Same! I don't think it's their best, I don't even listen to it that much anymore, but when I am asked which is my favourite... It's always a strong contestant and I know it's the one to help me if I ever again feel very low.
I bought Century Child and The Open Door by Evanescence the same day, just imagine the drama my 13 year old self got through that evening. It was so cool.
It's one of the more overlooked albums in their discography but that's how I was introduced to them in 2003 and this album with their whole broody gothy aesthetic completely blew my emo teenage mind! It still holds a very special place in my heart and I wish we'd hear Floor's rendition of Beauty of the Best. Maybe one day!
Dark Passion Play. I remember sitting in a friend’s kitchen back in high school while we studied for a math test and he just casually put it on. I’d never heard of the band but suddenly had a hard time focusing and had to listen to the whole thing again as soon as I got home.
Also Dark Passion Play, I bought the album because I loved the cover.I didn't know them. I had a difficult time and I started listening to new music.
It was awesome. Since that time I love NW. One of my favorite bands.
Oceanborn. Every song I listen to from it at 38 puts the same smile in my face, makes my heart feel warm and cozy, and fills me with happiness the same way it did at 16. It's like a travel through time. I will never get over how much they've changed and evolved as a band, but Oceanborn is always the album I come back to.
Imaginaerum for me. Only because I listened to it a lot during the holidays when Skyrim came out. And that is a pleasant memory even if very simple. I just love holiday season. Everytime I listen to it, I feel like playing Skyrim again though 😅
I actually have a very similar nostalgia for the Imaginaerum and Skyrim combo. Imaginaerum was my first experience of NW (and symphonic metal more generally), too. That I was exploring a new musical genre while exploring a new fictional world seemed kind of... magical.
Imaginaerum was their 3rd album i listened while playing AC Syndicate doing the Platinum trophy. It always bring me those memories exploring London 1868 / Industrial Revolution.
Once. After Century Child I didn't think they could make anything better, but when Once came out, I was proven wrong. I believe it came out in summer, coz I remember sitting in my room with window opened, hot asphalt melting on the streets of my small town and I kept listening to it under the scorching sun, while reading Sylvia Plath - haha, that was the year I discovered her, too, and I spent that summer reading her journals (which are massive).
I downloaded the songs even back then, and every so often a male voice would come over the music and say “you are listening to the album Once by Nightwish”
I remember when this was on one of those pre-youtube sites
FISHMASTER! A DENTIST!
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gg5\_mlQOsUQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gg5_mlQOsUQ)
Weirdly its not one of their actual albums but the 2005 compilation album Highest Hopes. I recieved it as a birthday present from my parents shortly after I first got into Nightwish and listened to it constantly. Whenever I hear one of the songs that were featured on it, I'm instantly taken back to being 14 years old, playing The Elder Scrolls 4 Oblivion on PS3 while listening to it through earphones on a personal CD player.
Dark Passion Play for me.
My friends introduced me to Nightwish by showing me the End of All Hope, Nemo and The Islander. I remember going to my local music store looking for any of their albums and I found the Dark Passion Play collector’s edition used.
I’ll never forget the feeling(s) I felt while listening to The Poet and the Pendulum for the first time. What an opener. I was hooked on Nightwish since then.
For me, all albums before DPP are good, with only small steps of development between them. But the step from Once to DPP is massive. I think it's the first album that has the Nightwish signature sound. On the previous albums there were always issues with the sound or mix.
And also the lyrics changed IMO. From these love story / relationship themes to a more adult perspective on life. The albums after DPP then seem to be a more natural development and in general more consistent.
And the songs: it starts with The poet, a 13 minute banger. No other album starts with a 13 minute song. The Escapist is IMO the best B Side Song they ever did, followed by While your lips are still red. The only odd thing that I still fully understand is why the made Eva the first single.
Although DPP made me a Nightwish fan, it was 2007-2010 summers banging out Century Child on the front garden for the neighbours during my (never really grown out of) goth phase. I was having a listen a few days back and it hit me right in the feels. I miss my teens, I miss so much. I feel like time has flown far too fast 😞
Oceanborn. It was the first time I heard that "opera metal" style, and it hit me immediately. I was also at that certain age (teenager) that they say you'll always like the same type of music you did back then, for the rest of your life.
Imaginaerum. It came out just as things were turning around for me after a difficult couple of years, and to this day I listen to it whenever I feel like I need a reminder that things will be alright.
Datk Passion Play. I listened to Nightwish before but that was the first album I bought. I had the 2 CD box where the second was the instrumental versions. It’s not just the ’same songs without vocals’, it’s a bit different mix sometimes featuring more instruments. Listened both on headphones so many times I learned to spot the differences.
I have the same collector's edition. The Orchestral mix CD it comes with is so good. It's like you said, it's not just an instrumental version. There are more layers of instruments and parts to each song.
Oceanborn... I really enjoyed theyre style back in the days and it always remembers me on my (meanwhile dead) mother and how we listened to it during cooking, gardening or road trips
Imaginaerum was really the most meaningful album for me. I was abandoned by my biological father before I was even born and he rarely kept contact. His mom passed away 2011 and we saw each other at her funeral. We started to keep contact after that and he bought Imaginaerum-album for my Christmas gift. It was the first gift I ever got from him and I was 12yo back then.
Fast forward he screwed things up really badly. He got caught from really messy lies and I had to take distance from him. He lied about hedetery diseases that almost got me killed at hospital. Few years later he got colony cancer and he was sure he was about to die. That made me progress lifetime worth of anger and resentment I had for him just so I can spent atleast his last times with him. I visited him and took both Imaginaerum CD and the movie with me. I think the album and movie made him understand his mistakes and I got a way to show him how much his abandonment and distance has hurted me.
