[[quoteright:340:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/imagine-dragons_copy_4292.png]]
[[caption-width-right:340:Welcome to the new age! [[note]]L to R: Dan Platzman, Dan Reynolds, Ben [=McKee=], (Dan) Wayne Sermon.[[/note]]]]

->''"Above all, we try to write music that helps people cope with what can be a very hard life at times. We want to connect with the listener through the only means of communication we understand — art."''
-->-- '''Dan Reynolds'''

Imagine Dragons is an AlternativeRock band formed in UsefulNotes/LasVegas in 2008. They rose to prominence with their album ''Night Visions'' in 2012, and the three hit songs that came from it -- "It's Time", their first hit; "Radioactive", which earned the band a 2014 UsefulNotes/GrammyAward for Best Rock Performance, and "Demons".

The band has also recorded songs for the movies ''Film/TheHungerGamesCatchingFire'', ''Film/TransformersAgeOfExtinction'', ''Film/MeBeforeYou'', ''Film/SuicideSquad2016'', ''Film/Passengers2016'', and ''WesternAnimation/RalphBreaksTheInternet'', the mobile game ''VideoGame/InfinityBlade III'', the video game ''VideoGame/{{Starfield}}'', and the 2014 ''VideoGame/LeagueOfLegends'' World Championship (where they also appeared and performed live at the Grand Final). ''WesternAnimation/{{Frankenweenie}}'' and ''Film/IronMan3'' have some pieces from the band on their respective tie-in albums, but these do not appear in the movies themselves.
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!!Discography:
* ''Imagine Dragons'' EP (2009)
* ''Hell & Silence'' EP (2010)
* ''It's Time'' EP (2011)
* ''Continued Silence'' EP (2012)
* ''Hear Me'' EP (2012)
* ''Night Visions'' (2012)
** ''Night Visions 10th Anniversary Expanded Edition'' (2022)
* ''The Archive'' EP (2013)
* ''iTunes LIVE'' EP (2013)
* ''Smoke + Mirrors'' (2015)
* ''Evolve'' (2017)
* ''Origins'' (2018)
* ''Mercury - Act 1'' (2021)
* ''Mercury - Act 2'' (2022)[[labelnote:Note]]Instead of being released as a singular album, Mercury - Act 2 was instead released as the second half of a double album titled Mercury - Acts 1 & 2. The first half is Mercury - Act 1.[[/labelnote]]
* ''Loom'' (2024)
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!!"A troper, a troper, I've turned into a troper, and it keeps getting stronger":

* AfterTheEnd: The lyrics of "Radioactive" alludes to a nuclear apocalypse. The music video for "It's Time" shows the band exploring a desolate wasteland of a city.
* AlbumTitleDrop: The phrase "Hell and Silence", the title of an EP, gets sung during "Emma".
* ArcWords: "Look into my eyes", "I'll make it up to you", and "dream" show up in many songs. All appear to be related to Dan's depression and recovery, and to his relationship issues.
* AssholeVictim: The protagonist for the "Bones" music video is shown to an obvious arrogant douchebag, including throwing a ping pong ball at someone who pissed him off. By the end he gets torn apart by his zombified coworkers. It's implied he might have somehow been partially responsible for them turning into zombies by stressing them out too much.
* TheAtoner: "Bleeding Out" seems to imply a message of "Hey, I did a lot of bad things to you, but I'm paying for it now."
-->So I bare my skin\\
And I count my sins\\
And I close my eyes\\
And I take it in\\
I’m bleeding out\\
I’m bleeding out for you, for you.
* AudienceParticipation: Dan Reynolds often encourages those who attend the concerts to sing along.
* AutobotsRockOut: "Monster" and "Battle Cry" accompany fight scenes in ''VideoGame/InfinityBlade III'' and ''Film/TransformersAgeOfExtinction'', respectively. Ironically, the first song of theirs that played in a ''Film/{{Transformers|Film Series}}'' movie, "All For You", sounds very mellow, and doesn't accompany a fight scene with Autobots.
