1996–1998: Formation and Angels Fall First (left) and
Emppu Vuorinen (right), two of the band's founding members, and the only founding members still left in the band After playing keyboards in several heavy metal bands in the 1990s, including
Darkwoods My Betrothed,
Tuomas Holopainen decided to create his own project while sitting around a campfire with friends on 6 July 1996. He immediately had a clear idea of the music: experimental acoustic music he had written himself during his time in the
Finnish Army, The album is also one of the two releases which features Holopainen's vocals, appearing on four of the album's eleven tracks alongside Turunen's. During early 1998, the band performed seven concerts, while Turunen was finishing her schooling, and Nevalainen and Vuorinen were serving their obligatory Finnish military service. They played warm-up shows for bands Babylon Whores,
Children of Bodom and
Tarot.
Oceanborn saw the band abandon much of the ambient and folk elements present on their debut release, with the exception of the song "Moondance". In contrast to the female vocals of Turunen, the album also featured guest growling vocals by
Tapio Wilska, since Tuomas did not want to sing again. The
AllMusic review said that the album "as a whole works great", with songs that are "very strong".
Oceanborn was released on 7 December 1998 in Finland only. It was an instant success, reaching number 5 on the Finnish album charts. The album's first single, "
Sacrament of Wilderness", hit number 1 on the Finnish singles charts, where it stayed for several weeks. In May 1999, Nightwish recorded the song "
Sleeping Sun", Following the band's first international success, Nightwish was added as the opening band for
Rage's 1999 European tour. Both the album
Oceanborn and the singles "Sacrament of Wilderness" and "
Walking in the Air" were certified
gold in Finland in August 1999. While in the studio in early 2000 working on their third album, Nightwish was accepted in the Finnish
Eurovision Song Contest preselection final with the song "Sleepwalker". Despite winning the public vote, Nightwish eventually finished in third place, with the jury choosing gospel singer
Nina Åström to represent Finland. However, German magazine
Rock Hard declared
Wishmaster "Album of the Month", despite competing against long-awaited May releases from
Iron Maiden and
Bon Jovi.
2001–2003: Arrival of Hietala and symphonic elements with Century Child on 7 July 2001 In 2001, Nightwish recorded a cover of
Gary Moore's "
Over the Hills and Far Away" together with two new songs "10th Man Down" and "Away", and a remake of "
Astral Romance" (originally from the
Angels Fall First album) with
Tony Kakko (
Sonata Arctica) singing Tuomas' male vocals part. This new material was released as their first (and until 2009 the only)
EP,
Over the Hills and Far Away. The record also included guest performances by Tapio Wilska once again on "10th Man Down". In the same year, they also released (as
VHS, DVD and CD) their first live album,
From Wishes to Eternity, recorded during a show in
Tampere, Finland, on 29 December 2000. Soon after the release of
Over the Hills and Far Away, Nightwish met what has been described as one of hardest points of their career. Meanwhile, guitarist Emppu Vuorinen had started complaining about his role in the band, feeling like "a hired gun who would only do what he's asked to". According to their music teacher, Plamen Dimov, he and Holopainen have totally different characters, and thus difficulties were expected to arise. and platinum two weeks afterwards. It set a record on the Finnish album charts of most distance between a first place album and the second place. A music video was filmed for "Bless the Child", with a second one filmed for "End of All Hope" later, without any single support. It contains clips from the Finnish movie
Kohtalon kirja (English:
The Book of Fate). The main difference from previous albums is the use of a live Finnish orchestra on the tracks "Bless the Child", "Ever Dream", "Feel For You" and "The Beauty of the Beast". An enduring favorite of fans is the band's version of "
The Phantom of the Opera", from the famous
musical of the same name by composer
Andrew Lloyd Webber. The song was routinely played in concerts until 21 October 2005, when vocalist Tarja Turunen was fired from the band and later replaced with
Anette Olzon, whereupon the band announced that they would never play the song live again. In 2003, Nightwish released their second DVD, the documentary