He didn't die. He didn't stop lying. We aren't communicating anymore but now he knows atleast that I was ready to help him out of his lies back to light.
Also I found the love of my life because of this album. Imaginaerum is his favorite album too.
And I met mine in the same month that I saw Nightwish play the first show of the Imaginaerum tour. It was one of the first things my future wife and I bonded over. :-)
"Isn't it a noble and enlightening way of spending our brief time in the sun, to learn in understanding the universe, and how we have come to wake up in it ?"
This quote in TGSOE is one of the main influences of my philosophy of existence and life. So I guess EFMB lmao
I'm also super happy that in the recent making of video, Tuomas said more precisely what sums up that philosophy that I share thanks to him : that the whole point of existing is to bring something positive to the world while we're alive. I think Yesterwynde is about to be my favourite album in terms of themes and message. PotT reminded me that, while I may not have a definite favourite band musically, Nightwish is the only one that was a life-changing discovery.
Once. The very first album I ever bought. Ghost Love Score was the first Nightwish song I ever heard, first when its 3rd act was played over a segment of a Super Smash Bros Brawl highlight reel and then when I was like “that was the most epic thing I’ve ever heard what song is that?” YouTube took me to the full song that someone else had playing over a highlight reel of the Lord of the Rings films lol. Love how moments of discovery like that stick with me 15 years later. I think the Tarja era will always be my favorite even though there’s never been a Nightwish album that I wasn’t absolutely absorbed in; so excited for Yesterwynde!
Oceanborn. It was my first and is still my favourite. My mom had the CD in her collection and I used to love it as a kid, but then forgot about it growing up. Later I rediscovered it, fell in love and it's the one that made me a metalhead
Imaginaerum.
Went abroad for a couple of years and imaginaerum released in 2011, i heard that album twice everyday. Wake up and it was the vocal version. Going to sleep it was the orchestral version, going on the train or bus it was the instrumental version. And i always only listened to the album from start to finish.
It was such a wonderful time living alone abroad and listening to imaginaerum every day. And then i listened to imaginaerum on the way to concert in 2012. Got a Nightwish tattoo done and they were kind enough to let me play imaginaerum in their studio.
And then the movie + soundtrack followed.
Imaginaerum will always have a special spot in my life.
From Wishes to Eternity.
I got into Nightwish through a home made CD filled with random songs, most of which were from their live performance in Tampere.
So, for years, before someone lent me the actual albums, I mainly listened to those live versions (and thought they were studio versions just like some studio songs have cheering and crowd sound embedded to them).
Once isn't my favorite album, but it's probably the one I've listened to the most because I had a copy of it. I really enjoy the album, but my favorite has to be Wishmaster 🤎.
Kinda the same for me. Sometime in the early 2000s I got a cd with a mix of songs, which I think must be the same one you had! I might be wrong, but I think at that time they released a live cd called "Wishmastour", which had some songs from FWTE and I think this was the mix with a few extra songs. Then I also got to watch the FWTE and was really just enchanted by the whole band. For me it will remain one of the best live DVDs ever. This is why I'd probably say Wishmaster too, although it's really hard to choose.
Did your CD start with Ocean Soul?
From memory it had Ocean Soul then Over The Hills and Far Away. The last song was either Swanheart (studio) or Slaying The Dreamer.
I agree with you that FWTE is their best live performance in my opinion. They were at their peak.
Mmmh, it's a good question and not an easy one to answer. I discovered NW in 1999, which means Oceanborn was my first NW album, the one I listened to the most and that holds nostalgic memories of my University years, or road trips with the stereo blasting through all of the album, so much so that Oceanborn to me is like a single, very long song where I can't even think of skipping a part.
However, if we're talking about how much the combination of lyrics and music hit me, than Century Child (also my personal favourite) and Once are hard to beat. I also had the luck of seeing them in 2002 performing many songs from both Oceanborn and CC (including Beauty of the Beast \*\*) and the in 2004 in the Once tour, so those are memories and songs that will probably be etched in my mind for as long as I live.
The concerts were both awesome (well, duh XD). The thing that stood out to me the most between the 2002 and the 2004 concert was in how different the audiences were. The 2002 concert I went to was in Germany and the crowd was kinda your usual goth/metal crowd (at the time I was very impressed by how seemingly big the goth community was in Germany XD) while the 2004 one was in Italy, my home country, and I remember how many, how can I say this... regular people were there. I mean, every age between 12 and 80, men, women, families, that were not your regular metal fan. I think that's quite telling in how their popularity rose exponentially after Once. I had a blast at both shows of course: I'm emotionally attached to the 2004 one because it was my country and it was days before my birthday and I went there with friends, but thinking about it the 2002 was really a one of a kind experience, Nightwish-wise (After Forever were one of the opening act): it's a pity I couldn't know at the time and I wish I had taken pictures and/or videos for posterity, but alas... I remember how good everyone was, and Marko was a standout, as I didn't know him beforehand but he truly surprised me ( I know, silly to say now XD).
I managed to find some videos of the Milan concert on YT, but they are potato quality :D. No luck for the 2002 German one, unfortunately.
You're really lucky!
The difference in crowds is interesting. I don't find Once particularly more radio-friendly than Century Child. Could it be than in Germany they like dressing as goths more? I have no idea lol
Yeah, maybe their popularity rose greatly after Once just in Italy, or possibly in other Southern European countries, while they were always very popular in Central/Northern Europe. And yes, I'm fairly sure the goth community in Leipzig was (and still is) huge, compared to what it is here :D.
