Twenty One Pilots

My most recent discovery of weird and unique music was Twenty One Pilots, and they took the record for becoming one of my favourite bands in the shortest amount of time. I first listened to their song Guns For Hands and was amused with the fresh sounding electronics sounds and the vocals of Tyler Joseph who I will talk about in a second. What I thought was really neat was the fact that its only two guys performing this music and if you didn't feel it straight from the track, watching them perform is definitely what grabs the attention of anyone. They play with so much energy in the music video, and from other live video searches, at concerts and live events as well. Throughout the first 2-3 minutes of the song I was liking it, but what set them over the top was when the weird reggae beat kicked in and flipped the song followed by Tyler's rap.
Tyler's poetic background is what accounts for the very symbolic and in-depth lyrics he puts down; Tyler's lyrics may not be so easy to understand or grasp their meaning at first listen. Once one does peel apart his poetic lyrics however, you find the message and it is usually a good one. Tyler says his lyrics aren't about a girl or past love or anything cheesy, instead they allow you to come away with something, or not. I know there's some people that just want to listen to music and not have to decode anything or want to get fed a message, however, I personally enjoy Tyler's writing style and messages. Anyway if you want more on Tyler Joseph just look up interviews of him and you'll get an idea of who he is.

The next music video I saw from them was my personal favourite, Holding On To You. I think every second of this song is a masterpiece. The up-beat hi-hat keeps your head bobbing the whole way, holds up for the catchy chorus and then comes right back. What made this song for me was the long build up and then the drop: Tyler rapping a bar of lyrics, getting more and more energized every time and then just one more drop back to the chorus/bridge part. Which is another cool trait about Tyler's song writing, is he grew up not knowing that music had any rules so if you listen to Twenty One Pilots extensively, you'll soon realize that they aren't your average song arrangements and chord progressions. just one more thing to either love or hate about them. I can easily rank Holding On To You as one of my favourite songs.

Twenty One Pilots' strongest asset is their stage presence. Sure it's just two guys, but they make up for lack of members in crowd involvement and doing things to make sure you remember them when they walk off the stage. They put on a great show no matter how big or small the venue. Its hard to find bands that involve the crowd as much nowadays, but TWP does a fantastic job of making them a part of the show, even including their hometown crowd in on of their latest music videos, Car Radio. I can only say so much about this topic, but you just have to Youtube their live videos and see what I'm talking about.

Now, Twenty One Pilots has been signed to Fueled By Ramen for about a year now and they look like they're going to be taken care of. They're on a lot of Youtube channels aside from their own playing exclusive shows as well as their recent appearance on the 2013 MTV Woddie Awards. Their latest album release Vessel is starting to get circulated. If people can catch on to their new weird style, I can guarantee they're gonna explode, and their facebook likes ,and twitter followers will skyrocket. Be expecting them to hit your commercial radio within the next few months as well.

www.twentyonepilots.com