End of Innocence. It tells the story of the band in Holopainen, Nevalainen and Tapio Wilska's words for two hours. The documentary also features live performances and other exclusive footage. Vocalist Tarja Turunen got married during the summer of 2003, and there were rumours that the band was about to be dissolved. These rumors were, at the time, proven to be false, as the band continued to play concerts for another year and released another album. Tarja's marriage later played a part in her dismissal from the band in the autumn of 2005. and gold in 6 other countries; it also reached No. 1 in the
Greek,
Norwegian and
German album charts, and charted the Top 10 in
France,
Hungary and
Sweden. "Nemo" topped the charts in Finland It is also their second album to feature a full-length song in Finnish, "
Kuolema Tekee Taiteilijan" (English: "Death Makes an Artist"). , Finland, on 25 June 2005 The production cost of
Once totaled approximately 250,000 euros (over 1,000,000 including video production), making it Finland's most expensive recording in history. The band would go on to break this record again later in their career. The success of the album allowed them to perform the
Once Upon a Tour tour, in which the band played in many countries they had never visited before. Nightwish performed at the opening ceremony of the
2005 World Championships in Athletics, held in
Helsinki, highlighting the acclaim the band had gained. A "best of" album,
Highest Hopes, was released in September 2005. The compilation also featured a live cover "
High Hopes" (from the
Pink Floyd album
The Division Bell). Besides "High Hopes", a remake of "
Sleeping Sun" (from
Oceanborn) was included on the album and released as a single. A video for the remake was shot, featuring a medieval battle, and can be found on the German release of the single and as a separate DVD released by Spinefarm. The letter was written by Holopainen and signed by all four band members. The main justification given for Turunen's dismissal was that the band felt that her husband, Marcelo Cabuli, and her own
commercial interests had changed her attitude towards the band. The singer felt that the personal attacks on her husband were unwarranted, and that playing the issue out in public was "senselessly cruel". Turunen expressed these feelings through her own open letter, which was published on her personal website, and through various TV, magazine, and newspaper interviews. During this time, speculation emerged about who would eventually be chosen and the band stated on their website that fans should not believe any source other than the band itself for information regarding the new vocalist. In September 2006, the band entered the studio to record their sixth studio album,
Dark Passion Play. it was released in Finland on 22 August and included a bonus track entitled "
While Your Lips Are Still Red" written by Tuomas as the main theme for the upcoming Finnish feature film
Lieksa!. Hungary and got in top 100 in other 16 countries, including the United States.
Dark Passion Play broke the band's previous record for Finland's most expensive audio recording, with the final production cost coming in at over 500,000 euros (twice the cost of
Once, the previous record-setter, and approximately $675,000). On this album, male vocalist
Marko Hietala had more freedom in the use of his voice: he sings backup on the songs "Cadence of Her Last Breath" and "Sahara", lead vocals on the songs "
The Islander", "Master Passion Greed" and "
While Your Lips Are Still Red" and chorus on the songs "
Bye Bye Beautiful" and "7 Days to the Wolves". Their first official concert with Olzon was in
Tel Aviv, Israel, on 6 October 2007. The
Dark Passion Play tour thus started, visiting the United States, Canada, most of Europe, Asia, and Australia. The third single of the album was "
Erämaan viimeinen", a previously unreleased vocal version of the instrumental "Last of the Wilds". It was released in Finland only on 5 December 2007. On this song, Jonsu of the Finnish pop and rock band
Indica performs the Finnish vocals. Within a week after the release, the fifth single was announced to be "
The Islander". It was released over a month after the release of its music video, shot in late 2007 in
Rovaniemi in Finnish
Lapland. Nightwish released a new live
EP/DVD entitled
Made in Hong Kong (And in Various Other Places). The eight live tracks were recorded during the "
