Diorama is the fourth studio album by Australian rock band Silverchair, released on 31 March 2002 by Atlantic and Eleven. It won the 2002 ARIA Music Award for Best Group and Best Rock Album. The album was co-produced by Daniel Johns and David Bottrill. While Bottrill had worked on albums for a variety of other bands, Diorama marked the first production credit for lead singer Johns.
Johns wrote most of the album at the piano instead of his usual guitar, while the band took a 12-month break following their previous studio album, Neon Ballroom. Silverchair worked with composer Van Dyke Parks on Diorama; the album contains numerous orchestral arrangements and power ballads, a change from the grunge music typical of their earlier work, but consistent with the band's previous orchestrations on Neon Ballroom. The album's title refers to "a world within a world". Four singles were released: "The Greatest View", "Without You", "Luv Your Life", "Across the Night". All appeared on the Australian singles chart.
Diorama was successful in the charts but was not as well received by critics as the band's earlier albums. It reached number one on the Australian Recording Industry Association (ARIA) Albums Chart and received a rating of 71 (out of 100) on review aggregator Metacritic. It was certified triple-platinum by ARIA, selling in excess of 210,000 copies, and won five ARIA Awards in 2002. Diorama was nominated for Highest-Selling Album in 2003, and three songs from the album were nominated for awards over the two years.
Recording and production
On Diorama, Silverchair worked with a new producer, David Bottrill, who replaced Nick Launay. Though Launay had produced the band's three previous albums, lead singer Daniel Johns believed Diorama would be "the kind of record that people were either going to be into or were really going to hate",
Johns initially recorded eight songs, only to delete the files thinking they were too similar to the previous album, Neon Ballroom. Leaving the security and darkness of his earlier work, he restarted from scratch to create something more uplifting by changing musical structure from the heavy grunge influence on their prior work to string and horn ensembles and complex song structures. Johns felt comfortable when making this radical change finding it helpful to regain his passion for music that had diminished during the grunge days. After performing "The Greatest View" at the 2002 ARIA Awards, Johns said that he wanted "to perform [Dioramas] 11 songs at least once in front of an audience" before laying the album to rest. He travelled to California to receive treatments for his arthritis, including daily physiotherapy. and reflected Johns' experience of the media "watching over" him. It went on to be certified triple-platinum by ARIA, indicating sales in excess of 210,000 copies. The album peaked at number seven in New Zealand, thirteen in Austria, forty in Switzerland, and 116 in France.
The first single, "The Greatest View", was released in advance of the album on 28 January 2002. It reached number three in Australia, where it was also certified gold, and number four in New Zealand and Canada. It charted at number thirty-six on Billboards Hot Modern Rock Tracks in 2007 when re-released alongside the band's next album, Young Modern. Johns wrote "The Greatest View" as a response to the media "always watching [him] in different ways".
On 13 May 2002, "Without You" was released as the second single. It peaked at number eight in Australia but dropped to number twenty-nine the following week, spending only five weeks on the chart. The song was first announced by Silverchair bass guitarist Chris Joannou in November 1999, when he told fans the band had "a very small cache of recorded material stored away", including "Without You". "Without You" was followed by "Luv Your Life", which peaked at number twenty in Australia after its 20 September release. The inspiration for the song came to Johns during a therapy session, based on the idea that "there were people in the world who needed treatment but couldn't afford therapy." In a performance at London's Shepherd's Bush Empire, Johns jokingly said "Luv Your Life" was dedicated "to all my ladies".
The final single, "Across the Night", was written by Johns over nine hours on a sleepless night, It was released on 31 March 2003 peaking at number twenty-four on its three weeks on the Australian chart. The band's much-delayed tour in support of Diorama took its name from "Across the Night".
Reception
Diorama received a score of 71 out of 100 on review aggregator Metacritic, based on nine reviews. Australian radio station Triple J listeners voted the album number one on their Top 10 Albums of 2002, while Triple J staff Rosie Beaton and Gaby Brown placed it third and fifth respectively. In April 2007, the album was featured on SBS-TV's Great Australian Albums.
Music magazine Rolling Stone gave Diorama four and a half stars in Australia and three out of five stars in the US. Reviewer Mark Kemp praised Silverchair's development into a strong, independent musical act, in contrast to their heavily influenced debut album, Frogstomp. Kemp spoke highly of the "heavy orchestration, unpredictable melodic shifts and a whimsical pop sensibility", also noting Parks' arrangements gave the music "more breadth and depth". He argued that the album's strength was a product of Johns' confidence, resulting in such quality cuts as "World Upon Your Shoulders", "Tuna in the Brine", and "After All These Years". However, "Without You" saw Silverchair slip into "old habits", according to Kemp, and contained an "MTV-approved hook". Nikki Tranter (PopMatters), Rob O'Connor (Yahoo! Music), and Bradley Torreano (AllMusic) agreed that the band had matured greatly since their early high-school releases, with Tranter praising Diorama for standing out in the "very similar" Australian music scene and O'Connor lauding Johns for "whisper[ing] his lyrics with grace and subtlety" where in the past he would "shout in angst", drawing comparisons to Elliott Smith. Tranter thought "The Greatest View" was a stand-out with "orchestral twangs", and "After All These Years" had "sweeping horns, introspective lyrics and soft, haunting vocals". O'Connor's main critique was that it still contained some "obligatory 'grunge' efforts"; he felt eliminating those would allow the band to reach its full potential.
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Year-end charts
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Certifications
See also
- Silverchair discography