Cute, right? Eye-catching at least. Their next album, Pretend or Surrender, followed in 2008, and was more gold, more heart felt, emotional lyrics that really touched people. All of their songs described things that real people went through and struggled with. On both albums, they touched on teen suicide, bullying, cheating girl/boyfriends, depression, and hope.
Still quite firmly gothish and alternative, but with a bit more maturity. Very sexy, no? After this was a period of silence which was slightly worrisome. They randomly released a few alone standing singles with no connection to each other, which were quite good and followed in the same style and vein as classic Lovex.
And this is apparently where Lovex lost their goddamn minds.
Third album Watch Out! took a year longer to make than the time it took to create their previous two albums, so fans were all expecting something big. We got.....a normal looking Lovex.
Okay, looking back now, this isn't such a shock, and actually they look like they merely matured their old goth look into something that would attract more than some angsty teenagers, but when they came out with this promo, people shat themselves. The general consensus was, WHAT on earth was this and where had the goth gone? Third album, Watch Out! was pop rock. Plain and simple, it wasn't like their previous efforts hardly at all. I understand becoming more accessible and wanting to reach out past Finland and Scandinavia and wanting to be on more of a global stage. And Watch Out! was a good segue into that. It still sounded like Lovex, but like an adultier Lovex. The majority of the songs were still really wonderful and heart-wrenchingly beautiful.
We should have seen it coming with the release of Watch Out!'s second single, "USA". It was basically a vomit of pandering for US fans and media attention. It's so blatant in it's approach that I honestly thought they were being sarcastic and were actually slamming the US. They weren't, they really recorded a song about how great the United States is. It was very confusing.
We should have all apologized for our initial complaints about Watch Out! right then. We knew not what we did, nor what was coming.
This is Lovex in 2013. A lot of their initial fans had given up on them, not wanting to see their once genius deteriorate any further, after seeing State of Mind's promo pictures. We weren't asking them to stay 20 forever. We weren't asking them to wear the same style of clothes from ten years prior. We just asked them to continue their efforts in making really beautiful lyrics that touched people and saved lives. They did not. Watch Out! was tolerable because some of the songs stayed true to Lovex. State of Mind felt like a giant middle finger to every Lovex fan who had loved their first two albums.
If I hadn't known it was definitely Lovex, and most certainly Torsti/Theon singing, I would never believe that State of Mind was performed by the same band that played Divine Insanity. It was so superficial, all of it; from the album cover to the slickly produced songs, to the empty lyrics. I was saddened and shocked, along with many other people. "Action" was okay, really. It was quite good, but not in comparison to previous efforts. There were still vomit-inducing US worship in "California," for god only knows why reasons.
"Don Juan" was gross. It was skeevy, and odd, and didn't fit in well. Lovex didn't write about fucking lots of women, Lovex told you not to kill yourself! They gave fans an escape! They cared about the state of young adults in Finland! Lovex obviously wanted to conquer the US, and now they were essentially sacrificing their reputations and potentially their fans to do it.
Only problem? The US didn't pay attention. They didn't become the next big thing in the United States, and if you want Lovex albums, you still have to order them online from Finland. I'm fairly sure that nowhere in the US can you walk into a store and find a Lovex album, unless it's a second hand store and you're extremely lucky.
So, Lovex released the single "Dust Into Diamonds" last month. Yes, I still keep up to date, because one day they might all come to their god damn senses and go back to their winning formula.
It's pop, electro-pop at that. It's auto-tuned, and the guitars can barely be heard. What else did we expect by now? Go to any recent Lovex music video and you're besieged by disgruntled Lovex fans who adore their REAL selves and cannot abide while they hide their genius behind cheap American style pop. Many fans are like me and merely check in to Lovex's latest release only because that's how good their first two albums were. Nearly eight years since they changed their sound, and we're all still hoping they'll go back.
Divine Insanity and Pretend or Surrender are now considered classic Finnish goth-glam rock, like old The Rasmus or Negative. Their old music videos are still hailed as some of the best works to have ever come out in the past decade or so.
The truth is, Lovex won't ever be goth again. They won't write about suffering and how to get through it. They won't write insanely good rock anthems again. They've chosen their path, and they're a pop band now. And we should all accept it. Accept it and still buy their albums because we just have to love them for the escape they gave us when we were at our lowest, Or accept it and abandon new Lovex, and just play Divine Insanity and Pretend or Surrender on repeat, I guess.
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