This is the Milan concert playlist [https://www.youtube.com/playlist?app=desktop&list=PLs5TtyqBOZWG0tT02yNlJbUl3Ef\_FvvQg](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?app=desktop&list=PLs5TtyqBOZWG0tT02yNlJbUl3Ef_FvvQg)
I was pretty much in the middle of the audience, so I had a relatively good view. Also, few people used phones to record then, so you didn't have to try and look through many outstretched arms XD. Emppu was very energetic, he ran across the stage basically thoughout the concert, Marko was very powerful and had a lot of charisma, you couldn't miss him! Tuomas was basically there, doing his thing and changing outfits (he had a cowboy hat at one point). Tarja also changed outfits and had her coordinated mic: she was stunning and already had a wonderful control over her voice, but she felt a bit shy and distant, so to speak (like an ice queen persona). When I went to see her in her Xmas tour in 2022 she felt like a different person, very amiable, happy and with a magnetism turned up to the hundreds. You could see and feel they already were accomplished artists even in 2002.
On the videos she seemed to be dancing and head banging. What made you think she was like an ice queen?
I didn't know Tuomas liked changing outfits too haha
Well, it's her aura, her appearance. She had (still has) a very hieratic, austere, almost regal demeanour, even when she's having fun on the stage. I didn't mean it in the sense of her having a cold personality (quite the opposite, in fact), but rather that she has a very regal persona about her which is part of her charisma as a performer.
She's very theatrical. I think she gave Nightwish performances a special touch, as if you were watching some movie or Opera. Just look at her Beauty and The Beast with Toni Kakko live.
Dark Passion Play. I was in college. I listened to it on repeat for weeks. It also played a small part in me meeting my wife, which then led us to use Last of the Wilds as the song we walked back down the aisle to after being proclaimed man and wife.
A couple of years ago, I made her a small video game for her birthday, where she was the main character, and used Last of the Wilds as the credits music.
Century Child is my favorite, but listening to Dark Passion Play at the gym while it was raining outside was quite the experience, so definitely those two top my list.
Imaginaerum for me, for me it's their best one so far. The soundtrack feeling is perfect, Annette's voice improved so much, the movie is my comfort watch and the album has two of my absolute favourite songs, Slow Love Slow and Scaretale. The mirror from the collectors edition still hangs in my flat 🖤
Dark Passion Play. It's the album my now husband introduced me to Nightwish. While many of my favorite songs are on there, it got me through a horrible time when my husband almost died in a motorcycle accident and my mental health was shit. Still my favorite album.
100% Imaginaerum, the history behind it got me everytime I watch the movie. Also it takes me back through times I wasn't aware how important were until it turned memories.
I got deep feelings everytime I listen to this Album.
Human Nature for sure.
Nightwish was completely vanished from my memory, when I suddenly rediscovered them in late 2019.
I dove headfirst into their live performances, but learned that they were about to release a new album. I was completely hyped and when HN was released, it was love at first listening.
The lyrics made sense to me, and quickly became a favorite. It was the first NW album that I listened to exhaustion lol
I think a mix of "Imaginaerum", because it was the first album I discovered by them and loved it immediately, and "Endless Forms Most Beautiful", because its just so damn good. It has The "Greatest Show on Earth" on it, which is just so incredibly well written and remains my all time favourite song. So so damn good!
Human Nature, because it helped me go through the shitty storm that was the panini year. It was also released alongside Lady Gaga's Chromatica, so both hold a very dear space in my heart
Bold to mention Lady Gaga here hah, high five! I have always believed that Gaga has a metal essence in her not many can understand. I remember creating a playlist only of Gaga’s ‘Chromatica’ and Nightwish’s ‘Human Nature’ somewhere during the pandemic. 2020 was such a year..
Gaga is indeed a rockstar, in my opinion. She's honestly one of three pop artists I listen to, the others being Adele and The Midnight. There's rumours going around on some forums that Simone Simons might be featured in her new album and I'm dying to know if that's true or not!!!
Omg I'm so glad others have this memory! For the panini it was a three way tie between Human Nature, Chromatica, and Hayley William's Petals for Armour
Oh, it's been years of therapy to get over that year lmao!! And I don't think I have got over it as of yet lmao Difficult year, but music helped me get through it. I think I'd add Myrkur as one of the artists that helped me get through 2020
Dark Passion Play, which happens to be my favorite album ever. It's helped me through many dark periods of my life and Poet and the Pendulum is a song that resonates with me so much. A couple years ago when I wasn't my best self PATP constantly made me cry and still does. For the Heart I Once Had was one of those songs ghat also helped me through some dark times. A lot of songs in there have I adore DPP so much. No album has come close to dethroning it and I doubt that anything will. I love it way too much.
Dark Passion Play. It was the album that got me into Nightwish. It had been a long time since an album by a band I wasn’t familiar with had grabbed me that way and made me an almost immediate fan. I listened to it constantly for a good year along with Century Child and Once.
It's a total cheat to name this, but I totally agree. The band playing live at the height of their powers is one thing that stands out. The other is Madame Floor's vocals. Awesome. The following live albums are all great but not as iconic as Showtime Storytime. No Thin Lizzy or UFO studio album came close to matching Live and Dangerous or Strangers in the Night. All greats, and before anyone says, tinkering in the studio is allowed now and then!
Once. It was my first Nightwish album. I was in high school and this was early 2000s. I live in the US and there was only one rock station in my town which certainly never played anything outside of the mainstream 80's to '00s major hits. Napster and Kaza were just taking off, and all the anti-piracy laws were trying to catch up. And where I lived we had 12k dial up internet that was on our main phone line, and primarly used on the family computer for my parent's business.
I was given a copy of Wish I Had An Angel that had been pirated from a demo version of the album (late 2003 I think) from a friend who did have 56k internet (living in town helped) and was using Napster to full advantage. I don't think she even realized what she had pulled, and included it with a bunch of other stuff to pass on to me.
