YMMV / Imagine Dragons

• Applicability: Some Imagine Dragons songs can encourage multiple theories about their meanings.
  Dan Reynolds: I always like to leave art and music open to interpretation.
• Award Snub: A rare example where the band was up against themselves. In the 2018 Grammys, the divisive "Thunder" was the only Single from Evolve to be nominated, in spite of "Believer" and "Whatever It Takes" frequently being considered better songs. One might say it stole their thunder.
• Critical Dissonance: While they are adored by fans, their first three albums received lukewarm critical reception. Their fourth album saw slightly more positive reception from critics, but it seems to be the lowest-regarded by fans. Among general audiences, the band's reputation also tends to be highly contested due to their sheer exposure throughout the 2010's, with rock fans in particular disliking their unusually heavy emphasis on modern electronica, all in all making the band something of an equivalent to what Genesis was in the '80s.
• Fandom Rivalry:
  • They are hated by Queens of the Stone Age fans for that Grammy incident, and also because Joshua dissed them live.
  • There is also some with Eminem after Dan Reynolds slammed the rapper over his use of a gay slur.
  • Corey Taylor of Slipknot was one of many singers who insulted them, causing this.
  • Defied by Foster the People. Mark Foster insulted Imagine Dragons, but then apologized and affirmed his respect for Dan.
• First Installment Wins: Several fans still seem to think that their first studio album, Night Visions, boasted more gems than their later albums.
• Friendly Fandoms: Coldplay, Bastille, Twenty One Pilots, Panic! at the Disco, Fall Out Boy, and OneRepublic all have similar styles, causing their fandoms to intersect.
• Genius Bonus: Selene can be interpreted as being sung from the perspective of Mark Anthony, as he makes references to Cleopatra, Caesar and the "lonely love child" herself, Selene.
• Germans Love David Hasselhoff: There are quite a lot of Russian comments on their videos.
• Growing the Beard: Critics have somewhat been more positive about Origins than their first three albums. From the fan's and the band's perspectives, they actually grew it during Smoke + Mirrors, a highly experimental album that was worked on and improved until they were completely satisfied. The lyrics dive even deeper into mental health and relationships than Night Visions.
• Harsher in Hindsight:
  • Good luck listening to "Sucker For Pain" again after reading about Dan Reynolds' affliction with ankylosing spondylitis.
• Just Here for Godzilla: An Iron Man 3 tie-in soundtrack, Heroes Fall, kicks off with an Imagine Dragons song, "Ready, Aim, Fire." Most reviews deem it hands-down the best song on the soundtrack. Music retailers must have thought so as well, since the only means of legally purchasing "Ready, Aim, Fire" involve buying the entire album.
• LGBT Fanbase: They have one, thanks to Dan Reynolds's pro-LGBT activism in the Mormon community.
• Memetic Mutation:
  • "NUTSAAAAAACCKK" ^ExplanationThe big Careful with That Axe moment of "Gold", which unfortunately sounds less like "Nothing" and more like...well...
  • Using the band's name as a punchline about dangerous animal training. For example:
    • Hey Owen! You think training raptors is hard? Imagine Dragons!
  • "BITTEN BY THE IMAGINE DRAGON", used by critics who hate them as a way to shit on bands who go too far with trap and electronica.
  • "I wipe my ass and slap my nuts."^ExplanationA parody of the line "I wipe my brow and sweat my rust" at the start of "Radioactive", often quoted in connection with the preceding line "I'm waking up to ash and dust" as an edit to any sequence of four phrases. This was followed by a longer, even more severely edited version straight out of a Youtube Poop that was often coupled with image sequences or nonsensical footage, a la "Viva La Vida"'s edited version.
  • Edits of "Radioactive" titled "Radioactive but..." (such as this one or this one) have become quite popular on Youtube during early 2021.
    • Later on, similar edits of "Bones" have also cropped up(Such as this one or this one.)
  • "This is my kingdom cum."^ExplanationOriginating on TikTok in 2020 and later spreading to YouTube in 2021, a video has been making the rounds of a verse from "Demons" being synced up to a 2000s commercial for Gaviscon antacid, featuring firefighters spraying the antacid in a manner that looks similar to semen. Since then, a longer and edited segment of the song's spread around, put over any particularly suggestive scenes that look like someone's overdrawn at the semen bank, so to speak. Most often, the "climax" is lined up with the beginning of the grandiose chorus. The song itself is sometimes sentence-mixed to the even less subtle "This is my cum".
  • Boots ^ExplanationBoots is one of the songs from their early EPs, and like most of their earlier tracks it is an example of Early-Installment Weirdness, but Boots manages to stand out way more due to being a Country song which is completely different from anything that the band has ever done and because of that the track has not only become a huge Ensemble Dark Horse in their discography, it also managed to achieve Memetic Badass status among the fanbase (or The Dreaded depending on who you ask) to the point it actually used to have a whole subreddit dedicated to it. Apparently this song is to the deterrent to Dan, who has expressed annoyance that fans keep requesting it on his Twitch streams.
  • The band has become a popular punchline in "deez nuts" jokes thanks to their name:
    • "Hey you know Imagine Dragons? Imagine dragon deez nuts across your face!"
  • "Is this entertaining?"^Explanation"Bones" was used in the main promo for season 3 of The Boys. Edits of media of happy couples being suddenly and violently separated, followed by the logo for The Boys and freeze-frame as the aforementioned lyrics are sung.
  • Oh, the misery. Everybody wants to be my enemy.^ExplanationThe main chorus of "Enemy" became a popular line after its usage in Arcane, but it especially became popular following a meme video of an edited cat image set to said chorus became popular.
    • Oh, the treachery, every single person is my enemy!^ExplanationOn a stream, Jerma985 was asked to sing "Enemy", despite not knowing a thing about the song. The result was an awful off-key and off-beat cover where he messed up both the notes and the lyrics.
  • 102.3 REAL ROCK FM^ExplanationA 4chan meme where a radio station brags about how hardcore its setlist is before immediately playing "Radioactive."
  • "I'm breathing in the chemicals..."^ExplanationMany edits have popped up where the opening to "Radioactive" is played, but the breath effects are replaced by other noises, like this one where it is replaced by the Wilhelm scream.
• Nightmare Fuel: The music video for "Bad Liar". A woman dances next to a levitating corpse, in a position as if it's been hanged. The woman has a hateful expression, and the two seem to teleport randomly. At the end, the woman finishes dancing, and the corpse falls to the ground. Yeah.
• Older Than They Think: Some listeners don't know that Imagine Dragons released quite a few songs prior to "It's Time".
• Retroactive Recognition: This video, taken before Imagine Dragons even existed, of Dan Reynolds playing "Baby One More Time" with Brendon Urie.
  • The drifter that rescues the band in the music video for "Radioactive" is played by Alexandra Daddario.
• Seasonal Rot: Fans and critics often disagree about which albums, if any, are good, but Evolve is usually considered to be a low point, even though it has some excellent songs.
• Sequel Displacement: Compared to Hell & Silence, Continued Silence has a higher number of best-selling songs.
• Signature Song: "It's Time" gave the band mainstream success, but "Radioactive" later outsold it. The latter song also won a Grammy. Then, "Believer" could be considered for it even more, since it's their most streamed song and Dan's documentary was named after it. Then, "Thunder" and "Demons" are among their signatures as well. They just have a massive number of very popular songs.
• Suspiciously Similar Song: The chorus of Zero sounds a lot like the chorus of Let Me Take You To Rio from the Rio soundtrack.
  • To a lesser extent, many people have compared it to Coldplay's "Higher Power," what with the electronic instruments and energetic beat.