Shirt Stains: Nightsquish
Working on some night moves.
Nightwish is probably one of, if not the, most popular symphonic metal bands in the world. Their influence on multiple genres is undeniable as is their popularity. Though they may not receive much love from the more traditional metal fans, Nightwish has carved out their own place in the metal world thanks to a creative sound and constant touring. The band’s strength has always been its female vocalist, whether it was the operatic Tarja Turunen, the more mainstream Annete Olzen, or the powerful Floor Jansen. Nightwish appeals to a wide swath of people across many, many countries. Perhaps that fandom would be slightly smaller if they saw these shirts.
Steamwish
I don’t know what’s going on with this shirt, and I’m pretty sure I don’t want to. This shirt isn’t good. That’s not to say that it isn’t well done, because it is. It’s just not a good shirt. It looks like it was conceived by an escaped mental patient who has had The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus described to him in Yiddish. A giant train car double-hot air balloon. On top of that, it’s being dragged by two skeleton/ghost horsies. That’s just terrible planning. If you described this shirt to a doctor, he would double your medication. The colors are really bland for a concept that is all magical and wondrous. I’m not asking for hot pinks and neon greens, but something other than KFC browns and pale grays. Not exactly full of Nightwish flair.
This shirt is worn by people who ride unicycles. This short is worn by people who wish there was more steampunk-themed porn. This shirt is worn by people who refer to themselves by their Dungeons and Dragons names. This shirt is worn by people who put jelly on their peanut butter M & Ms. This shirt is worn by people who who have written orc/goblin fan fiction.
Praywish
Oh, man. I take back what I said about the previous shirt’s colors. That was a cornucopia of color compared to this one. 50 Shades Of Brown isn’t just your totally hysterical and original idea for a 50 Shades of Grey sequel. Just when the front doesn’t have enough brown, the back looks like it was used to clean up after all-you-can-eat Meat Lover’s pizza night at Pizza Hut. How much more brown can there be on this shirt? None. None more brown.
This is all just taking away from the bad design of the shirt. Praying hands holding a cross/rosary/whatever religious iconography Christians hold. Where have we seen that before? It’s a pretty common design, though I don’t remember the pinkies being so gnarly. I can’t read the entire BACK of the SHIRT with all OF the UNNECESSARILY CAPITILIZED WORDS, but THAT’S FINE. Something about dying and country and whatever “another man, yes” means. It’s just one long run-on sentence that tries to be philosophical and comes off as bad middle school poetry.
Blandwish
This is the plain yogurt of the Nightwish merchandise collection. No sprinkles. No nuts. No fruit at the bottom waiting to be stirred. It looks like they screengrabbed a few pictures from a video, smooshed them all together in MS Paint and said, “Fuck it, good enough. Let’s go get some lohikeitto and karjalanpiirakka.”
They clearly should’ve spent more than 5 minutes on this shirt before filling up on lingonberry jam and porridge. The picture of Tarja is warped, and your guess is as good as mine what’s going on above her. I assume that guy on the shirt is also in the band, but I can’t get over his “Male Stripper Dressed As A Magician” look. It’s like he’s an out-of-work illusionist on the Vegas strip bilking vacationing couples out of a couple of bucks. Not sure why they have a cross on the shirt. Is Nightwish really a Christian hardcore band and they’re just waiting for the right moment to throw in some breakdowns and talk to us about Jesus and his infinite love?
Platoonwish
Have you ever wanted a band shirt to recreate Willem Dafoe’s iconic death scene in the Vietnam War movie “Platoon”? Really? What the hell is wrong with you? Are you in Nightwish? You have to tell me if you’re in Nightwish. It’s the law. War is hell and now you can wear it on your chest to ProgPower 2015. Thrill your friends at the next Warhammer 40,000 marathon. Scare away your Craigslist casual encounters date.
Again, here is another Nightwish shirt that’s just plain bad. Bad design, bad colors, bad execution. Is the kid trying to hug the fleeing swans? Is he cursing the darkened sky like it just took his Pokemon cards away? Is he freaked out that almost every Nightwish shirt contains various shades of brown? Is he deeply disturbed by the back of this shirt that looks like someone’s printer was running out of ink? The back of this shirt has more smudges than the wall of a jerk booth in an adult book store. I suppose I should be happy that the back of the shirt isn’t brown too.
Animewish
I’m pretty sure this is just a fan-designed shirt, probably from the Deviantart page of a young anime enthusiast, but let’s just pretend that it’s real. It’s far more fun that way. Less depressing too if it’s real and was created by a middle-aged man who drops Dragonball Z references into casual conversations.
This shirt is just so adorable. I actually have to now take insulin injections before every meal because this shirt is just so sweet. Weird, but sweet. Is that supposed to be Tarja on the left? Annette? It’s really hard to tell. The artist did manage to capture the male members quite well as they really do look like ghetto pirates. Or members of Moonspell. This design is more fit for a magical girl Japanese cartoon than a symphonic metal band. The real disappointment is that they couldn’t squeeze in a dragon somewhere. Knowing Nightwish shirts, it probably would’ve been a brown dragon.
