As you might follow, Tarja of the Nightwish was fired from the band by receiving an open letter from the fellow band members in 2005. It was a very (very) brave move, I thought, when I first read the news, I even shocked. Like most people, I was thinking Tarja, as a lead vocal and precious female member of the band, is an element inseparable from band’s image. For the most of the average listeners (and fans) Tarja equaled Nightwish and vice versa. I wasn’t particularly upset, though. As for me (and maybe it’s just me, but) I felt lack of enough expression of the emotions that lyrics intended to convey (from time to time); her beautiful opera-trained voice conceals them.


Actually I was totally impressed the way Nightwish members explained what was wrong between them and Tarja. They stated that they value the mental satisfaction the most when they are doing their job. ( We don’t see this around much, right? As for me, whenever I say something similar, I’m blamed for being a dreamer.) Apparently, they had began to feel in different ways for some time on this matter. Maybe Tarja had became realistic while other members still running after Neverland. ( I’m on the side of running after Neverland myself, so I sympathize more with remaining members of Nightwish. Be able to keep that enthusiasm toward their job worth appreciating. ) . Also, it seems that Tarja was already set her mind on leaving the group, so she did not really “fired” anyway. It sure must be hard on her, the way she had to leave was not the easiest way. But one cannot gain anything without loosing something else.

After the break-up, both sides went on their separate ways. First thing Nightwish did was to look for a female vocal as they stated their open letter. They didn’t specify any qualities that their former singer had for their new vocal. On the other hand, Tarja focused on her solo career. At this point I quit following the development of the events.

Here is the harvests of the break-up; Nightwish, with their new pretty vocal says “Bye Bye Beautiful” to Tarja (awesome song by the way) and Tarja answers; “I Walk Alone” (another awesome song). I will be talking on their new album, hopefully, on next post. For now, I need to digest both albums more.