* BattleInTheCenterOfTheMind: The music video for "[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7wtfhZwyrcc Believer]]" depicts frontman Dan Reynolds overcoming emotional and physical pain as a boxing match between Dan and Creator/DolphLundgren, [[spoiler:who is heavily implied to be an older version of Dan. Further, the end of the video implies that he'll never finish this fight, but at best will have the determination to keep fighting]].
* BeastlyBloodsports: The music video for "Radioactive" depicts one of these - except the beasts are stuffed animals.
* BookEnds: "Battle Cry" ends by repeating the first verse.
-->Just one more time before I go\\
I'll let you know\\
That all this time I've been afraid\\
Wouldn't let it show\\
Nobody can save me now, no\\
Nobody can save me now
* BreakHisHeartToSaveHim: In "Demons", the narrator pushes a loved one away for their own good.
* BreakupSong: A few songs have this implication, such as "Demons", "Amsterdam", and "Leave Me", to name only a few.
* CannotSpitItOut: "On Top Of The World" is about telling those you love you love them before they leave.
* CanonDiscontinuity: The Internet didn't seem to indicate the existence of any Imagine Dragons [=EPs=] older than 2009, until [[http://imaginedragons-ep.tumblr.com/ some songs]] from a 2008 EP called ''Speak to Me'' appeared on Website/{{Tumblr}} in December 2014. (However, there did exist [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I8jBaVSgusQ this video]] of a former band member performing the title song, and Lyricsmania shared [[http://www.lyricsmania.com/the_pit_lyrics_imagine_dragons.html the lyrics to "The Pit"]]) The band's manager, Mac Reynolds, [[https://i.reddit.com/r/imaginedragons/comments/2qo2jg/demo_ep_speak_to_me_ep_download/.compact explained]] that since only one of the members featured in those tracks -- Dan Reynolds -- remained with Imagine Dragons afterward, the band didn't really consider ''Speak to Me'' one of their own works.
* CarefulWithThatAxe: Dan's got a hell of a shouting voice that most tenors would probably die for, as heard most notably in the chorus of "Radioactive".
** The chorus of "Cutthroat".
** The bridge of "Giants".
* CoverVersion: Quite a few, most notably their live covers of Music/{{Rush|Band}}'s "Tom Sawyer" and {{Music/Blur}}'s "Song 2".
* DarkestHour: "Demons", where the singer/protagonist has given up any hope for protecting anything other than someone he cares for. If you pay attention, quite a few of their other songs have similar vibes, like "Lost Cause" and "Nothing Left to Say".
* DarkReprise: Koda did a slow, sad version of "Radioactive" for ''Series/{{The 100}}''.
* DesperatelyLookingForAPurposeInLife: Dan Reynolds admittedly went through this in college, failing at different talents before deciding that his true calling involved becoming a musician.
-->I really believe you don't do music [just] because you want to, you do music because you have to.
* DistressedDude: The band members become this trope in the music video for "Radioactive", being trapped in the basement of the arena the stuffed animal dogfights are taking place. Eventually, they end up rescued by the drifter who brought her own challenger.
* DoubleMeaningTitle: The name of "The Fall" can refer to either autumn, or the singer's downfall.
* DownerEnding: ''Smoke + Mirrors'' ends on a rather depressing [[AccidentalPun note]] in its first two North American versions, as if the album didn't already have enough self-loathing/disillusioned-sounding songs.
** Standard 13 track version, which ends with "The Fall":
--->I'm ready for the fall\\
Ready for the leaves\\
Ready for the colors to burn to gold\\
And crumble away
** Deluxe 17 track version, which ends with "Release":
--->But look at me\\
Oh what a mess\\
I get caught up in the things that matter the least\\
Oh let me have release\\
I've let me down down down down ''(repeat four times)''
** International deluxe versions end on a more hopeful note with either "Warriors"[[note]]the last song on the 18 track International Deluxe Edition[[/note]] or "Who We Are"[[note]]the last song on the 21 track Super Deluxe Edition, which later also became available in America[[/note]].
* DrugsAreBad: Prevalent in ''Mercury -- Act 1''. In "My Life" the singer laments that he "finds myself a user" and "wakes every day with addictions to feed." "Giants" mentions that he's "playing with chemistry" and also complains about media portrayals of drugs, saying "the world will glamorize it all."
