doesn’t rely fully on something that not everyone will research. of course it can (and should, at least in terms of concept albums) refer back to that common storyline or at least theme, but not so much that it’s literally meaningless wihout it. excellent concept albums have been released in which every song can stand alone but also link right back to the common storyline; i mean, look at every single album by my chemical romance (“danger days: the true lives of the fabulous killjoys” does walk that line a little closer than the rest with tracks like “destroya” and in some moments “na na na”, but not nearly as heavily as these two twenty pilots tracks do). for me, “jumpsuit” passes the standalone test with only a bit of difficulty, but “nico and the niners” walks that line quite precariously, leaning a bit towards the side that says that it just doesn’t quite work if you don’t understand the bigger picture.

all this to say though, that is honestly my only criticism of these songs, and since it doesn’t really apply to me as i’m a pretty dedicated fan and proud member of the clique, here are some pretty high ratings for these two tracks:

my final rating for “jumpsuit” is an 8.0/10.

my final rating for “nico and the niners” is an 8.5/10.

if you want me to do more in-depth track reviews like this, just drop a song in my ask anytime and i’ll get it up there asap, obviously crediting you in the process. thanks for reading the whole damn way through!

---mel