Imagine Dragons

Imagine Dragons are an American pop rock band formed in 2008, based in Las Vegas, Nevada. The band currently consists of lead singer Dan Reynolds, guitarist Wayne Sermon, and bassist Ben McKee. They first gained exposure with the release of their single "It's Time", followed by their debut album Night Visions (2012), which resulted in the chart-topping singles "Radioactive" and "Demons". Rolling Stone named "Radioactive", which held the record for most weeks charted on the Billboard Hot 100, the "biggest rock hit of the year". MTV called them "the year's biggest breakout band", and Billboard named them their "Breakthrough Band of 2013" and "Biggest Band of 2017", and placed them at the top of their "Year in Rock" rankings for 2013, 2017, and 2018. Imagine Dragons topped the Billboard Year-End "Top Artists – Duo/Group" category in 2018.

The band's second studio album Smoke + Mirrors (2015) reached number one in the US, Canada, and the UK. This was followed by their third studio album Evolve (2017), which resulted in three chart-topping singles, "Believer", "Thunder", and "Whatever It Takes", also making them the artist with the most weeks at number one on the Billboard Hot Rock Songs chart. The album reached the top five in many countries. The band's fourth studio album Origins (2018) featured the single "Natural", which became their fifth song to top the Hot Rock Songs chart. The band has since released Mercury – Acts 1 & 2 (2022), a double album featuring the US top 5 hit "Enemy", and Loom (2024), their first album without longtime drummer Daniel Platzman. Despite their popularity and commercial success, the band's music has been consistently met with mixed critical reception.

Imagine Dragons won three American Music Awards, nine Billboard Music Awards, one Grammy Award, one MTV Video Music Award, and one World Music Award. In May 2014, the band was nominated for 14 Billboard Music Awards, including Top Artist of the Year and a Milestone Award, which recognizes innovation and creativity of artists across different genres. In April 2018, the band was nominated 11 more times for Billboard Music Awards.

Imagine Dragons have sold more than 74 million albums and 65 million digital songs worldwide, making them one of the world's best-selling music artists. They have also earned 160 billion streams across music platforms. They were the most streamed group of 2018 on Spotify, the first rock act to have four songs, "Radioactive", "Demons", "Believer", and "Thunder", to surpass one billion streams each, and the only group in RIAA history to have four songs certified higher than Diamond. According to Billboard, "Believer", "Thunder", and "Radioactive" were the three best performing rock songs of the 2010s.

In 2008, lead singer Dan Reynolds met drummer Andrew Tolman at Brigham Young University, where they were both students. Reynolds and Tolman recruited Andrew Beck, Dave Lemke, and Aurora Florence to play guitar, bass, and piano, respectively, for their band. Their name is an anagram for a phrase only known to members of the group, which Reynolds stated each member approved of. The five-piece recorded demos that they uploaded to MySpace that year, but Beck and Florence left the band later that year. In 2009, Tolman recruited long-time high school friend Wayne Sermon, who had graduated from Berklee College of Music, to play guitar. Tolman later recruited his wife, Brittany Tolman, to sing back-up and play keys, and the band began to play shows together again. Lemke left the band shortly thereafter, leading Sermon to recruit another Berklee music student, Ben McKee, to join the band as their bassist and complete the line-up. The band garnered a large following in their hometown of Provo, Utah, before the members moved to Las Vegas, the hometown of Dan Reynolds, where the band recorded and released their first three EPs.

The band released a self-titled EP Imagine Dragons on September 1, 2009, and Hell and Silence on March 10, 2010, both recorded at Battle Born Studios, in Las Vegas. Six months after releasing their third EP, It's Time, on March 12, 2011, they signed a record deal with Interscope Records on November 18, 2011.

They got their first big break when Train's frontman Pat Monahan fell sick just prior to the Bite of Las Vegas Festival 2009. Imagine Dragons were called to fill in and performed to a crowd of more than 26,000 people. Local accolades including "Best CD of 2011" (Vegas SEVEN), "Best Local Indie Band 2010" (Las Vegas Weekly), "Las Vegas' Newest Must See Live Act" (Las Vegas CityLife), Vegas Music Summit Headliner 2010, and more sent the band on a positive trajectory. In November 2011, they signed with Interscope Records and began working with English Grammy Award-winning producer Alex da Kid. Eventually, the Tolmans left the group. Drummer Daniel Platzman and keyboardist Theresa Flaminio were recruited by McKee in August 2011, prior to the band's label deal in November 2011. Flaminio departed from the group around the time of the band's deal with Interscope, leaving the band a four-piece.

