The Singles Jukebox

Us? Sorry, we’re TSJ — you’re looking for these people…

[Video][Website]
[4.20]

Nortey Dowuona: I hope everybody else doesn’t want to be my enemy on this one cuz I think it’s good. Will elaborate later.
[9]

Andy Hutchins: We have the Grammys and Netflix making a League of Legends anime to thank for Imagine Dragons, of all entities that have ever produced music, getting an utterly ferocious Kendrick Lamar feature and a JID verse. “Enemy” is your stock Imagine Dragons-y Imagine Dragons Imagine Dragonsing, with the exception of what sounds like a monster stirring behind and beneath the mostly plodding drums and bass. No surprise that JID barely gets his usual rapid-fire flechettes airborne and is still the best thing about this by a mile.
[5]

Madi Ballista: Is this Western anison? JID’s verses shine like diamonds in an otherwise Just Okay rough. 
[4]

Micha Cavaseno: Inexplicably, discussing the function of this as a theme song for a cartoon that is wonderfully gay while promoting the franchise of a company who adore hating women of any kind is too fitting a distraction. It has nothing to do with the craft, which is Imagine Dragons at their peak, taking the flaccid tech-arena vibes of Patrick Stump into a lean, monstrous, ponderous mess. I love the idea of industrial glam-pop without purpose or meaning, this perfect symbol of how gross it is to be a rock band under the vicious gaze of technology. But what really makes me perversely smile is that JID is transparently an echo of ID trying to chase after their early Kendrick collab, shedding any personal characteristics to fulfill that role for a paycheck. When faced with such a monumental tapestry of cynicism and cruelty, it’s all the more perfect.
[5]

Scott Mildenhall: In ten years, Imagine Dragons have released sixteen singles with one-word titles. More impressively, that means they’ve released one song with sixteen different titles. Take a word, shout it, speak-sing it some scaffolding and then chuck some pans at the scaffolding. Yes, that’s specious, reductive and predictable, but you can hardly blame them.
[5]

Ian Mathers: Believe me, I also find it unsettling that my main complaint here is that Imagine Dragons isn’t being weird enough.
[4]

Samson Savill de Jong: As far as I can tell, this is the first time JID has shown up on this site, so I guess this marks his attempt to cross over into a bit more of the mainstream (he appeared on a Dua Lipa album track, if that counts). He manages to retain his personality, and I think he’s the standout part of the song, though that may just be the fan in me willing him to success. His part is in truth too brief to make or break anyone’s feelings on the song, but the fact that he’s the most interesting part of it for me probably says something about the two minutes and 30 seconds he’s not involved in. As for the rest of it, I’m not too much of a fan of the instrumentation during the verses — it’s sparse in a boring way rather than an atmospheric one — and I think the way they’re sung is a bit too repetitive. The chorus doesn’t really work for me the first couple of times, but when it hits after JID’s verse I think it clicks a lot better, probably because they threw everything at it a bit more. I think there’s the genesis of a better song here that is not fully realised.
[4]

Alfred Soto: “Everybody wants to be my enemy” — I wonder why.
[2]

Rodrigo Pasta: It’s a lot, but it’s not the usual things that do it for me. It’s not the poor, synthetic production where no instrument sounds casual, organic, or even pleasing in an artificial way, and more like digital slurry. It’s not Dan Reynolds’ reminder to the world that he can very much sing by elevating his middle range to a falsetto on the transition from the first verse to the pre-chorus. It’s not when he tries to do it again on the second verse, but this time from his middle range to his squeaky high range. It’s not the godawful sense of melody, appalling like I haven’t heard Imagine Dragons sound in years. It’s not the chorus, where the falsetto seems to come at random and takes the non-melodies to a grinding halt, only for the vocals to be pitched down entirely. It’s not the piss verse that JID throws in. It’s not the way his verse gets interrupted mid-sentence for the main melody to stop by unannounced with extra synths to make it even more jolting! Well, in many ways, it is all of that, but the main concern is the fucking narrative. It made sense in 2012, it even made sense in 2017, but we’re in 2022. Imagine Dragons are giants. They’re one of the landmark acts of the 2010s, they will sell out arenas for the rest of their careers and, if this song’s success proves anything, they’ll continue to have hits for a while. So the self-aggrandizing position of “the misunderstood artists vs the rest of the world” got really old, and completely unsustainable. They’ve won the hearts of millions — why still complain about how you can’t win the hearts of a couple thousand music nerds who give you poor reviews that no one will read? No hater out there is “praying for your fall”. We’ve just accepted you will be huge, hope you don’t release shit like this, and maybe eventually will grow some sort of Stockholm syndrome around your existence. “Enemy” works for a generic song to play at the gym while you fantasize about sticking it to your haters (which regular people don’t have), and even then, it’s too sonically shaky to land a punch. Forgive me if I lack empathy — Dan Reynolds’ public struggle with depression is a highly sympathetic one, and they seem like nice guys. Which makes this fronting look even more meaningless and petty. You can’t please everyone; at some point, you gotta move on.
[1]

Alex Clifton: I didn’t WANT to be your enemy, Imagine Dragons, but after hearing this once I have no choice. I’ll see you in the back alley at midnight.
[3]