* DyingAsYourself: In the music video for "Bones" an office full of people seemingly gets hit by a wave of madness that causes most of them to succumb and turn into zombies who try to kill the remaining humans. The main character's eyes turn into zombie eyes a few times but he fights off the madness. In the end he just gets his head ripped off and dies as a human while almost everyone else in the office seemingly went crazy.
* TheEndIsNigh: The subject of "Fallen" (the last track of some versions of ''Night Visions''):
-->Tell everybody, tell everybody\\
Brothers, sisters, the ending is coming
* EyesNeverLie: An ArcSymbol.
** The song "Demons" is all about this trope.
*** From the chorus:
---->When you feel my heat\\
Look into my eyes\\
It's where my demons hide\\
It's where my demons hide
*** From the bridge:
---->Your eyes, they shine so bright\\
I want to save that light
** "I Need a Minute" also briefly touched on this, as quoted earlier in this page.
** "Bad Liar" features the line "Look me in the eyes, tell me what you see". Here, Dan is telling his girlfriend to expose his true bad nature.
* FanDisservice: The music video for "Bad Liar" features an attractive woman dancing, but it's undercut by the fact that she's dancing next to a levitating corpse.
* GetOut: "Leave Me" is a BreakUpSong with lyrics invoking almost nothing but this. In it, Dan is quite fed up with his partner and tells her to get the hell out of his life, to the point of bargaining to let her take whatever she wants and even claiming that he pulled a gun on her just to get her to finally leave.
* GriefSong: The singer of "Clouds"[[note]]A song that Imagine Dragons performed live during their indie days, but didn't include on any of their [=EPs=]; it also didn't make it onto any of the band's first three studio albums.[[/note]] apparently had his heart broken, and consequently proclaims that he wants to die. He changes his mind after the third chorus, but still acknowledges the mortality of man. Additionally, said chorus says something about "prisoners" in London waiting "for their turn to be dead."
* HeavyMeta: In "Symphony," each of the musical instruments gets specifically called out in the lyrics before it is played, including the drums, timpani, piano, xylophone, saxophone, trumpet, flute, trombone, and finally the guitar. This is used as metaphors for the singer's friends and family and how they keep him afloat.
* HeelRealization:
** One interpretation of "The River" explains that the singer has realized his own selfishness, and decided to perform a spiritual cleansing.
** "Bad Liar" serves as one for a man who has realized that he is manipulating his girlfriend into staying in a bad relationship.
* HeroicSelfDeprecation: "Next to Me" is basically the singer asking the listener why they're still with them in spite of all the things they've screwed up in life.
* HiddenTrack: "Rocks", at the end of "Nothing Left to Say", begins after a two-and-a-half minute outro and fifteen seconds of silence. Even though the name is in the track title, you'd be forgiven for thinking the track didn't exist.
* HumansAreBastards: In "Demons", the line "No matter what we breed / We still are made of greed" implies that basic human selfishness will always be present, no matter how you teach the next generation.
* IAmAMonster: "I've turned into a monster" in the aptly-named "Monster".
* ICantDoThisByMyself: Most of "Demons" is about [[BreakHisHeartToSaveHim pushing a loved one away to save them from the narrator's "demons"]]. The bridge, however, has a cautious plea for help, "I can't escape this now / Unless you show me how."
%% Zero-context example * TheInsomniac: Wayne Sermon, as referenced in some of the songs.
* TheInternetIsForCats: The lyric video for "Zero" features a computer user playing cat game and watching a lot of cat videos. After the user tries to remove the "cat virus", the band pops up to save the day.
* TheInvisibleBand: Imagine Dragons doesn't appear in the AnimatedMusicVideo for "Warriors", and only make a cameo in the video for "I Bet My Life". Additionally, a few videos on [[https://www.youtube.com/user/ImagineDragons/featured their pre-Vevo YouTube channel]] consist of simply the band singing while random clips play.
* IronicEcho: "Pantomime" makes four usages of the phrase, "It's just a matter of, 'Oh, don't touch me. Don't you, don't you touch me no more.'", the last of which replaces the second "don't you" with, "dare". The singer uses it twice during the first verse, when hesitating to take an ex-girlfriend back in, especially as her friends try to help him rebound. It appears two more times in the second verse, which details how the singer and the ex broke up ([[GoldDigger she left him for a rich and handsome man]]), and why she started pursuing him again ([[MarriedToTheJob the rich and handsome man keeps brushing her aside in favor of making more money]]).
