Nightwish’s Elan wasn’t first single choice

Nightwish have revealed that recently released single Elan wasn’t their first choice to promote their upcoming album Endless Forms Most Beautiful.

And mainman Tuomas Holopainen says he’d decided on track Edema Ruh but was talked into changing his mind by band members Marco Hietala and Troy Donockley.

He says: “Choosing the single from the album was really easy – it was clear it was going to be Edema Ruh. But after two weeks of rehearsing, Marco and Troy asked, ‘How about Elan for the first single?’ They liked the chorus and Marco thought it was a better song.

“At the at point we had already started writing the script for the video specifically for the other song. The question was, ‘Can we still change the single at this point?’ We could, and Marco and Troy were right.”

The track was leaked online ahead of its official release earlier this month, with Holopainen saying he and the band felt “violated” by the move.

Endless Forms Most Beautiful launches on March 30 via Nuclear Blast and they’ve lined up a show at London’s Wembley Arena on December 19. They dropped into TeamRock Radio last week to talk about the album. The show is now available to hear on demand.

Endless Forms Most Beautiful tracklist

  1. Shudder Before The Beautiful 2. Weak Fantasy 3. Elan 4. Yours Is An Empty Hope 5. Our Decades In the Sun 6. My Walden 7. Endless Forms Most Beautiful 8. Edema Ruh 9. Alpenglow 10. The Eyes Of Sharbat Gula 11. The Greatest Show On Earth
Scott Munro
Louder e-commerce editor

Scott has spent more than 30 years in newspapers and magazines as an editor, production editor, sub-editor, designer, writer and reviewer. After initially joining our news desk in the summer of 2014, he moved to the e-commerce team full-time in 2020. He maintains Louder’s buyer’s guides, scouts out the best deals for music fans and reviews headphones, speakers, books and more. He's written more than 11,000 articles across Louder, Classic Rock, Metal Hammer and Prog and has previous written for publications including IGN, the Sunday Mirror, Daily Record and The Herald covering everything from daily news and weekly features, to video games, travel and whisky. Scott grew up listening to rock and prog, cutting his teeth on bands such as Marillion and Magnum before his focus shifted to alternative and post-punk in the late 80s. His favourite bands are Fields Of The Nephilim, The Cure, New Model Army, All About Eve, The Mission, Ned's Atomic Dustbin and Drab Majesty, but he also still has a deep love of Rush.