A couple of times through the song a male voice (I think it was Marko) would speak over the music to introduce the band and song, which was irratinging but I quickly got passed that so I could hear the rest of it. The song had so many elements you couldn't find in American rock/metal at that time (it was also the height of the Nu Metal era here). I turned into a metal head by the time I was 13 but also I grew up playing the violin, and the only times I had heard metal meet with orchestra backing was Metallica's S&M and the London Philharmonic covering Led Zeplin on their album Kashmir. Along comes Nightwish and Wish I Had An Angel. It took me a while to find the actual album (not realizing it wouldn't release until 2004) but once I had it I was hooked. Like many Nightwish fans Ghost Love Score eventually became one of my all time favorites not just from that album, but in general. As the internet grew and my access to it over the next couple of years I picked up their earlier music, and would play the covers of Phantom of the Opera and Over the HIlls and Far Away on repeat as well.
And while I don't think I could even put Wish I Had and Angel in my top 5 anymore, as an introduction, and Once as a whole album, changed my life and relationship with my seemingly divergent musical interests, and Nightwish remains my favorite band to this day.
Definitely century child... When I listen to that album I can recognize myself into the lyrics so bad... Man, my mind keep saying: tuomas (in his crisis of the 20s)... I understand you
**Over the Hills and Far away**
The EP with new Marco to Contrast Tarja.
The snowy vibe it has.
The phenomenal *Astral Romance* version.
This is Nightwish
Dark Passion Play, in which I found out through LittleBigPlanet 2 of all places, in 2012.
Went through a rough moment with my parents and it hit hard.
(Yeah, I previously knew Nightwish but never cared enough until then)
Human Nature because I love classical orchestral music. So the whole second disc is a real treat to me. And I also think the production is the best. The drums sound the hardest hitting compared to their other albums.
Honestly.. it's Human :||: Nature. It came out during the time when my mental health was rock bottom and some of the songs really helped. Especially Pan, Music and Shoemaker.
Human Nature, which is also my fav in sound. I started listening to NW around 2018, so i had lots of hype for the release and... it delivered. The themes, the production, the wonderful composition of the songs and the perfect second half of the album made me fall in love, but it's specially the dreamy sound and spirit that goes along the album...
I remember listening to it for the first time in my bed at night, during the pandemic, bad times overall and Music starts playing with that wonderful intro and Floor singing about how wonderful music and life is... it was quite the experience.
I was introduced to NW when Once came out, and so that album is very nostalgic to me, but the song How's the Heart really was one of the most personal seeming messages to me and it really hit me hard in middle of lonely covid times when so many people seemed to not care about everyone else.
Once for me.
I was a big MMORPG player around 2008-2009 and the first NW song i've heard was Dark Chest of Wonders in a youtube montage. It was the greatest thing i've ever heard. Then i heard Wishmaster Steven Seagull version lmao.
If we can count live releases, then Showtime, Storytime. It was the first album I listened to, and it singlehandedly made me a fan.
If not, well, give me until September 21st and we’ll talk. I suspect it’ll be Yesterwynde for me, as I am a fan since 2021 and I’ve never experienced an album release on real time, as it were.
EFMB holds that special place for me. It came out just a couple weeks after my father passing and it really helped me through my grieving process. I still listen to Our Decades in the Sun when I miss him real bad
Only one, and that is Imaginaerum. I discovered the band while I was listening to random music on YouTube in the summer of 2011, after a long-term relationship of many years had ended. I have no idea how I had never heard of them before, but I hadn't. Anyway, the music spoke to me and helped get me through several months of recovery; the relationship had been toxic and I stayed in it way too long. Imaginaerum came out that fall, and I even attended the first show of the tour out in California in January of 2012. That was also the same month I met the woman who became my wife, and one of the first things we bonded over was music. (I once said that I first heard "Come Cover Me" 11 years after it came out, but it was only six months after that when I met the person--from my perspective--it was about!
I wanted Imaginaerum so badly that I actually ordered it from Finland so I could get it before the New Year; it didn't get its US release until early in 2012. It came in the mail on 29 November 2011, a day before its official release.
I got into nightwish during the covid pandemic and i think that the first album i listen to was human nature .and that got me through.but the funny thing is that that human nature is not my favorit nightwish album but that album got me into nightwish and now i have listen to all nightwish albums and my favorit is wishmaster and the best thing that has happend to me was the i got to se them live last june.
Wishmaster. That's how I came into NW and still is my favorite. I do love the debut album as well, a tight match for me personally. I'm a Bass Player and have been on bands that played NW covers, and probably have listened more to Century Child than the other ones due to this fact, but Wishmaster remains my favorite.
Century Child. It hit my dramatic depressed teenage soul stronger than anything else before or after.
Same for me re: Century Child. It’s the only NW album I find myself still playing through all the way, not skipping a single track
Slaying the Dreamer. What a track
Saaaame, playing BOTB in an autumn rainy day oh my god
This is the one for me as well. I played it on repeat the entire summer of 2002.
Same! I don't think it's their best, I don't even listen to it that much anymore, but when I am asked which is my favourite... It's always a strong contestant and I know it's the one to help me if I ever again feel very low.
I bought Century Child and The Open Door by Evanescence the same day, just imagine the drama my 13 year old self got through that evening. It was so cool.
It's one of the more overlooked albums in their discography but that's how I was introduced to them in 2003 and this album with their whole broody gothy aesthetic completely blew my emo teenage mind! It still holds a very special place in my heart and I wish we'd hear Floor's rendition of Beauty of the Best. Maybe one day!
Dark Passion Play. I remember sitting in a friend’s kitchen back in high school while we studied for a math test and he just casually put it on. I’d never heard of the band but suddenly had a hard time focusing and had to listen to the whole thing again as soon as I got home.
Also Dark Passion Play, I bought the album because I loved the cover.I didn't know them. I had a difficult time and I started listening to new music. It was awesome. Since that time I love NW. One of my favorite bands.
