Say what you will about Imagine Dragons, whether you believe they’re the human embodiment of a musical cliché or just the perfect amount of bombastic cheese to drag any angsty teen through a particularly difficult afternoon, you cannot ignore the fact that they are, seriously, one of the most prolific “rock” bands on the scene at the moment. Imagine Dragons and Machine Gun Kelly are consistently touring, charting and raking in awards and new fans along their divisive journey. If this is a good thing is very much left open to interpretation. But until we have an answer, Imagine Dragons will keep on releasing music, and millions of people love it. The band are currently in the process of releasing part 2 of their ongoing odyssey “Mercury”. Part 1 came out early last March with the promise of more to come soon. Until the sequel’s release on July 1st, fans will be left with nothing more than the new single “Bones” and its accompanying Wolf of Wall Street / Thriller music video, see below.
The band’s frontman Dan Reynolds commented on the obvious Thriller influence, “It definitely served as the inspiration for the ‘Bones’ video,” he adds, “I’ve always loved that ‘Thriller’ was both scary and playful. I didn’t know as a kid if I wanted to watch it again or not for fear of the ensuing nightmares, but I always came back for more with my eyes half-closed. The idea of punishing Wall Street with a zombie infection felt like an enjoyable time. And it was.”
The single was set to be released last month, but the massive success of their previous single “Enemy” (which has production credits from GRAMMY-nominated, East Atlanta-based rapper J.I.D) led to a bit of a break while the single amassed its 1.6 BILLION cumulative streams across the planet. Its feature in Riot Games’ series “Arcane” undoubtedly had a hand in this, but pinning the song’s success entirely on this would just be crass… people love Imagine Dragons. The tune is currently sat at No. 5 at Top 40, No. 7 at Hot AC and No. 5 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart.
As mentioned before, the album is due on June 1st (you can find pre-order information here), which puts the release date slap-bang in the middle of their expansive world tour which will see the band hit stadiums all over the US and European festival circuit. There is, as of yet, 1 UK date on the tour. You can grab tickets for Imagine Dragons at Milton Keynes’ Stadium MK here.
