Twenty One Pilots Albums, Ranked (Updated 2025)
With "Breach" on the way, I rank the band's work from their self-titled debut up to "Clancy."
Twenty One Pilots is back. Last week, the duo of frontman Tyler Joseph and drummer Josh Dun dropped “The Contract,” the lead single from their forthcoming album Breach. The track incorporates driving drums, stylistic vocal effects, and wailing synthesizers, reflecting the band’s consistent refusal to be penned into a single genre. “The Contract” is packed with references to a narrative that the band has woven into its last decade of work. Breach serves as an immediate follow-up to last year’s Clancy. With an exciting new era for Twenty One Pilots dawning, I’m revisiting my ranking of their albums to reflect my current thoughts and include Clancy.
6: Scaled and Icy (2021)
Scaled and Icy is, by any metric, the band’s worst-regarded effort, facing mixed reception from critics and fans alike, though it’s not without its highlights. After the dark, grand Trench, Scaled and Icy was recorded as a change of pace, a short and sweet shot of colorful pop for the Covid-beleaguered masses, in the vein of the early pandemic single “Level of Concern.” The album’s title even refers to the circumstances of recording during pandemic lockdowns: scaled-back and isolated.
Singles “Shy Away” and “Choker” hinted at an evolution of the chirpy, synth-driven pop-rock of the band’s earlier albums. Yet much of the LP falls flat, with disengaged vocals from Joseph and bland instrumentation that echoes the then-prevalent disco revival trend. This may have been intentional— in the fictional universe constructed by the band, Scaled and Icy is faux-upbeat propaganda from a dystopian society. But regardless of the metatextual intention, on Scaled and Icy, Twenty One Pilots often sound generic, a word that could never describe them before or since.
Favorite Song: “Redecorate”
With its dark, contemplative sound, “Redecorate” is closer to “Trench” than the rest of “Scaled and Icy.” Its detailed production and thought-provoking lyrics provide a showcase for Joseph’s rapping in its most mature form.
Least Favorite Song: “Saturday”
“Saturday” is the kind of smooth, easy-listening pop that could have been performed by anyone. Its generic pop-disco sound and repetitive chorus embody Scaled and Icy at its worst.
5: Blurryface (2015)
Blurryface catapulted Twenty One Pilots from cult favorites to the biggest band of the 2010s. Two singles, “Stressed Out” and “Ride,” hit Billboard’s top five. It was the first album with every song certified Gold by the RIAA. But with that growth came growing pains. Blurryface is a great collection of songs, but, despite its rich thematic throughline, sonically, it’s a bit scattered.
Conceptually, Blurryface is a powerhouse. It kicked off the decade-long narrative that has led to Breach, externalizing mental health struggles as a fight against a malevolent entity. It gives the album’s emotional lyrics a greater weight; By the time Joseph pleads, “I need your help to take him out,” on the somber album closer “Goner,” we know the villain well.
But Blurryface also saw the band work with four different producers. It sounds like it. The record is full of standout tracks that see Twenty One Pilots growing into pop stars. “Tear in My Heart” is a sweet, raucous pop-rock track, “Lane Boy” blends spare hip-hop verses with skittering electronic breakbeats, “Not Today” climaxes with Sgt. Pepper’s-esque marching band bombast. It’s no surprise Blurryface was massive, it’s an album full of catchy tracks for any taste. But this genre diversity leads to an album that’s unsure what it wants to be, even as pieces work well on their own.
Favorite Song: “Heavydirtysoul”
Twenty One Pilots have often eschewed guitars. But on the moody “Heavydirtysoul,” they prove you don’t need them to evoke a hard-rocking intensity. With speedy rapping from Joseph in the verses, a passionate chorus, and a powerful drumbeat from Dun underlying it all, “Heavydirtysoul” is a showcase of everything the duo does well.
Least Favorite Song: “Stressed Out”
“Stressed Out” was the single that broke Twenty One Pilots into the mainstream, but it’s oddly unrepresentative of them, with none of the band’s usual drama and drive. Honestly, it kind of bores me.
