Evolve by Imagine Dragons

Evolve, Imagine Dragons' third album, came out on June 23, 2017 on KIDinaKORNER and Interscope, after a year off in 2016 and a stretch of cryptic teasers on social media. Dan Reynolds pitched it as an evolution from Night Visions and Smoke + Mirrors, and with Alex da Kid producing, the Las Vegas band leaned hard into slick, stadium-sized pop rock built on thunderous drums and chanted hooks.

"Believer" pounds like a gym workout set to a war drum, "Thunder" rides a pitched-up vocal and handclaps, and "Whatever It Takes" is all wound-up ambition. All three became chart-toppers, and the album reached number 2 on the Billboard 200 and picked up a Grammy nod for Best Pop Vocal Album. Critics were split, some buying the evolution and others hearing a record built for commercial impact, but the singles simply refused to leave.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.