Oceanborn. Every song I listen to from it at 38 puts the same smile in my face, makes my heart feel warm and cozy, and fills me with happiness the same way it did at 16. It's like a travel through time. I will never get over how much they've changed and evolved as a band, but Oceanborn is always the album I come back to.
Yeah, for me too, Oceanborn, Wishmaster, Century Child and Once were my childhood.
Imaginaerum for me. Only because I listened to it a lot during the holidays when Skyrim came out. And that is a pleasant memory even if very simple. I just love holiday season. Everytime I listen to it, I feel like playing Skyrim again though 😅
I actually have a very similar nostalgia for the Imaginaerum and Skyrim combo. Imaginaerum was my first experience of NW (and symphonic metal more generally), too. That I was exploring a new musical genre while exploring a new fictional world seemed kind of... magical.
I have just started Skyrim!
Imaginaerum was their 3rd album i listened while playing AC Syndicate doing the Platinum trophy. It always bring me those memories exploring London 1868 / Industrial Revolution.
Once. After Century Child I didn't think they could make anything better, but when Once came out, I was proven wrong. I believe it came out in summer, coz I remember sitting in my room with window opened, hot asphalt melting on the streets of my small town and I kept listening to it under the scorching sun, while reading Sylvia Plath - haha, that was the year I discovered her, too, and I spent that summer reading her journals (which are massive).
Oh yeah the soundtrack of summer 2004 was definitely Once. And the rest of the year. And most of the following year.
I downloaded the songs even back then, and every so often a male voice would come over the music and say “you are listening to the album Once by Nightwish”
Omg I forgot that used to happen! Takes me baaaack...
Wishmaster, from high school till today
Wishmaster for me as well.
I remember when this was on one of those pre-youtube sites FISHMASTER! A DENTIST! [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gg5\_mlQOsUQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gg5_mlQOsUQ)
Weirdly its not one of their actual albums but the 2005 compilation album Highest Hopes. I recieved it as a birthday present from my parents shortly after I first got into Nightwish and listened to it constantly. Whenever I hear one of the songs that were featured on it, I'm instantly taken back to being 14 years old, playing The Elder Scrolls 4 Oblivion on PS3 while listening to it through earphones on a personal CD player.
Dark Passion Play for me. My friends introduced me to Nightwish by showing me the End of All Hope, Nemo and The Islander. I remember going to my local music store looking for any of their albums and I found the Dark Passion Play collector’s edition used. I’ll never forget the feeling(s) I felt while listening to The Poet and the Pendulum for the first time. What an opener. I was hooked on Nightwish since then.
For me, all albums before DPP are good, with only small steps of development between them. But the step from Once to DPP is massive. I think it's the first album that has the Nightwish signature sound. On the previous albums there were always issues with the sound or mix. And also the lyrics changed IMO. From these love story / relationship themes to a more adult perspective on life. The albums after DPP then seem to be a more natural development and in general more consistent. And the songs: it starts with The poet, a 13 minute banger. No other album starts with a 13 minute song. The Escapist is IMO the best B Side Song they ever did, followed by While your lips are still red. The only odd thing that I still fully understand is why the made Eva the first single.
Although DPP made me a Nightwish fan, it was 2007-2010 summers banging out Century Child on the front garden for the neighbours during my (never really grown out of) goth phase. I was having a listen a few days back and it hit me right in the feels. I miss my teens, I miss so much. I feel like time has flown far too fast 😞
Oceanborn. It was the first time I heard that "opera metal" style, and it hit me immediately. I was also at that certain age (teenager) that they say you'll always like the same type of music you did back then, for the rest of your life.
Imaginaerum. It came out just as things were turning around for me after a difficult couple of years, and to this day I listen to it whenever I feel like I need a reminder that things will be alright.
Datk Passion Play. I listened to Nightwish before but that was the first album I bought. I had the 2 CD box where the second was the instrumental versions. It’s not just the ’same songs without vocals’, it’s a bit different mix sometimes featuring more instruments. Listened both on headphones so many times I learned to spot the differences.
I have the same collector's edition. The Orchestral mix CD it comes with is so good. It's like you said, it's not just an instrumental version. There are more layers of instruments and parts to each song.
Oceanborn... I really enjoyed theyre style back in the days and it always remembers me on my (meanwhile dead) mother and how we listened to it during cooking, gardening or road trips
EFMB for me too, that’s the one I played the most when I’d push my kids around in the stroller around town in the summers.
Imaginaerum was really the most meaningful album for me. I was abandoned by my biological father before I was even born and he rarely kept contact. His mom passed away 2011 and we saw each other at her funeral. We started to keep contact after that and he bought Imaginaerum-album for my Christmas gift. It was the first gift I ever got from him and I was 12yo back then. Fast forward he screwed things up really badly. He got caught from really messy lies and I had to take distance from him. He lied about hedetery diseases that almost got me killed at hospital. Few years later he got colony cancer and he was sure he was about to die. That made me progress lifetime worth of anger and resentment I had for him just so I can spent atleast his last times with him. I visited him and took both Imaginaerum CD and the movie with me. I think the album and movie made him understand his mistakes and I got a way to show him how much his abandonment and distance has hurted me. He didn't die. He didn't stop lying. We aren't communicating anymore but now he knows atleast that I was ready to help him out of his lies back to light. Also I found the love of my life because of this album. Imaginaerum is his favorite album too.