* ItsNotYouItsMe: The singer of "Amsterdam" blames himself for a romance falling through, but apparently it took a snarky remark from the lover for him to develop this attitude.
* LargeHam:
** The entire chorus of "Radioactive", natch.
** "Lost Cause" almost delves into ChewingTheScenery territory. Dan Reynolds really knows how to hit the high notes, and only as one volume: LOUD.
--->"'''OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOHHH''' DIG MY SHALLOW GRAVE! It's not meeee you'll save, 'Cause I'm a lost cause. I'M A LOST CAUSE! '''A LOOOOOOOOST CAAAUUUUSE!'''"
** "A MONNSTER A MMONNTSER AND IT KEEPS GETTING STRONNGEERRR"
** The chorus of "Battle Cry".
** "Natural": "I'M GONNA MAKE '''''IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIITT!'''''"
** "HEEEEEERE WE ARE, DON'T TURN A AWAAAAAAAAAAY NOW. ''''WE! ARE THE WARRIORS THAT ''''BUILT! THIS! TOWN!"
** "Dull Knives" has Dan going all out during the chorus.
* LaserHallway: The music video for "Sharks" has a scene where the main character (played by Dan) has to navigate through a bunch of moving lasers, so he uses the opportunity to show off some dance moves.
* LonelyAtTheTop: "Gold" makes material wealth sound like an inadequate replacement for human companionship.
* LongSongShortScene: Only the intro of "Who We Are" plays during ''[[Film/TheHungerGamesCatchingFire Catching Fire]]'', and at the end of the end credits.
* LoveAtFirstSight: "Living Musical" is sung from the perspective of someone experiencing this.
* LoveCannotOvercome: In "Polaroid" the singer considers themselves a hopeless, reckless disaster, contrasting their seemingly perfect lover. But their lover can't fix him and his love for them can't fix him either. It doesn't actually make him happy/fill the void because he has problems well beyond what someone else can do for him.
* LoveMartyr: Most of ''Night Visions''.
* LyricalColdOpen: "Demons" and "Every Night" both start with lyrics before the instruments begin. "Every Night" is a particularly apt example - it's basically ACappella for the first line.
* LyricalDissonance:
** "I Need a Minute", the first song from the group's first EP, sounds like a peppy dance song. However, the first verse goes like so:
--->Welcome to the land of fire\\
I hope you brought the right attire\\
The crippled man is waiting at the door\\
He said "your eyes are much too bright"\\
The things you say are never right\\
The sins of all the world lie on your head
** "On Top Of The World" has a perky instrumental for a songs who's lyrics are about saying "I Love You" before it's too late.
** "Shots" has lyrics that seem to imply a romance broken beyond repair, but the instrumental actually sounds peppy.
* LyricsVideoMismatch:
** Dan Reynolds admittedly thought showing a world-shattering apocalypse in the music video for "Radioactive" would seem too predictable, so how does it cover the song's themes of empowerment instead? It tells the story of a young woman who rescues Imagine Dragons from Lou Diamond Phillips, with help from her teddy bear, who slays a puppet monster.
** Possibly bearing even less relevance to its song, "On Top of the World" has a video in which the band visits TheSixties and televises a staged moon landing.
* MidasTouch: Discussed in a metaphorical sense in "Gold", where the blessings of fame bring the "curses of diamonds and rings", making it so "you can't tell the false from the real".
* MoodWhiplash:
** In ''Night Visions'', "Bleeding Out" has very dark lyrics (see above), but transitions into the lighter "Underdog", which is both faster and in a major key.
** Same with "Demons" followed by "On Top of the World", on both ''Continued Silence'' and ''Night Visions''.
** The music video for "Radioactive" does an excellent job setting up a dark, dank, dreary, monochrome, possibly post-apocalyptic world (as indicated in the lyrics), before slapping you in the face with a brightly-colored [[Franchise/TheMuppets Muppet]] reject shredding plush opponents in a puppet cock-fighting ring run by Lou Diamond Phillips (yes, ''really'' Lou Diamond Phillips). It will not take long to ''literally'' get whiplash from the force of the double-take, hysterical laughter, and sheer WTF-ery.
