Twenty One Pilots. I live and breathe the skeleton clique.
I’m 18 and I first found them when I was 9 (in year 5).
The first songs I heard were Car Radio and Stressed Out.
Car Radio was my fav for a long time, but now I really like The Pantaloon, Holding Onto You, House of Gold, Air Catcher, Next Semester, Ruby, and many more. I really struggle to find a favourite because I’m always cycling through the albums (except Scaled and Icy as I only listen to Shy Away, The Outside, and Saturday).
There are 2 Eras, which end with Tyler (the singer’s) alter ego’s names.
Era One:
1- Twenty One Pilots (this was before Josh Dun became the drummer + Tyler had other bandmates)
2- Vessel (Josh Dun’s debut)*
3- Blurryface (1st official story album)
*this is excluding Regional At Best from “the canon” as the majority of songs were remastered on Vessel and RAB is a discontinued album (I had to get a burned copy from Indonesia)
Era Two
1- Trench (2nd official story album)
2- Scaled and Icy (propaganda album - explained later)
3- Clancy (ends with fighting blurryface/nico)
Era One Summary: Blurryface is the alter ego of Tyler, who does bad things. Several times in this era, Tyler sings about murder/killing a man and this is interpreted in 3 ways — Jesus died for his sins, he killed a part of himself, or that Blurryface is a murderer. Blurryface is represented by the colour red, the song Johnny boy is about Tyler’s dad, and House of Gold is about his mom.
Era Two Summary: Clancy lives in an old land called trench and in this land is a place called dema, which is controlled by nine bishops. These bishops are led by Nico Bourbaki, and they control people through the dead. No one else can do this, but Clancy is an exception. Nico can control him (Nico inside Clancy is Blurryface) and Clancy gains the power to control the dead, too. The Banditos dress in yellow and tape and live outside dema. They help Clancy escape dema and teach him about trench. However, he is recaptured, and forced to perform for the people of dema. This is Scaled and Icy. If you swap the letters, it says “Clancy is dead” and the album cover is a symbol of the bishops. However, Clancy is able to escape again and gains his powers. He then returns, in the bishops red, in order to start a rebellion in dema.
In overcompensate, Tyler states that he is Clancy, confirming that Clancy is his alter ego. However the original Clancy may be dead and he might just be using Clancy as a symbol for the rebellion against the bishops.
In Paladin Strait, Clancy and The Banditos (who I headcanon as the people in Taxi Cab) lead the uprising against the bishops. At the end, Blurryface suffocates Clancy, and says “So few, so proud, so emotional Hello, Clancy.”
This mirrors the quote “Yo, this song will never be on the radio // Even if my clique were to pick and the people were to vote // It's the few, the proud, and the emotional” from fairy local in the album Blurryface.
Thank you for coming to my ted talk.