The band worked closely with Alex da Kid, with whom they recorded their first major-label release at Westlake Recording Studios in West Hollywood, California.

An EP entitled Continued Silence was released on February 14, 2012 digitally and peaked at number 40 on the Billboard 200. The band also released an EP titled Hear Me in 2012.

Shortly after, "It's Time" was released as a single and peaked at number 15 on the Billboard Hot 100. The music video debuted on April 17, 2012, on all MTV affiliates and was subsequently nominated for an MTV Video Music Award in the "Best Rock Video" category. "It's Time" was certified a 7× platinum single by the RIAA.

The band finished recording their debut album Night Visions in the summer of 2012 at Studio X inside Palms Casino Resort and released the album in the United States on September 4, 2012. It peaked at No. 2 on the Billboard 200 chart with first week sales in excess of 83,000 copies, the highest charting for a debut rock album since 2006. The album also reached No. 1 on the Billboard Alternative and Rock Album charts as well as the top ten on the Australian, Austrian, Canadian, Dutch, German, Irish, Norwegian, Portuguese, Scottish, Spanish, and United Kingdom Albums charts. It won a Billboard Music Award for Top Rock Album and was nominated for the Juno Award for International Album of the Year. Night Visions is certified platinum in the US by the RIAA as well as in Australia, Austria, Brazil, Canada, Mexico, New Zealand, Poland, Portugal, Sweden, Switzerland, and the UK. The album produced three tracks that reached the Billboard Top 40, four tracks in the ARIA Top 40, and five tracks charting in the UK Top 40.

The album's second single "Radioactive" reached No. 1 on the Billboard Alternative Songs, Billboard Rock Songs, and Swedish singles chart and has sold more than 14 million singles in the United States, entering the top 3 of the most selling songs digitally ever. It also smashed the record of the longest running song on the Billboard Hot 100 by spending 87 weeks before being broken by The Weeknd's "Blinding Lights" in 2021. "Radioactive" stayed at No. 1 on the Hot Rock Songs chart for a record-breaking 23 weeks and ultimately became the genre's biggest hit of 2013. It peaked at No. 3, becoming their first top ten single in the United States and broke the record for the longest run into the top five. It is the best-selling rock song on the Nielsen SoundScan running list of best-selling rock songs in digital history. By the end of 2013, "Radioactive" had already sold over three million copies. Rolling Stone called it "the biggest rock hit of the year". It was also the most streamed song of 2013 on Spotify in the United States. It was nominated for the Grammy Award for Record of the Year and the Grammy Award for Best Rock Performance at the 56th Annual Grammy Awards, winning the latter of the two. The band performed a medley of "Radioactive" and "M.A.A.D City" alongside rapper Kendrick Lamar at the ceremony. A remixed version of "Radioactive", featuring a newly added verse from Lamar, was released the next day and performed on the February 1, 2014 episode of Saturday Night Live.

Third single "Demons" reached No. 1 on the Billboard Pop Songs, peaked at No. 6 on the Billboard Hot 100 and spent 61 weeks on it. In 2021, RIAA declared that the song has become the band's third diamond selling song in the US. Fourth single "On Top Of The World" reached a peak of No. 79 on the Billboard Hot 100 and also spent 20 weeks on the chart. In the US, the non-singles off the album, "Bleeding Out" and "Amsterdam" were certified platinum while "Hear Me" and "Tiptoe" were certified gold. Billboard listed them as one of "2012's Brightest New Stars" and later "The Breakout Band of 2013". Imagine Dragons won the 2014 Billboard Music Awards for Top Duo/Group, Top Hot 100 Artist, and Top Rock Artist. Amazon.com called the band their "Favorite Rock Artist of 2012".

In 2013, Imagine Dragons returned to Europe and North America with the Night Visions Tour. The band announced 13 additional US summer tour dates which also sold out. The band then announced a North America Amphitheatre tour. Pollstar listed the band in their Top 20 Concert Tours list by average box office gross despite their average ticket price being the third lowest on the list. The band released a live album, Live at Independent Records, in April 2013.

The idea behind the second studio album, dubbed as their "New Year's resolution", was to create music and finish it when the band feels that their work is done. Since the beginning of the Night Visions Tour, the band had been writing new material for an upcoming album, and, even as early as the start of the tour, had been recording demos for the album, before entering the studio. By the time that they entered the studio to work on the album, they had amassed 50 demos to work from.