Once (Nightwish album)

Background

In 2008 Kerrang! interview Tuomas Holopainen remembered: "Doing this kind of really orchestral, symphonic stuff for four albums, you have to be prepared to take the next step and go 10 steps beyond, and that's how we ended up with the London Session Orchestra. At that time we also had the financial resources to do it. This was like our second breakthrough in a way; Oceanborn (1998) broke us, took us to the big league. Musically it was pretty laid-back from our side because everyone involved in the orchestra really knew their stuff, so we basically spent two days lying on the couch hearing all these people playing our songs, enjoying every moment. It was one of the most amazing experiences in my life. The first song they started to play was "Ghost Love Score", we had no idea what to expect, and I just thought: This can't be happening!"

Musical style

The album continues the more streamlined musical approach first heard on Century Child, moving further away from the power metal-influenced sound of their previous albums into a slightly more mainstream, approachable feel. Once utilizes a full orchestra in nine of the eleven songs on the album; unlike Century Child, Nightwish chose an orchestra outside of Finland, the London Philharmonic Orchestra, which has been featured on every album released since.

Once is their second album to feature a full-length song in Finnish, "Kuolema Tekee Taiteilijan". The band added new elements to their music for this album, such as the chorus riff and synthesized drum-beat of "Wish I Had an Angel", and a long prayer chant on "Creek Mary's Blood". The song "Ghost Love Score" was described by Hietala as follows: "I'm a big fan of old prog rock and this is a song that has a lot of different parts going on, and different atmospheres in different places in order to support the story. [...] My biggest influence from the prog world would be Jethro Tull, but I also love listening to Yes and Genesis and all those bands, and there's a correlation between the structures and the length of a lot of their songs and this one."

Artwork

The angel on the album cover is a view of the Angel of Grief, a sculpture by William Wetmore Story. The original is in the Protestant Cemetery of Rome, Italy. The statue shows an angel crying on the tomb of Story's wife; after his death, Story was buried under the same statue, close to his wife.

The cover of the album is very similar to the cover of 1998's Evanescence EP by the American band Evanescence.

Tour

The success of the album allowed them to perform the Once Upon a Tour, which enabled them to play in many countries the band had never visited before. Nightwish performed at the opening ceremony of the 2005 World Championships in Athletics, held in Helsinki, highlighting the band's recently gained popularity.

Reception and legacy

During the first week of its release, Once entered the German, Finnish, Norwegian and Greek charts as number one, selling over 80,000 copies in Germany alone. It was also the first Nightwish album to chart in the U.S., reaching No. 42 on the Billboard Top Heatseekers chart, and the band's first album to chart in UK, reaching No. 8 on the Rock Chart. In 2005, Once was ranked number 383 in Rock Hard magazine's book of The 500 Greatest Rock & Metal Albums of All Time.

Once has sold triple platinum in Finland, platinum in Germany, gold in Sweden and later reached No. 1 also in the European Top 100 Albums chart. The single "Nemo" topped the charts in Finland and Hungary, and reached the top ten in four additional countries. It remained in the UK Rock Chart for more than a year. "Nemo" therefore remains their most successful single ever, and Once is at number 47 of the best of all time albums in Finland. The total sales of the album have been more than 2 million copies.

Controversy

On 5 January 2013, a member of the Nightwish forum discovered the Lakota language spoken in the song Creek Mary's Blood is not the real language, only spoken gibberish, and even made claims that John Two-Hawks is a fraud. There are other claims that John Two-Hawks broke the Indian Arts Act of 1990 law by "advertising his music as Native American, and himself as a Native American artisan." John Two-Hawks denied these claims and said that the poem spoken in Creek Mary's Blood has a lot of errors, even though he had a "fluent friend" check to see if the poem has no errors. John Two-Hawks also said that he is Native American though he is not in any Indian tribe. The Nightwish forum member even posts the real translation of the spoken poem in Creek Mary's Blood.

Track listing

All lyrics written by Tuomas Holopainen; all music composed by Holopainen, except where indicated.

Personnel

Credits for Once adapted from liner notes.