Dark Passion Play World Tour" in 2007–2008, and the album also includes one
B-side from the "
Bye Bye Beautiful" single, one B-side from the "
Amaranth" single, a previously unreleased demo version of "Cadence of Her Last Breath", and a bonus DVD with three music videos as well as a 37-minute documentary called
Back in the Day is Now. Holopainen said in a 2010 interview that "[...]I can't reveal to you any more but there is going to be a big twist so to say, on the next album." In an interview with
Uilleann piper Troy Donockley (who recorded with the band on
Dark Passion Play), when asked about his involvement in the new album, he stated "Oh yes, I
will be playing on the next album and from what Tuomas has told me, it is going to be something extraordinary..." and on 2 June, it was announced that he had finished recording the pre-production demo. On 31 August, Nightwish announced on its website a change in title, from
Imaginarium to
Imaginaerum, "to avoid mix-ups with various things named 'Imaginarium. On 2 September, the group announced on its website that the new single, "
Storytime", would be released on Friday, 11 November, and on 9 September, Nightwish revealed the cover and track list. On 11 January 2012, Nightwish announced on its website that the second single, "
The Crow, the Owl and the Dove", would be released on 29 February. Roadrunner Records announced that Nightwish would be releasing a 10-inch LP titled
Trials of Imaginaerum in conjunction with Record Store Day (21 April 2012). The 10-inch LP is a two-sided picture disk that contains four early demos of "Storytime", "The Crow, The Owl and The Dove", "I Want My Tears Back" and "Slow, Love, Slow". On 1 October 2012, Nightwish announced via its Facebook page that they were parting ways with Olzon. According to the press statement, "it has become increasingly obvious that the direction and the needs of the band were in conflict, and this has led to a division from which we cannot recover". According to the statement, Dutch singer
Floor Jansen (ex-
After Forever,
ReVamp) would sing for the remainder of the Imaginaerum World Tour. On 11 January 2013, Olzon announced on her official blog that she was pregnant with her third child, due in spring 2013, which she claimed was a contributing factor to her being dismissed. The band then released a statement on its website counterclaiming that the reason Olzon gave for her dismissal and other statements she made were untrue and that Olzon herself had agreed to help find a replacement while she was on maternity leave. Later, Olzon gave several interviews in which she said she never agreed with a replacement, even when she was pregnant, and proposed to the band to postpone the tour, which culminated in her firing. She also added that she was against Jansen joining the band in her period of maternity, mainly because of the difference in their vocal styles. In a 2015 interview, Holopainen said the band "emerged stronger" from the line-up changes it went through. The band performed at the
Wacken Open Air music festival in August of 2013. On 9 October 2013, Nightwish announced
Floor Jansen as the permanent replacement for Olzon. Troy Donockley was also announced as a full-time member, making the band a
sextet for the first time. In a later interview, Tuomas said that Donockley's previous work with Nightwish had already made him "much a band member", so the band just "made it official". According to the band's webpage, the band would enter the studio in 2014 to record its eighth full-length album for a 2015 release. At that time, the band had already announced that it would contain Nightwish's longest song to date. At the end of November, the band released the live album
Showtime, Storytime. Despite the recording happening when they were only four members, it is the first Nightwish release to feature Jansen and to have her and Donockley credited as band members. The album also carries a documentary containing the behind-the-scenes of Jansen's first days in the band and the process of replacing Olzon. In May 2014, Holopainen updated his official website, stating that he and producer Tero "TeeCee" Kinnunen had been recording 12 demos (and possibly three bonus tracks) for the new album in
Hattula, Finland. The band expected to start rehearsing in July in Eno, Finland, to complete recording by January 2015, and to release the album in spring of that year, "If everything goes as scheduled".
