twenty one pilots in tier list
This is a funny band for me, a little. I had some feelings about them before going into it, and those feelings didn’t really come from the music at all. In my head, twenty one pilots are kinda the quintessential middle school band.
I have a core memory of a girl I knew in 7th grade. I think her name was Annabelle, or something like it, but I don’t quite remember anymore. She had brownish-reddish hair that was always a little frizzy. She wore t-shirts with band names and ripped jeans. I was in first period art with her, where she would be chatty about stuff that I felt like surely she must’ve mostly been making up but which sounded real when she said it. She showed up to school every morning, all of what, 12 years old, with some kind of iced coffee. I’m pretty sure I didn’t have a crush on her, but I was definitely conscious of her attention. She was a Cool Kid, y’know? A grown up, but kinda performatively so, but also legit, Middle School Cool Kid. She liked twenty one pilots. That kind of vibe, that energy, that middle-school-ness, has long been my impression of twenty one pilots. I’ve gotten older and listened to more music and become aware that people have stuck with them and that they are a band that people stand by and really genuinely love, but they still feel to me like middle school.
A little bit, this strong impression because Stressed Out was kinda the song played over and over on the radio while I was in middle school and so the band has been locked in that time in my memory. Nothing to be done about that, about the timing and the memory of Annabelle and all that. A little bit, this strong impression is because my impression of the band has always been that they are middle-school-y. Like, they feel like middle school. They feel like they have that energy, of being just a little bit alt and a little bit angry and angsty, and feeling cool and different while actually secretly being something mainstream that everyone mostly likes because it’s pretty good and pretty agreeable. Y’know? It’s the thing people like when they’re trying to be cool. That was literally true of them while I was in middle school, but it’s also the general impression of them that I’ve kept as I’ve gotten older.
And, honestly, after listening to them, start to finish, I stand by that. They do feel like middle school. They are anxious and angsty and a little bit edgy and dark, but not really. And also, they’re pretty great. I liked their first album right away, and I liked them more and more with each album. It’s a little tough to say when that happens how much I actually like the later albums more and how much the band has just grown on me. I think usually it’s both, for sure, and I guess knowing exactly how much is which isn’t the most important thing—it just means I’ll have to do a relisten sometime, which I think I’d enjoy.
I do think that they definitely get better. I think Breach is their best album, and I think it’s a pretty linear progression of the same type of feeling, the same character of energy, that they’ve been tapping into since their first album, that they’ve been building on in every album since. Well, every album except Scaled and Icy.
Even Scaled and Icy feels like it’s an important part of the duo’s progress as artists—I dunno that they took much from it in terms of vibe and theming, but I think that it was a huge milestone for them in how they produce their songs to be more like pop songs, to be more catchy and easily engaging, and I think that carried over in a pretty neat way to the albums they made afterward that were thematically a return to form. I’ll be honest—my first impression of Scaled and Icy was that it was this other flavor of pop, this brighter flavor, and that while it wasn’t bad it just wasn’t as good as other artists which do that flavor better. Y’know? It’s different than their other sound, and still good, but they’re not as good at it as they are at “their own” sound, and not as good as others are who are good at this sound. But then I listened again and it had grown on me, and so I listened to it a third time, and now I think it’s pretty good actually. Plus, again, I think it’s an important part of how they got better; Clancy and Breach wouldn’t be able to be what they are without Scaled and Icy.
That’s important, because I really quite like Clancy and Breach. They, and in particular Breach, feel like the best version of twenty one pilots, like there’s been a culmination of a very clear vibe and aesthetic, of this maturing angst. I have to admit that the angst of these albums, of twenty one pilots as a whole, is something that resonates with me right now, at this time in my life. That’s embarrassing but true, and it surely contributes to how I’ve been listening to and processing the band. They are middle school and angsty and dark and tortured and sad-boy, and that’s something that feels appropriate to me right now, that was kinda nice to listen to.
So yeah, all around I liked them a lot. They had enough going on for me to really be curious and receptive, and then I think their execution was good enough for me to be able to get behind them and have a good time. Solid A-, good stuff. I’m still frustrated by the rankings in the A- section in particular, I think. Lots of bands that I think I like less than this that this is going below, and lots of bands that I think I like more than this that this is going above. But what can ya do. It’ll do for now, I think in isolation at least the mid A- feels good.
twenty one pilots complete, now listening to: Tessa Violet
tunafruitsandwitch 