For this post I’m doing something a
little different, some people may like it and some people may not. I’ve spent
this entire blog trying to appreciate and understand the music that my parents
listen to. But now, I want them to take the time to try and comprehend one of
the bands I listen to the most. Twenty One Pilots is a duo consisting of Tyler
Joseph on vocals and Joshua Dun on the drums, they also happen to be my
favorite band. It takes a lot to become a band someone can confidently say is
their absolute favorite, before Twenty One Pilots I used to give people a list
of at least ten bands when asked who my favorite was. It’s just hard for a band
to stand out that much. The reason Twenty One Pilots stands out so much is
because there’s not just the music to love, there’s also the community you are
welcomed into with open arms known as the “Skeleton Clique.”
While I know many bands have their
own intense set of followers, Justin Bieber has the “Beliebers” and Lady Gaga
has her “Little Monsters,” the “Skeleton Clique” is a fan base like no other.
Being apart of the “Skeleton Clique” is less like major fan girling and a lot
more like being a part of a huge family. Tyler and Josh have an uncanny ability
to connect with their listeners, their concert was the most interactive concert
I have ever seen, or should I say been a part of. I remember the venue I saw
them at consisted of a pit and then an upper balcony that wrapped around the
room, and there was one man who was so far towards the end of the balcony that
he was practically watching from behind the stage. The man’s name was Mike, I
remember this because Tyler stopped the show to talk to the man and point out
how lucky he was to see the show from their point of view, to see the fans and
see the show that they put on rather than the show we had all paid to go see. I’ve
never heard any band talk about the crowd more at a concert, Tyler went on to
talk about the crowd even more at that concert admitting things like the songs
and concert wouldn’t mean anything if it wasn’t for the people who come to see
and listen to it which is true, and something I don’t think about a lot. It
might have been because I was in the second row but I truly felt like I was a
part of that concert, a part of the band.
It amazes me how comfortable you
can feel surrounded by a huge group of strangers without a care about your “personal
bubble” or how many different people’s sweat you have on you. But, that becomes
a lot easier when you share such personal stories with the people around you without
even knowing it. The great part about Twenty One Pilots music is that it
crosses lines in order to allow people, ordinary people, to share their
stories. Much of the content of Tyler Joseph’s lyrics revolves around mental
illness, whether it’s anxiety, depression, insomnia, or even just head aches.
Twenty One Pilots is not afraid to get straight to the point and openly sing
about subject matters that most people would be uncomfortable just thinking
about. Through doing this Tyler and Josh help to give the members of their “Skeleton
Clique” a voice. By sharing their own personal struggles, they help their fans
feel comfortable enough to talk about theirs. If you look at any fan made Twenty
One Pilots blog or Instagram/Twitter account you will surely find a post about
that fans personal experience with mental illness and how they overcame it,
often with the help of Twenty One Pilots.
That’s how inspiring the music of
Twenty One Pilots is, it can help people deal with and overcome things that
many people pay therapists for. But, they don’t do this by sugar coating their
music and lyrics, Twenty One Pilots makes dark edgy music often referred to by
critics as “schizophrenic pop” (Kamps, 2015). This is because their music is pretty much all
over the place, they don’t really have one specific genre because a lot of what
they do is experimentation. With two self released albums and 2 other albums
produced by the record label Fueled by Ramen, there is a lot of content to look
at when it comes to Twenty One Pilots. But, the album that captures who they
are as people and a band the most is their first album produced by Fueled by
Ramen, Vessel. Vessel not only covers
all of the bands favorite subjects but all of their most common genres as well.
The first song on the album, “Ode
to Sleep” is a perfect preview to what the rest of the album is going to be
like (Joseph, 2013). It sets up their favorite juxtaposition between the night and day, or
dark and light, in order to persuade listeners that no matter how bad life gets
their will always be good parts about it. The song starts out with a dark
creepy intro that sounds like it could be the foreboding sound effect used in
horror movies before a murder. The lyrics start out the same way but with more
of a desperate sound with lines like “I'm pleading please, oh please on my
knees repeatedly asking, Why it's got to be like this, is this living free,”
but then it takes a sudden turn. Tyler’s tone shifts from desperation to
determination when he says “I’ll stay awake, cause the dark’s not taking
prisoners tonight.” There’s also a shift in the music and the whole song goes
from frightening to motivating in a matter of seconds.