Kai Hahto (
Wintersun) would be taking his place on the album Evolutionary biologist and author
Richard Dawkins was announced as a guest star on the album, with Holopainen stating that he had "been so enthusiastic about this kind of literature for the past few months, and will be for the upcoming months, that it's going to come out somehow." In November, the band filmed a music video for "
Élan", one of the tracks of the album. On 8 December, the band announced that it would be the first single from the album, which would be released on 13 February 2015. The new album's cover art and its title,
Endless Forms Most Beautiful, were revealed on 22 December, and the album was released on 27 March 2015, produced by Tero "TeeCee" Kinnunen. The title for Endless Forms Most Beautiful was taken from the writings of English naturalist
Charles Darwin. The album features the participation of
London's The Metro Voices choir group, London's Young Musicians Children's Choir, and the Orchestre De Grandeur, led by the esteemed orchestral arranger Pip Williams, who teaches music and music technology at the London College of Music. Professor
Richard Dawkins not only narrates the introduction to the album's opener, "Shudder Before the Beautiful", but also the album's closer, "The Greatest Show on Earth", which takes its name from his 2009 book on evolution. To promote the album's release, the band went on the
Endless Forms Most Beautiful World Tour, which started on 9 April 2015, in New York City and concluded on 9 October 2016, in Saitama, Japan. in 2018 In July 2015, it was announced that
Sonata Arctica's vocalist
Tony Kakko would replace Jukka Nevalainen as the band's special guest at
the 2015 edition of Rock in Rio. In December 2015, Nightwish became the first Finnish band to headline a show at the
Wembley Arena, in London. On 20 August 2016, the band played a special 20th-anniversary show at Himos Areena in Finland. The show featured original bassist
Sami Vänskä on the song "Stargazers" and drummer Jukka Nevalainen on the song "Last Ride of the Day". The band took a break in 2017, during which Jansen was focusing on her first child. Holopainen said that the band would continue between the years of 2018 and 2020, with another album that would continue the themes explored in
Endless Forms Most Beautiful. On 9 June 2017, the band announced that 9 March 2018 would mark not only the debut of a nine-month world tour titled
Decades: World Tour, which had concluded in December that same year, but also the release of a new compilation album, titled
Decades. The tour featured "rarely heard material" and a special set for fans. During the Latin American leg of the tour, the Buenos Aires show was filmed for a live DVD known as
Decades: Live in Buenos Aires which was released on 6 December 2019.
2019–2023: Further lineup changes and Human. :II: Nature. In July 2018, Holopainen stated that he had written "80 or 90%" of the material for Nightwish's next album, which would consist of ten or eleven songs. He stated that the inspiration for the new album came from the completion of the 2018
self-titled debut album of
Auri, a band he created with Donockley and
Johanna Kurkela the previous year. Recording would start in July 2019, with a planned spring 2020 release. The band would "use the [orchestral] instrumentation in a different way than before", with Holopainen stating, "You want to search for some new ways of using it so that it doesn't end up sounding the same as before". Jansen stated in November that she believed the recording process would be similar to
Endless Forms Most Beautifuls, for which the band went through lengthy rehearsals before starting to record. On 15 July 2019, the band announced that Kai Hahto would permanently take over for Jukka Nevalainen as the band's drummer. In a statement, Nevalainen explained that while he was managing his insomnia well and having few issues, he did not want to 'push his luck' by returning to the band as a full-time member. He did confirm, however, that he would continue to take care of band-related business behind the scenes. On 31 October 2019, Floor Jansen confirmed that recording for the new album had been completed. On 18 December 2019, it was confirmed that Tuomas Holopainen was at Finnvox Studios mixing Nightwish's next studio album, set for release in the first quarter of 2020. Holopainen confirmed on 10 January 2020 that mixing and mastering for the album had finished and it was ready for release, with the album title and other details to be released soon. The new album's cover and track list, along with its title,
Human. :II: Nature., were revealed on 16 January 2020, and the album was released on 10 April 2020. The first single of the album, titled "
Noise" was released on 7 February 2020, with an accompanying music video. The second single from the album, "Harvest", was released on 6 March 2020, with a lyric video to accompany its release. On the day the album was released, Nightwish released lyric videos for all of the songs on the album. The album debuted in the top 10 charts as number one in Finland, Spain, Switzerland and Germany, as well as being charted in other countries including Canada, Austria, Hungary, Poland and the United States. Nightwish announced on 11 March 2020 that they had joined a partnership with an international conservation charity organization named