4: Twenty One Pilots (2009)
On their self-titled debut, Twenty One Pilots is literally a very different band— it’s the only record to feature the lineup of Joseph, bassist Nick Thomas, and drummer Chris Salih. Its songs are longer, many around 5 minutes. Sonically, there are hints of the genre-bending style that would come, but the LP is largely rooted in piano-centric balladry. The hooks aren’t as sticky, the raps are closer to spoken-word poetry.
But this sparer style brings vulnerability, and Joseph’s songwriting shines, even in a less refined form. It’s easy to imagine the band’s career taking a different trajectory, one where piano and slower songs remain more central to their sound. Looking back, this debut album is an out-of-place curio in the band’s catalog, but it’s full of gems.
Favorite Song: “Taxi Cab”
The melancholy, heartfelt piano ballad “Taxi Cab” is fan favorite, and for good reason. Its swaying melodies strike a nostalgic, emotional chord, and the song’s playful rap verse, full of evocative imagery, remains one of Joseph’s best.
Least Favorite Song: “Before You Start Your Day”
“Before You Start Your Day” isn’t a bad song, it’s just a very slight one. Most of its ideas are done better elsewhere on the album, and perhaps its most lasting impression is the uncomfortable lyric in which Joseph calls eyes “the slits in your face.”
3: Vessel (2013)
Vessel, Twenty One Pilots’s major label debut, showcases a band in transition. Its sound is more up-tempo than their debut, but without the grander ambition of the records that would follow. Vessel leans into pop rock, accented by chirpy synthesizers and rap verses, an eclectic mix that allowed the band to break out at a time when radio was moving away from guitar-driven rock. Songs like the cinematic “Ode to Sleep,” the anthemic “Holding On To You,” and the moody, slow-building “Car Radio” remain fan favorites for good reason. Throughout the album, Joseph’s hooks and melodies are bright and strong. Lyrically, the album focuses on mental health and Christian faith, with the latter applied in a thoughtful manner that’s never preachy.
The one downside to Vessel is its poor production. The album’s instrumentals are unmodified GarageBand presets, which drags down otherwise well-written songs with a sheen of cheapness. Paired with Joseph’s still-developing vocals, Vessel might benefit from a remaster or rerecording. But it’s a testament to the band’s energy and songwriting prowess that despite any production quibbles, the LP remains an incredible listen, and a stellar showcase for a talented band on the rise.
Favorite Song: “Guns For Hands”
“Guns For Hands” lyrically captures Joseph grappling with his newfound fame. His music has brought him fans who relate to his struggles, but he feels the weight of realizing that their wellbeing rests on his music. Sonically, its chirpy blend of piano, synthesizer, and Dun’s punchy drumming, is Twenty One Pilots at their very best.
Least Favorite Song: “The Run and Go”
Much of Twenty One Pilots’ discography juxtaposes heavy subject matter with upbeat instrumentals. “The Run and Go” goes a bit too far in that happy direction, with repetitive instrumentation and a whistled hook that evokes a television commercial.
2: Clancy (2024)
Teased as the follow-up to Trench, with the opening lines of lead single “Overcompensate” bidding listeners a “welcome back” to that storyline, Clancy unfolds in a different direction. Across 13 tracks, it pulls off a remarkable sonic balancing act, achieving musical diversity without landing at the patchwork quality of Blurryface. Clancy moves from the mellow, spacy alt-pop of “Routines in the Night” to the raucous, frantic post-punk of “Navigating” and everywhere in between, unified by the rich, textured production of producer and frequent collaborator Paul Meany.
While youthful angst is a theme throughout the Twenty One Pilots discography, on Clancy, Joseph takes on a matured perspective. Joseph is now a 36-year-old married father, performing in a band he started at 20, and his demons are no longer new to him. On the wistful “Oldies Station,” he finds comfort in knowing that he can “push on through” as he’s done before. He also is franker when discussing his issues. The eclectic, off-kilter synthpop track “Vignette” sees Joseph tackle addiction and the hard-rocking “Next Semester” features a vivid description of an apparent mental health crisis from his college years. “Backslide” addresses the band’s fandom and the struggles Joseph has encountered trying to live up to his band’s reputation, as he sings “kind of wishing that I never did ‘Saturday,’” referencing the light pop single from Scaled and Icy that many fans found a lesser effort by the duo.
