Not sure how I feel about this one. Tarja was frikking amazing, and I'm not sure how anybody else could come close to being an adequate replacement for her. I'll give Anette a chance before black-balling her, but my expectations are kind of low. If their next album is even half as good as "Once," I guess that will go down as a success in my book.

I love the Nightwish band. Now, the facts about why Tarja left the band aren't all accurate in this descirption. The story involve greed, love, betrayal and vanity (I kid you not, all this is described in a letter sent from the husband of tarja on Nightwish's website). In the end, it became a he said, she said but more importantly, from what I gathered, the initial creator of the band was in love with Tarja but after years of being rejected, he kind of started to ignore Tarja and so did the rest of the band. Most of the band members weren't including her in many things, meetings, press conference, they were not taking care of her. the band itself wasn't properlly managed also, too many people involved in the band who were managers weren't talking to each other which brough stupid fights and bad organizatinos for shows and stuff related to the band....sad story. I see this new begining like Van Halen. Sammy Haggard was excellent in VH, just like this new singer could be great.....then again, she could be like the third singer of VH (that guy from Extreme) and be 100% crap.

I just listened to one of the sample on their website with the new singer......it's ok. She sings more like a Nelly Furtado and less like an opera singer. It's a different sound I think....the rock is there but.....not the same sound at all. She has a voice that sounds too young....anyway, will give it a try but, let's just say I might not buy it first.

I'll have to take a visit and see how it sounds. Your comparison to Nelly Furtado has me fearing for the worst, jedibanner. I also looked into those letters after you mentioned them, and they are indeed some heavy-handed character assassinations. Not knowing any details, it is very easy to see how it's devolved into a he-said/she-said kind of thing. Not knowing the truth, I guess I'll just hope that Tarja's career continues to blossom so that I can continue to enjoy it, and that Nightwish turns over a new leaf and puts out a good album, too, as you said. We'll see!

I heard the soundclips posted on the Nightwish site...I think they sound good, but then again I also preferred Nightwish's last two albums, when Tarja began moving away from the more operatic style and more straightforward singing. To the author of the article: thanks for acknowledging Nightwish as a METAL band and not trying to pass them off as "goth," a term that loses more of its meaning every day. And to be totally crass: Anette is really cute.