World Land Trust. With their announcement was a video that promoted the organization, which in turn features the song "Ad Astra" from their ninth album. When asked about the partnership with the organization in an interview, Floor commented: On 10 July 2020, a new crab species, the
Tanidromites nightwishorum, which was discovered by curator of palaeontology Dr. Adiel A. Klompmaker of the Alabama Museum of Natural History, was named in honor of the band, in particular for their 2015 album
Endless Forms Most Beautiful. On 12 August 2020, a prehistoric rockshelter called the
Alpenglow Rockshelter, that was discovered in Pennsylvania, USA was, too, named for Nightwish, particularly in honor of their ninth track,
Alpenglow, from their 2015 album. On 12 January 2021, Marko Hietala announced his departure from the band, citing his struggles with chronic depression and his disillusionment with the music scene in general. The band released another statement, that a temporary member would fill in on bass for the tour. In his statement, Hietala wrote: The band began their
world tour in support of the album in May 2021 with an interactive
livestream experience in a
virtual reality tavern which featured songs from the album, as well as revealed the identity of the session bass player,
Jukka Koskinen, via VIP virtual session. Both performances broke records with the first drawing 150,000 viewers and setting it as the most viewed virtual performance in Finland, with the box office exceeding one million in euros. The virtual performances were released on DVD on 11 March 2022. The band resumed their tour in Finland in late July 2021 with a "secret" performance in Oulu. The tour was originally scheduled to begin in spring 2020, but due to the
COVID-19 pandemic, the band postponed the tour to the next year. The tour concluded in June 2023. On 21 January 2021, the band were nominated by the Finnish Emma Awards for the categories of Album of the Year, Band of the Year and Viewer's Choice of the Year, winning the category of Metal Album of the Year. The awards ceremony in which they were nominated was held on 14 May 2021, at the Hartwall Arena in Helsinki. Following a number of summer festivals in Europe, the band announced the addition of Jukka Koskinen as the band's permanent bass player on 21 August 2022.
2023–present: Yesterwynde and touring hiatus In April 2021, Holopainen had said in an interview that he started sketching drafts for the next Nightwish album. He stated in May 2021 that he had been working on new material for "the past month or two" while he was busy with his side projects
Auri and the reunited
Darkwoods My Betrothed in which he became a full-time member. He confirmed that the band booked a studio for the next album, which would happen in the summer of 2023 for three months at the Röskö campsite. On 2 March 2022, it was confirmed that Holopainen was in the studio, writing demos for the next Nightwish album, which were finished in June 2022. Jansen, who was at the time working on her debut solo album,
Paragon, stated on 10 June 2022 that the sound of the new album would be heavier, but would retain the band's sound, while she also kept the concept for the album a secret. Holopainen later confirmed that the next album would be both a follow-up to
Human. :II: Nature. and the third and final part of a trilogy which started with
Endless Forms Most Beautiful, as well as stating that the album would come out around early 2024. The band began recording for their tenth studio album in August 2023 following the completion of the demos. After the recording was finished, mixing and mastering for the album began in January 2024, and was completed at the end of February. The band renewed a multi-album deal with Nuclear Blast in March 2024. The name of the tenth studio album,
Yesterwynde, was announced on 30 April 2024, and the album was released on 20 September 2024. Prior to the album's release, three singles were released in support of the album: "
Perfume of the Timeless", "
The Day of...", and "An Ocean of Strange Islands". There was no touring cycle in support of the album, as the band had issued a statement on 6 April 2023 that they would be going on a hiatus from touring for two to three years following the album's release. Donockley stated the reason behind the touring hiatus in a September 2024 interview, citing personal reasons and the dangers of burning out. In the same interview, he did not rule out the band performing some shows in 2027 for the band's 30th anniversary. During the touring hiatus, Holopainen and Donockley's side project Auri toured for the first time in Finland in August 2025, later expanding out to touring throughout Europe in September and October. Jansen confirmed on 11 May 2025 that she began working on her second solo album during the band's touring hiatus. In an interview with the Finnish newspaper
Karjalainen in March 2026, Holopainen revealed that he was composing two new albums, although he was unclear if one of the albums were for Nightwish. ==Music==