Favorite Song: “Midwest Indigo”
“Midwest Indigo” is as close to Vessel with modern production as we’re going to get, with its synth and piano-centric pop sound strongly recalling the 2013 album. A simple, hard-hitting metaphor, comparing a deep melancholic mood to the color of the midwestern winter sky compliments the song’s unassuming charms. “Midwest Indigo” isn’t a song about dramatically overcoming your demons, but one about learning to live with them as you resist in smaller ways.
Least Favorite Song: “Snap Back”
Nearly every song off Clancy made its way to my Spotify Wrapped last year. “Snap Back” was the one that got away. The track has a hazy mood, and everything from the dragging marching-band style percussion to Joseph’s drawn-out vowels create a sense of struggling to keep moving on. It’s a well-produced song, but ultimately, “Snap Back” feels the least substantial on Clancy.
1: Trench (2018)
Coming off of the album that made them superstars, Twenty One Pilots had every incentive to sand down their edge and craft an album with greater mass appeal. Instead, they swung in the other direction, releasing an album that’s denser, more ambitious, and far less pop-minded than its predecessor. It’s their most accomplished work yet.
Conceptually, Trench picks up the baton from Blurryface. While that album externalizes Joseph’s mental struggles as a singular malevolent figure, Trench turns it into a dystopian society from which he must escape. The LP is packed with lyrical worldbuilding for the hardcore fans to decipher, but even the casual listener can pick up on the album’s mood, and its sense of endeavoring to escape from an all-consuming gloom. This mood is enhanced by the album’s rich, atmospheric production, courtesy of Paul Meany, otherwise known as the multi-instrumentalist frontman behind the alt-rock project Mutemath. Rich, textured synthesizers layer with chunky bass lines and hard-hitting drums, creating a truly cohesive sonic world.
Joseph has made his name as a multifaceted vocalist, and on Trench, his prowess is on full display. On “Levitate,” his nimble rapping flows freely over a skittering drumbeat, he displays a sweet falsetto in the chorus of the groovy “My Blood,” and in the outro of the hard-rocking “Jumpsuit,” he unleashes a fierce scream. The album also contains the band’s most emotionally stirring lyrical moments. “Neon Gravestones” is a pointed anti-suicide lament. “Legend” is a touching tribute to Joseph’s late grandfather, pictured on the cover of Vessel. Closing track “Leave the City” ends the album with an honest, practical sentiment regarding mental illness: “In time I will leave the city, for now, I will stay alive.” Overcoming your issues takes time, but for now, it can be enough just to keep on going, no matter how imperfectly. For an album ostensibly about crafting a fictional world, it remains deeply down to earth.
Favorite Song: “Bandito”
At five and a half minutes in length, “Bandito” is the longest song on Trench, and it uses that time to fully immerse you in the gloomy world of the album’s fictional universe. Hypnotic synths and drums circle Joseph’s soft vocals, creating a contemplative mood, rising in a slow burn into a grand, cathartic synthesizer climax. It’s a remarkable feat of contemplative songwriting that rewards repeat listens, and an exemplar of the band’s maturity and evolution away from easy hooks and traditional pop structure.
Least Favorite Song: “Smithereens”
“Smithereens” is the album’s requisite love song, but, in an inversion of the band’s typical dynamic, it’s the dark production that clashes with the upbeat lyrics. “Tear in My Heart,” used frantic, energetic piano to convey the excitement and nervous energy of romance. “Smithereens” makes Joseph’s love for his wife sound oddly ominous. Paired with some awkward lyricism (if you didn’t know Tyler Joseph weighs exactly 153 pounds, you do now), “Smithereens” is an outlier on an otherwise immaculate record.
Over the last fifteen-odd years, Twenty One Pilots have proven to be one of the most unique acts in popular music, and show no signs of stopping. As the release of Breach in September approaches, I’m excited to hear how the band evolves and grows.