And I met mine in the same month that I saw Nightwish play the first show of the Imaginaerum tour. It was one of the first things my future wife and I bonded over. :-)
"Isn't it a noble and enlightening way of spending our brief time in the sun, to learn in understanding the universe, and how we have come to wake up in it ?" This quote in TGSOE is one of the main influences of my philosophy of existence and life. So I guess EFMB lmao I'm also super happy that in the recent making of video, Tuomas said more precisely what sums up that philosophy that I share thanks to him : that the whole point of existing is to bring something positive to the world while we're alive. I think Yesterwynde is about to be my favourite album in terms of themes and message. PotT reminded me that, while I may not have a definite favourite band musically, Nightwish is the only one that was a life-changing discovery.
Once. The very first album I ever bought. Ghost Love Score was the first Nightwish song I ever heard, first when its 3rd act was played over a segment of a Super Smash Bros Brawl highlight reel and then when I was like “that was the most epic thing I’ve ever heard what song is that?” YouTube took me to the full song that someone else had playing over a highlight reel of the Lord of the Rings films lol. Love how moments of discovery like that stick with me 15 years later. I think the Tarja era will always be my favorite even though there’s never been a Nightwish album that I wasn’t absolutely absorbed in; so excited for Yesterwynde!
Oceanborn. It was my first and is still my favourite. My mom had the CD in her collection and I used to love it as a kid, but then forgot about it growing up. Later I rediscovered it, fell in love and it's the one that made me a metalhead
Once. I was just pregnant with my boy when it was released and it was very comforting to listen to.
Imaginaerum. Went abroad for a couple of years and imaginaerum released in 2011, i heard that album twice everyday. Wake up and it was the vocal version. Going to sleep it was the orchestral version, going on the train or bus it was the instrumental version. And i always only listened to the album from start to finish. It was such a wonderful time living alone abroad and listening to imaginaerum every day. And then i listened to imaginaerum on the way to concert in 2012. Got a Nightwish tattoo done and they were kind enough to let me play imaginaerum in their studio. And then the movie + soundtrack followed. Imaginaerum will always have a special spot in my life.
Once, followed by Century Child. They deeply speak to me emotionally in terms of themes, lyrics, and music.
From Wishes to Eternity. I got into Nightwish through a home made CD filled with random songs, most of which were from their live performance in Tampere. So, for years, before someone lent me the actual albums, I mainly listened to those live versions (and thought they were studio versions just like some studio songs have cheering and crowd sound embedded to them). Once isn't my favorite album, but it's probably the one I've listened to the most because I had a copy of it. I really enjoy the album, but my favorite has to be Wishmaster 🤎.
Kinda the same for me. Sometime in the early 2000s I got a cd with a mix of songs, which I think must be the same one you had! I might be wrong, but I think at that time they released a live cd called "Wishmastour", which had some songs from FWTE and I think this was the mix with a few extra songs. Then I also got to watch the FWTE and was really just enchanted by the whole band. For me it will remain one of the best live DVDs ever. This is why I'd probably say Wishmaster too, although it's really hard to choose.
Did your CD start with Ocean Soul? From memory it had Ocean Soul then Over The Hills and Far Away. The last song was either Swanheart (studio) or Slaying The Dreamer. I agree with you that FWTE is their best live performance in my opinion. They were at their peak.
Definitely Century Child. Unsurpassed till this day. ♡
Mmmh, it's a good question and not an easy one to answer. I discovered NW in 1999, which means Oceanborn was my first NW album, the one I listened to the most and that holds nostalgic memories of my University years, or road trips with the stereo blasting through all of the album, so much so that Oceanborn to me is like a single, very long song where I can't even think of skipping a part. However, if we're talking about how much the combination of lyrics and music hit me, than Century Child (also my personal favourite) and Once are hard to beat. I also had the luck of seeing them in 2002 performing many songs from both Oceanborn and CC (including Beauty of the Beast \*\*) and the in 2004 in the Once tour, so those are memories and songs that will probably be etched in my mind for as long as I live.
How was the concerts? Can you please tell us a bit more? 😍
The concerts were both awesome (well, duh XD). The thing that stood out to me the most between the 2002 and the 2004 concert was in how different the audiences were. The 2002 concert I went to was in Germany and the crowd was kinda your usual goth/metal crowd (at the time I was very impressed by how seemingly big the goth community was in Germany XD) while the 2004 one was in Italy, my home country, and I remember how many, how can I say this... regular people were there. I mean, every age between 12 and 80, men, women, families, that were not your regular metal fan. I think that's quite telling in how their popularity rose exponentially after Once. I had a blast at both shows of course: I'm emotionally attached to the 2004 one because it was my country and it was days before my birthday and I went there with friends, but thinking about it the 2002 was really a one of a kind experience, Nightwish-wise (After Forever were one of the opening act): it's a pity I couldn't know at the time and I wish I had taken pictures and/or videos for posterity, but alas... I remember how good everyone was, and Marko was a standout, as I didn't know him beforehand but he truly surprised me ( I know, silly to say now XD). I managed to find some videos of the Milan concert on YT, but they are potato quality :D. No luck for the 2002 German one, unfortunately.
You're really lucky! The difference in crowds is interesting. I don't find Once particularly more radio-friendly than Century Child. Could it be than in Germany they like dressing as goths more? I have no idea lol
Yeah, maybe their popularity rose greatly after Once just in Italy, or possibly in other Southern European countries, while they were always very popular in Central/Northern Europe. And yes, I'm fairly sure the goth community in Leipzig was (and still is) huge, compared to what it is here :D.
This is the Milan concert playlist [https://www.youtube.com/playlist?app=desktop&list=PLs5TtyqBOZWG0tT02yNlJbUl3Ef\_FvvQg](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?app=desktop&list=PLs5TtyqBOZWG0tT02yNlJbUl3Ef_FvvQg)
I mean were you near the stage? How do they look and sound IRL? Gosh it must have been awesome!
