My history with the band
Twenty One Pilots is a special case, as most of the artists that I will talk about here are simply artists that I don't particularly care for
or that I have a mild distaste for (the series' name is a bit hyperbolic).
Twenty One Pilots, on the other hand, is a band that I truly did hate, purely based on the overplayed garbage that I would hear nonstop
on the radio, such as Stressed Out, House of Gold, or Heavydirtysoul. On top of this hatred for the group, I also had an additional incentive to look into them, that being the fact that many friends of mine, and people who have generally similar music taste to me seem to really like them, even though I fail to see the appeal.
I found this so intriguing, that rather than just listening to one or two albums (as I will do for most of this series), I figured it would only be right to listen to their entire discography, in order to give them the most fair shot possible.
(This isnt exactly important but I figured I'd mention that the order in which I listened to the albums was Trench, Clancy, Breach, Scaled And Icy, Self titled, Regional At Best, Vessel, Blurryface, and lastly TOPxMM)
Self Titled
Whenever I jump into an artist's discography, I always like to start with their debut album and work my way up to their most recent album. However, when I first attempted to listen to their self titled album, I found it so obnoxiously bad that I gave up just a couple tracks in and decided to start with their most popular album, Trench, instead. I did, however, eventually have to come back to this album in order to finish the review, so after having heard Trench, Scaled And Icy, Clancy, and Breach, I had come back to give it another try.
This time around, I was actually quite pleasantly surprised, something just clicked with me this time, and I actually found myself enjoying this album a good bit. I appreciated the comparatively unique style that this album has, and the more personal lyrics of this album really made it all come together and feel like something special that you won't find anywhere else in their catalog. All around, I found this album to be one that I really quite liked, although I feel that it is one of their worse albums from a technical standpoint. I would give the self titled album a solid 6.5/10, which doesn't mean its bad by any means, its just an album that will definitely not be for everyone, and honestly isn't the greatest despite my enjoyment.
Favorite Tracks:
6.5/10
Regional At Best
Regional At Best was an album that I was very much not excited for. As someone who is already far from a fan of Twenty One Pilots, when I heard that their second album was never put on streaming, never had its physical copies reprinted, and even had some of its tracks remade for their next album, I assumed that I was in for something so abysmal that even the duo themselves had tried to brush under the rug. Much to my surprise, however, what I ended up with was an actually pretty decent album that I found myself enjoying. Now it's nothing special, even by Twenty One Pilots standards, but it did have some standout tracks to keep you interested and nothing that I particularly disliked. The biggest complaint that I have about this album is, unfortunately, a fairly major one. That complaint is the mixing. Now I understand that this is the group's lowest budget album and had Tyler Joseph manning most if not all of the production solo, but I would argue around half of the tracks had the vocals noticably quieter than they should have been, which is a big issue for lyrically focused music. Issues with mixing aside, I would say that the instrumentals were generally good, and the lyrics ranged from decent to pretty good. All around I had a decent time with this album and can say that it was better than I had expected. I would give this album a 6/10, as it's a good album, but it could definitely be better if given the right time and budget to reach its full potential.
Favorite Tracks:
6/10
Vessel
Vessel was an album that I was actually somewhat excited for, as after listening to Trench and Clancy, I made a post on the Twenty One Pilots subreddit asking what album they think I would like best given my taste in music and opinions on albums I had already listened to, and almost every response mentioned Vessel. That being said, once I actually listened to this album, I found myself a little disappointed. While there was a couple good tracks on this album, most of them were just remade tracks from Regional At Best, and failed to hit the highs of other albums. Even Holding On To You, which is a remade Regional At Best song, in my opinion was better in its original form. This album also has some of the lowest lows in their entire catalog, specifically House Of Gold is a track that I personally find insufferable. The one and only track on this album that I found to be exceptionally good and would categorize as one of their best tracks was Ode To Sleep. All that said, I found this album to be a fairly disappointing and skippable album that I would give a 5/10.
Favorite Tracks:
5/10
Blurryface
Blurryface is another album that I was not particularly excited for, not having been a fan of songs like Stressed Out or Ride when I had heard them incessantly on the radio, but thankfully this album greatly surprised me. This is the first album in the catalog where I can say that I don't think that there is a single track that you should skip, and it is in my opinion their most consistent album to date. This is the album where I feel they really solidified their sound as experimental pop first, hip hop second, and rock and whatever other genres they want to fuse third. I found this genre bending approach very appealing and creative, and it definitely managed to keep things interesting as the album went on. I feel that this album was easily their best album at the time that it came out, and to this day possibly best illustrates the duo as a whole. I would give this album a solid 7/10.
Favorite Tracks:
7/10
TOPxMM (EP)
This EP is a collaboration with Mutemath, and is just a compilation of a couple remixes they did. There's really not much to day about this one, its mosly okay, but nothing to write home about. I would give it a 6/10.
Favorite Tracks:
6/10
Trench
This is the big one. Trench is easily the album I was most excited for, with everyone saying that it was their best album, and even people like Fantano, who like me was not a fan of the duo, giving the album an 8/10 and even saying that he loved it. So I went into this listen with fairly high expectations, and immediately was impressed by the opening track, Jumpsuit, which was easily the best song I had ever heard from the duo, only to be disappointed when the rest of the album didn't live up to it. I have since listened to the album two more times, and have come to appreciate it more, finding more songs that I like and especially appreciating the worldbuilding in the album. Even if I didn't fully understand it the first time, I was still able to be engaged in the world and plot that this album sets up, which would then be expanded on in the next three albums. I think that this was an all around solid album, and even more solid as a piece of worldbuilding and a means of establishing subsequent albums. I would give this album a 7.5/10,
Favorite Tracks:
7.5/10
Scaled And Icy
This album was an immense disappointment to me. After seeing how much the last two albums had improved, I was expecting to see them improve further, just for them to completely ditch their established style and make a basic, soulless, uncreative upbeat bubblegum pop album without a single notable track. I do not know how they fumbled this album so hard, 3/10.
Favorite Tracks:
3/10
Clancy
Thankfully, they would pick up the slack and then some with Clancy, which would continue the trend of improving with every album as if SAI had never even happened. This album is their most rock influenced to date, and I think that it does that quite well, having its own unique sound while still being undeniably Twenty One Pilots. This would be the album that would end up having the most songs that I actually liked, I'm not sure if it's my favorite, but it's easily top two. I found this to be a very solid album, and I commend it for being so confident in its unique style while still being actually good. It is also a fairly upbeat album, and it shows that they can make music that is more upbeat while not sacrificing the quality of the work or their unique sound. If I had to reccomend someone listen to a Twenty One Pilots album while having no prior experience, I would say that they should listen to this one. After seeing how confident they have grown in their musical talent and how much they've grown and evolved as musicians, I have to give this album a strong 8/10.
Favorite Tracks:
8/10
Breach
Breach, to me, feels like a bit of a Clancy 2. It does a lot of what Clancy did right, and it expands on it and improves on it, to the point of it being possibly their best album to date. This album feels like the perfect culmination of everything the duo has done up until this point, and truly showcases how much they have improved over the years, and have managed to find their own unique sound, which doesn't sound like anything else I've heard before. I would say that this album has a little less highs than Clancy, but the highs that it does have are higher, making them about equal in my mind (although I prefer Breach as I feel it is a more complex and layered album), so I would give this album a solid 8/10.
Favorite Tracks:
8/10