Thunder/ Young Dumb & Broke- Imagine Dragons & Khalid Review

Image result for thunder/young dumb and brokeYet again, Imagine Dragons cement themselves as the new kings of pop rock, or as I sometimes fear, pop, taking the banner from the mercurial Coldplay. They've never done any true collaboration songs, except Fear (with X Ambassadors) and possibly Thunder Remix ft. K.Flay, which was basically a new song. Their Radioactive collaboration with Kendrick Lamar was just a mashup, making Imagine Dragons seem a bit worse (but not painting Lamar well either), and the this new collaboration with "the great Khalid"(he's okay) isn't much better. This song was premiered at the AMAs, and was too important keep in live youtube videos, so here it is now on every streaming service on earth.


Quite frankly, this song is a mashup. It basically just meshes Thunder and Young Dumb & Broke, managing to make them seem connected but not really seamless. Dan Reynolds and Khalid trade verses to start, with instrumentals largely from Thunder (and slicker production, too), and then sing the choruses to both their songs all together. This mix of lines does match up in melody, but seems a bit clunky and not really connected well enough. The largely instrumental bridges from both songs are included, which is a bit weird, kind of a double climax. But,  most importantly, the song is incredibly hopeful and enjoyable, and everyone involved seems to be having fun. That seeps in to all the flawed aspects of the song, and essentially makes up for all of them.

This seems like a victory lap for both Imagine Dragons and Khalid, both coming off of successful albums with multiple international hit singles. It's not really anything new or revolutionary, really just cementing the positions of the collaborators as rulers of the charts. I think this song is bit of an insult to K. Flay, who the original collaborative version of thunder featured, who actually wrote new material for it and had the music redone. I don't know if Imagine Dragons will pull another stunt like this after their next album, but I'd really prefer if they did on the album itself and not some last minute mashup months after. But nothing changes the fact that if they had tickets for their fourth album on sale now, I'd buy them.
 

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