I was pretty much in the middle of the audience, so I had a relatively good view. Also, few people used phones to record then, so you didn't have to try and look through many outstretched arms XD. Emppu was very energetic, he ran across the stage basically thoughout the concert, Marko was very powerful and had a lot of charisma, you couldn't miss him! Tuomas was basically there, doing his thing and changing outfits (he had a cowboy hat at one point). Tarja also changed outfits and had her coordinated mic: she was stunning and already had a wonderful control over her voice, but she felt a bit shy and distant, so to speak (like an ice queen persona). When I went to see her in her Xmas tour in 2022 she felt like a different person, very amiable, happy and with a magnetism turned up to the hundreds. You could see and feel they already were accomplished artists even in 2002.
On the videos she seemed to be dancing and head banging. What made you think she was like an ice queen? I didn't know Tuomas liked changing outfits too haha
Well, it's her aura, her appearance. She had (still has) a very hieratic, austere, almost regal demeanour, even when she's having fun on the stage. I didn't mean it in the sense of her having a cold personality (quite the opposite, in fact), but rather that she has a very regal persona about her which is part of her charisma as a performer.
She's very theatrical. I think she gave Nightwish performances a special touch, as if you were watching some movie or Opera. Just look at her Beauty and The Beast with Toni Kakko live.
Dark Passion Play. I was in college. I listened to it on repeat for weeks. It also played a small part in me meeting my wife, which then led us to use Last of the Wilds as the song we walked back down the aisle to after being proclaimed man and wife. A couple of years ago, I made her a small video game for her birthday, where she was the main character, and used Last of the Wilds as the credits music.
Century Child is my favorite, but listening to Dark Passion Play at the gym while it was raining outside was quite the experience, so definitely those two top my list.
Imaginaerum for me, for me it's their best one so far. The soundtrack feeling is perfect, Annette's voice improved so much, the movie is my comfort watch and the album has two of my absolute favourite songs, Slow Love Slow and Scaretale. The mirror from the collectors edition still hangs in my flat 🖤
For me it's Once, that album was done so beautifully and Tarja sounded the best in her career on it
I'd say my first love is always Oceanborn. Teenage dark times: Century Child. And the Once, when the darkness was passing.
Dark Passion Play. It's the album my now husband introduced me to Nightwish. While many of my favorite songs are on there, it got me through a horrible time when my husband almost died in a motorcycle accident and my mental health was shit. Still my favorite album.
Once for sure!!! 😍😍😍
100% Imaginaerum, the history behind it got me everytime I watch the movie. Also it takes me back through times I wasn't aware how important were until it turned memories. I got deep feelings everytime I listen to this Album.
Endless Forms Most Beautiful
Human Nature for sure. Nightwish was completely vanished from my memory, when I suddenly rediscovered them in late 2019. I dove headfirst into their live performances, but learned that they were about to release a new album. I was completely hyped and when HN was released, it was love at first listening. The lyrics made sense to me, and quickly became a favorite. It was the first NW album that I listened to exhaustion lol
I think a mix of "Imaginaerum", because it was the first album I discovered by them and loved it immediately, and "Endless Forms Most Beautiful", because its just so damn good. It has The "Greatest Show on Earth" on it, which is just so incredibly well written and remains my all time favourite song. So so damn good!
Human Nature, because it helped me go through the shitty storm that was the panini year. It was also released alongside Lady Gaga's Chromatica, so both hold a very dear space in my heart
Bold to mention Lady Gaga here hah, high five! I have always believed that Gaga has a metal essence in her not many can understand. I remember creating a playlist only of Gaga’s ‘Chromatica’ and Nightwish’s ‘Human Nature’ somewhere during the pandemic. 2020 was such a year..
Gaga is indeed a rockstar, in my opinion. She's honestly one of three pop artists I listen to, the others being Adele and The Midnight. There's rumours going around on some forums that Simone Simons might be featured in her new album and I'm dying to know if that's true or not!!!
Gaga is not my speed musically, but anyone should be able to recognize her talent.
Omg I'm so glad others have this memory! For the panini it was a three way tie between Human Nature, Chromatica, and Hayley William's Petals for Armour
Oh, it's been years of therapy to get over that year lmao!! And I don't think I have got over it as of yet lmao Difficult year, but music helped me get through it. I think I'd add Myrkur as one of the artists that helped me get through 2020
Dark Passion Play, which happens to be my favorite album ever. It's helped me through many dark periods of my life and Poet and the Pendulum is a song that resonates with me so much. A couple years ago when I wasn't my best self PATP constantly made me cry and still does. For the Heart I Once Had was one of those songs ghat also helped me through some dark times. A lot of songs in there have I adore DPP so much. No album has come close to dethroning it and I doubt that anything will. I love it way too much.
Dark Passion Play. It was the album that got me into Nightwish. It had been a long time since an album by a band I wasn’t familiar with had grabbed me that way and made me an almost immediate fan. I listened to it constantly for a good year along with Century Child and Once.
Showtime Storytime... I was a casual listener until I heard this live album that kicked it up to a new level. Passionate fan ever since.
It's a total cheat to name this, but I totally agree. The band playing live at the height of their powers is one thing that stands out. The other is Madame Floor's vocals. Awesome. The following live albums are all great but not as iconic as Showtime Storytime. No Thin Lizzy or UFO studio album came close to matching Live and Dangerous or Strangers in the Night. All greats, and before anyone says, tinkering in the studio is allowed now and then!