* MoonLandingHoax: The video for "On Top Of The World" eventually reveals that the Apollo 11 Moon Landing was filmed in a stage, with Imagine Dragons as the astronauts, Creator/StanleyKubrick as the director, and UsefulNotes/RichardNixon watching next to Kubrick. After the "success" of the landing, the stage is swarmed by fangirls who listen to the band perform.
* MotorMouth: Dan sings the bridge of "Believer" and all the verses of "Whatever It Takes" more quickly than usual. "Natural" and "Zero" take it up a notch, suggesting this may become a regular thing for them.
* MrFanservice: Lead singer Dan Reynolds is quite muscular, and has received much attention for his intensive fitness routine.
* NewSoundAlbum: ''Smoke + Mirrors'' has the band experiment with genres that ''Night Visions'' didn't explore, reducing the electronic and hip-hop influences in favor of several styles of rock, folk, and R&B. It also features several unusual instruments, such as a prominent theremin in the song "Summer".
* OneSteveLimit: {{Averted|Trope}}, ''three'' of the members are named Daniel: the lead singer, the drummer and the guitarist.[[note]]The last one at least helps it by [[MiddleNameBasis going by Wayne]], though.[[/note]]
* OneWomanSong: "Selene" and "Emma"
* PatrioticFervor: Expressed in "America", sung from the perspective of a soldier motivated by a desire to protect his country, and also by inspiration from the {{Heroic Sacrifice}}s made in past battles.
* PopStarComposer: Created "Children of the Sky" as a tie-in song to ''VideoGame/{{Starfield}}''.
* ProductPlacement: Not specifically advertising, but rather a tribute to the game. [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fmI_Ndrxy14 The music video]] for "Warriors" was made very specifically for ''VideoGame/LeagueOfLegends''.
* PunctuatedForEmphasis: Some of their songs do this.
-->It's woven in my soul\\
I need to let. You. Go.
* RaceForYourLove: Discussed in "Curse".
-->Cause I can't sit oh I can't talk\\
I gotta leave this town and run to you\\
Curse these nights that speak your name\\
I gotta leave this town and come to you\\
[[PunctuatedForEmphasis Break (oh) this (oh) curse (oh)]]
* RepurposedPopSong: The band has no qualms about lending out their songs for various advertisements and features.
** "It's Time", "Radioactive", "On Top of the World", "I Bet My Life", "I'm So Sorry", "Friction", "Believer", and "Thunder" have played in various commercials and trailers.
** "Monster" was used in a video package for Wrestling/DanielBryan at Wrestlemania 30.
** A Target commercial that premiered at the 2015 Grammys comprised entirely of Imagine Dragons performing "Shots" live from Las Vegas.
** A TV spot for the 88th Annual UsefulNotes/{{Academy Award}}s uses "Dream".
** A UsefulNotes/NintendoSwitch commercial that premiered at UsefulNotes/SuperBowl XLI uses "Believer", as does, oddly, the first trailer for ''Film/MurderOnTheOrientExpress2017''.
** A trailer for ''Film/WonderWoman2017'' uses "Warriors".
** Jeep sometimes uses Imagine Dragons songs in their commercials.
** "Friction" was used in the first trailer for ''Film/MissionImpossibleFallout'', probably due to it mixing very well with the classic Mission Impossible theme.
* RevolvingDoorBand: Every original member besides Dan Reynolds has left.
* SeriousBusiness: "Warriors" treats ''VideoGame/LeagueOfLegends'' like this. Since it never refers to ''League of Legends'' by name, listeners could apply it to any competitive activity.
-->Farewell, I've gone to take my throne above\\
But don't weep for me\\
'Cause this will be\\
The labor of my love
* SelfDeprecation: In the video for "Follow You", Creator/KaitlinOlson takes Creator/RobMcElhenney to a private concert from Imagine Dragons, even though he preferred Music/TheKillers, which Imagine Dragons has been accused of being an inferior version of. At the end of the concert, the couple doesn't want to listen to the ten other songs Imagine Dragons had prepared, especially wanting to avoid the overplayed "Radioactive". Dan is left looking incredibly awkward at the end. The video also mocks Dan's tendency to be shirtless during concerts.
