Reynolds allegedly wrote and recorded much of Smoke + Mirrors in hotel rooms on his band’s recent world tour, and you can actually imagine him singing the downtrodden lines “Oh, I’m gonna mess this up/ Oh, this is just my luck” in hushed tones so as not to wake his neighbors. “Shots” showcases Reynolds’ impressive vocal range, and his tender falsetto in the pre-chorus is among the album’s most memorable moments. It’s a song about high stakes that’s executed with the lowest stakes possible, so it’s guaranteed to plague rock radio for the next 10 months.īoth of the singles released in the wake of “I Bet My Life”, the aforementioned “Shots”, and the soulful, slightly sinister “Gold”, fare better. “I know I took the path that you would never want for me,” sings frontman Dan Reynolds in the first verse, manufacturing an air of regret just thick enough for the chorus to curb-stomp you into submission. It was destined to be a hit long before it actually became one. “I Bet My Life”, the lead single off new album Smoke + Mirrors, is a triumphant song that bears all the traces of the new alternative formula. Perhaps we shouldn’t be so hard on Imagine Dragons, who merely succeeded in out-Mumfords-ing Mumford & Sons. If Mumford & Sons were an actual family business, they’d specialize in forging blunt hammers with which to bludgeon subtlety. It seems the defining feature of modern alternative (aside from goddamn handclaps in goddamn everything) is the notion that every little feeling is worthy of a soaring anthem. All you had to do was brew a noncommittal concoction of rock and hip-hop, sprinkle in some cutesy production flourishes like the mandolin on “It’s Time”, and then drown the whole thing in rousing choruses. With 2012’s Night Visions, the band proved that a record could be wildly successful without depending on sex, drugs, or other unseemly content to attract attention. Imagine Dragons are the quintessence of what passes for “alternative” in today’s music culture, which is either a good or an alarming thing, depending on whether you’re trying to use their music to sell something. Throw in music that’s heavy on anthemic sing-alongs and practically devoid of anything that could possibly be construed as offensive, and you get what amounts to a wet dream for Target’s marketing department, seeking to court an audience that perceives itself as edgy and alternative without being either of those things.
Like The Killers before them, Imagine Dragons possess a certain flair for spectacle that has led to sold-out performances around the world, each of which has had more in common with the Fountains of Bellagio than your average rock ‘n’ roll show. The national retailer was right to bank on the Las Vegas band as the lynchpin of its #MoreMusic campaign.
When Target spent $8 million to buy out an entire commercial break during the 2015 Grammys, it tapped Imagine Dragons to perform new single “Shots” in its entirety.
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