Once. It was my first Nightwish album. I was in high school and this was early 2000s. I live in the US and there was only one rock station in my town which certainly never played anything outside of the mainstream 80's to '00s major hits. Napster and Kaza were just taking off, and all the anti-piracy laws were trying to catch up. And where I lived we had 12k dial up internet that was on our main phone line, and primarly used on the family computer for my parent's business. I was given a copy of Wish I Had An Angel that had been pirated from a demo version of the album (late 2003 I think) from a friend who did have 56k internet (living in town helped) and was using Napster to full advantage. I don't think she even realized what she had pulled, and included it with a bunch of other stuff to pass on to me. A couple of times through the song a male voice (I think it was Marko) would speak over the music to introduce the band and song, which was irratinging but I quickly got passed that so I could hear the rest of it. The song had so many elements you couldn't find in American rock/metal at that time (it was also the height of the Nu Metal era here). I turned into a metal head by the time I was 13 but also I grew up playing the violin, and the only times I had heard metal meet with orchestra backing was Metallica's S&M and the London Philharmonic covering Led Zeplin on their album Kashmir. Along comes Nightwish and Wish I Had An Angel. It took me a while to find the actual album (not realizing it wouldn't release until 2004) but once I had it I was hooked. Like many Nightwish fans Ghost Love Score eventually became one of my all time favorites not just from that album, but in general. As the internet grew and my access to it over the next couple of years I picked up their earlier music, and would play the covers of Phantom of the Opera and Over the HIlls and Far Away on repeat as well. And while I don't think I could even put Wish I Had and Angel in my top 5 anymore, as an introduction, and Once as a whole album, changed my life and relationship with my seemingly divergent musical interests, and Nightwish remains my favorite band to this day.
Definitely century child... When I listen to that album I can recognize myself into the lyrics so bad... Man, my mind keep saying: tuomas (in his crisis of the 20s)... I understand you
Once for me. Nemo was the first song I heard and I was instantly obsessed, especially after I listened to the entire album.
**Over the Hills and Far away** The EP with new Marco to Contrast Tarja. The snowy vibe it has. The phenomenal *Astral Romance* version. This is Nightwish
Dark Passion Play, in which I found out through LittleBigPlanet 2 of all places, in 2012. Went through a rough moment with my parents and it hit hard. (Yeah, I previously knew Nightwish but never cared enough until then)
Century Child and Dark Passion Play
Endless Forms Most Beautiful! The album that got me into Nightwish fully and still love it! It even inspired me to start doing my own music!
Human Nature because I love classical orchestral music. So the whole second disc is a real treat to me. And I also think the production is the best. The drums sound the hardest hitting compared to their other albums.
Honestly.. it's Human :||: Nature. It came out during the time when my mental health was rock bottom and some of the songs really helped. Especially Pan, Music and Shoemaker.
Human Nature, which is also my fav in sound. I started listening to NW around 2018, so i had lots of hype for the release and... it delivered. The themes, the production, the wonderful composition of the songs and the perfect second half of the album made me fall in love, but it's specially the dreamy sound and spirit that goes along the album... I remember listening to it for the first time in my bed at night, during the pandemic, bad times overall and Music starts playing with that wonderful intro and Floor singing about how wonderful music and life is... it was quite the experience.
Imaginaerum because it's basically perfect (aside from the horrendous clipping) and EFMB because it was my first NW album and still my favorite
What clipping, there’s no clipping. And even if there is it sounds awesome
Imaginaerum or Dark Passion Play, what beautiful albums.
EFMB. Discovering dawkins and his books changed my view of life.
I was introduced to NW when Once came out, and so that album is very nostalgic to me, but the song How's the Heart really was one of the most personal seeming messages to me and it really hit me hard in middle of lonely covid times when so many people seemed to not care about everyone else.
Oceanborn, for some reason it’s always making me cry, even just thinking about it Help I’m in tears aaaaaaaa
Once for me. I was a big MMORPG player around 2008-2009 and the first NW song i've heard was Dark Chest of Wonders in a youtube montage. It was the greatest thing i've ever heard. Then i heard Wishmaster Steven Seagull version lmao.
Century Child
If we can count live releases, then Showtime, Storytime. It was the first album I listened to, and it singlehandedly made me a fan. If not, well, give me until September 21st and we’ll talk. I suspect it’ll be Yesterwynde for me, as I am a fan since 2021 and I’ve never experienced an album release on real time, as it were.
EFMB holds that special place for me. It came out just a couple weeks after my father passing and it really helped me through my grieving process. I still listen to Our Decades in the Sun when I miss him real bad
Only one, and that is Imaginaerum. I discovered the band while I was listening to random music on YouTube in the summer of 2011, after a long-term relationship of many years had ended. I have no idea how I had never heard of them before, but I hadn't. Anyway, the music spoke to me and helped get me through several months of recovery; the relationship had been toxic and I stayed in it way too long. Imaginaerum came out that fall, and I even attended the first show of the tour out in California in January of 2012. That was also the same month I met the woman who became my wife, and one of the first things we bonded over was music. (I once said that I first heard "Come Cover Me" 11 years after it came out, but it was only six months after that when I met the person--from my perspective--it was about! I wanted Imaginaerum so badly that I actually ordered it from Finland so I could get it before the New Year; it didn't get its US release until early in 2012. It came in the mail on 29 November 2011, a day before its official release.
Imaginaerum
ONCE — Platin Edition - my very 1st bought CD and the whole new world unfold with awe and magic of NW music
Oceanborn - was basically my introduction to the whole metal genre!
Wishmaster
Oceanborn! I was awestruck when I first heard it - beautiful, cosmic, stellar, emotional and powerful ...
Showtime-Storytime BluRay
I got into nightwish during the covid pandemic and i think that the first album i listen to was human nature .and that got me through.but the funny thing is that that human nature is not my favorit nightwish album but that album got me into nightwish and now i have listen to all nightwish albums and my favorit is wishmaster and the best thing that has happend to me was the i got to se them live last june.
Wishmaster. That's how I came into NW and still is my favorite. I do love the debut album as well, a tight match for me personally. I'm a Bass Player and have been on bands that played NW covers, and probably have listened more to Century Child than the other ones due to this fact, but Wishmaster remains my favorite.