The next song on the album “Holding
On To You doesn’t really have the dark side to it that “Ode to Sleep” did, but
the lyrics display the band’s main theme, the fight with mental illness. The
chorus starts out with the word “you” and the question is who or what is Tyler
referring to. While nothing is explicitly stated the answer is clearly a what,
and that what is some sort of mental illness. The second part of the chorus is “You
are surrounding all my surroundings, twisting the kaleidoscope behind both of
my eyes.” Tyler Joseph is clearly telling the mental illness that it’s
affecting his thoughts and views on the world, it’s affecting his perception.
But the second verse shows the major shift in power between the mental illness
and Tyler when it ends with the line “I have news for you, you must obey me.”
He’s taking back control over his mind, encouraging his listeners to do the
same.
The third song, “Migraine,” is one
that I connect most personally with seeing as I used to struggle with the pain
of weekly migraines, sometimes more often than that. It always amazed me how
well Tyler was able to put the indescribable pain and annoyance of migraines
into words so perfectly. The unusually constant, even rhythm of Tyler’s rapping
even works to represent continuous never wavering pain of a migraine.
The fourth song, “House of Gold,”
shows a completely different side of the band, their acoustic side, featuring
my personal favorite instrument, the ukulele. Tyler Joseph uses the ukulele in
a lot of his songs but it is featured most heavily in this song. “House of Gold”
also features different lyrical content than the rest of the songs on the
album, talking about his mom and growing up rather than struggling through the
darkness. This song is definitely much lighter than the rest of them.
The rest of the songs are generally
about the same thing, flip flopping between two different sides of himself,
generally good verse evil, and trying to decide which one is the real him. This
album is mostly about the different masks people wear and going beneath them to
come to terms with one’s true self. But there is one more song on the album
that is worth highlighting and discussing separately. The tenth song on the
album, “Guns for Hands,” is the most inspirational song on the album. Rather
than referring to himself in the lyrics like he does in most of the song, this
song refers straight to the audience starting with the line “I know what you
think in the morning.” This song also brings in the strangest genre that Twenty
One Pilots seems to experiment with. After the fourth chorus and a lot of “hey”s
the music all of a sudden takes a turn to a sort of distorted reggae feel. The
best part about this is that it definitely grabs the attention of the listener
right before the most important part in the lyrics. Tyler goes into this rap
that reveals his true purpose for creating the music that he produces. In this
section Tyler says “The solution is, I see a whole room of these mutant kids, Fused
at the wrist, I simply tell them they should shoot at this, Simply suggest my
chest and this confused music, It's obviously best for them to turn their guns
to a fist.” He writes music not for himself, although obviously it’s what he
loves to do, but what drives his passion is the people he’s writing the music
for, the people he doesn’t even know yet. He’s writing it for the people who
need something, anything to tell them that it’s okay and they can make it
through this confusing thing that is life.
So Mom and Dad, the next time I
spend far too long in my room listening to nothing but Twenty One Pilots or
spend an hour talking to you about how amazing they were in concert and how
excited I am to see them again, just know that it’s not about just the music. I
know it may just seem like a stupid obsession to you, but it’s way more than
that. This band is my values, it’s all my beliefs rolled into four albums, it’s
my religion, it’s what I believe in and their concerts are my church. So the
next time you feel yourself wanting to tell me to shut up about them, just know
I’m not telling you about the band, I’m telling you about me. So please try to
understand and if nothing else, just listen.
Works Cited:
Works Cited:
Joseph, Tyler. “Track-by-Track: Twenty One
Pilots – Vessel.” Rock Sound. Rock
Sound, 4 Sept. 2013.
Web. 19 Nov. 2015.
Kamps, Garrett. “Pop Duo Twenty One Pilots
Makes a Hot Mess (in a Good Way) on
‘Blurryface’:
Album Review.” Billboard. Billboard,
19 May 2015. Web. 19 Nov. 2015.
