In which I go over to the Dark Side of the Force

There comes a time in every person’s life when he must make a choice that determines his destiny and defines his very existence. Good or evil? Jedi or Sith? Stephen or Maud? Red Sox or Yankees? Windows or Mac? And now, as a fan of Nightwish, my time has come to make the choice that has torn apart Nightwish fandom and plunged it into civil war: Tarja Turunen or Anette Olzon?

I imagine that I will probably be in a very small minority when I (with some reservation) claim that Anette is my preferred lead singer. Now, before I am dismissed as a perverse, stubborn contrarian (which it may be claimed with some justice that I am) for saying so, allow me to explain myself a little.

My first impression was that comparing the two singers and the bands supporting them was like comparing apples to oranges. Ms Olzon and Ms Turunen have very different singing voices and employ them in different ways even when singing similar songs. Tarja’s voice is full, powerful, precise and operatic, very well-suited to symphonic metal. Anette’s voice can also be precise, but it tends to drift into pop warbling, and it seems like she sings from higher up in her respiratory system than Tarja did – but at the same time, her voice is also more flexible. ‘The Poet and the Pendulum’ from Dark Passion Play is still among my favourite Nightwish songs in part because in it Anette gets free rein to exercise this versatility in a truly, unabashedly operatic piece. But ultimately, they’re singing with the same band, and it really does come down to which sound for Nightwish one prefers.

Even so, I’d really love to hear Anette sing ‘Sacrament of Wilderness’ or ‘Walking in the Air’ or some other Nightwish song that really demands sheer singing power. As it is, there is a video (kind of low-quality, YouTube being what it is) in which she sings ‘Wish I Had an Angel’:

(And Tarja's version for comparison)

And yes, she warbles something fierce. It’s a very interesting effect, but it doesn’t carry the same raw energy Tarja’s voice did. There is something to be said, though, for the way Anette actively sings with her instrumental accompaniment (as in particularly ‘Amaranth’, ‘Bye Bye Beautiful’ and ‘The Poet and the Pendulum’ and even occasionally in this version of ‘Wish I Had an Angel’) rather than over it, which Tarja seemed tempted to do particularly toward the end of her era. They are both amazing singers, and naturally what Tarja brought will be missed, but I think the Tarja fanboys (and ‘girls) are dead wrong when they claim that Tarja’s leaving was the death of Nightwish or some other such nonsense.

'Amaranth'

Anette is a highly capable singer, and I think that as she and the other members of Nightwish have the opportunity to get used to each other, she might yet outclass Tarja as a lead singer.