* ShoutOut:
** In [[http://indervilla.com/imagine-dragons-wallpapers/imagine-dragons-imagine-hd/ this photograph]], Dan Reynolds wears a shirt bearing the name of the band Nico Vega, the lead singer of which (Aja Volkman) married Dan in 2011.
** The "On Top of the World" video references several Creator/StanleyKubrick movies.
* ShowerOfAngst: Dan Reynolds seems to have a DeliberatelyMonochrome one in the "Roots" music video, submerging himself in a bathtub while {{singing| in the shower}} about how he needs to reconnect with his past, and reflecting on childhood memories and his explorations of remote New Zealand locations. The memories (including some taken from home movies) play in full-color, as does Dan's rise out of the tub at the end of the video.
* SignificantAnagram: The band's name apparently is one, but they don't plan on revealing what it is anytime soon. One of their favorite fan interpretations is the phrase "God is in a manger", which even Sermon called "a better band name than Imagine Dragons".
* SillyLoveSongs: "Every Night" and "On Top Of The World".
* SpellingSong: The title song of the lost EP ''Speak to Me'' has a bridge that spells out, "Imagine movement. (Imagine) Let us be fearless." The last song, "Boots", spells out, "judgement", a few times.
* SurrealMusicVideo:
** "I Bet My Life" has a young man, portrayed by Creator/DaneDeHaan, get sucked into a dam during a fistfight. He goes through different environments of sea, air, and land, [[spoiler:which become revealed as AllJustADream as the other fighter pulls him out of the river]]. Clips of this video also appeared in a Jeep commercial.
** "Shots" places the band in environments inspired by [[https://www.imaginedragonsmusic.com/news/see-all-song-art-smoke-mirrors-artist-tim-cantor-13211 the surrealist covers]] painter Tim Canton produced for ''Smoke + Mirrors'' and its singles.
** "Radioactive" is about an underground puppet fighting ring. No, really.
** "Zero":
*** The lyric video features a man searching for the lyrics to the song in various search engines, until a video game causes his computer to be infected with [[TheInternetIsForCats cats]] that make his computer unusable. Not to worry, though, the members of Imagine Dragons suddenly appear and destroy the cats with laser eyes. The video then shows us a poster for the band, which waves for a few seconds before Wreck-it-Ralph bursts through the poster.
*** Meanwhile, in the actual video, it begins with a skateboarder prat-falling, a random passerby flying up into the sky, Dan wandering around an arcade with [[BigHeadMode a giant head]] that he needs to hold up with his arms, Ben doing an UnflinchingWalk as his car explodes, Wayne looking dead inside as kids bring their arcade tickets to him, and Daniel showing off his skills at a football game. It ends with Ben (who just fell from the sky) and Daniel getting into a WimpFight, Wayne rocking out on a guitar given to him by the heavens outside, and Dan doing a SkywardScream until some kids ask him if he's okay.
** "Bad Liar" takes this to SurrealHorror levels, with a woman dancing next to a levitating corpse in a position as if it's been hanged in a high school.
* TitleDrop: Like most singers, they have a tendency to use song titles in their lyrics. Averted in "The Unknown". Possibly their most extreme example is "Thunder", which drops the title ''seventy-seven'' times. When it went to #1 on the American Top 40, it became the song with the most Title Drops to do so in the 2010s.
* UnpluggedVersion: The EP the band recorded for iTunes includes acoustic versions of five songs, two of which hadn't received public release before.
* VisualPun: The title of "Roots" refers to the place and conditions under which the singer began, but the cover of the single shows a man with his left leg apparently growing tree roots.
* AWildRapperAppears: Music/KendrickLamar appears in the remix of "Radioactive".
* YouAreTooLate: "Waves" includes a story about a friend in need that the singer was unable to save. Or rather, the friend had desperately called him for assurance that [[YouAreNotAlone he wasn't alone]], only for his calls to be missed and the lack of comfort driving him to suicide. The singer can only lament his inaction and wishes he'd just answered his calls.
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->''"Now don't you understand\\
That I'm never changing who I am"''