DT... already a prog legend?

When I first heard Metallica I was excited but as time went by their music bored me. To me it was pure repetition of a formula track wise and then album wise.

Certif1ed wrote: There's always been some crossover between heavy metal and heavy rock, after all, heavy rock is where metal emerged from - but the general differences are quite plain. The easiest to hear is tone (quantities of distortion, as a rough guide), followed by rhythm (rock tends to have more "swing"), then harmony (rock hangs onto the minor pentatonic without shame, and shies away from tritones).

Absolutely - the NWOBHM emerged from an Old Wave that wasn't really Metal, but Heavy Rock.

I'll give you Scorps/UFO, but Sweet (love'em to bits - especially the "middle" years from Desolation through to Level Headed) often just followed in Deep Purple's foot steps, including going the heavy-funk-rock route with Give Us A Wink after Purp's Come Taste The Band the previous year - I think calling it "metal" is stretching the deff too far.

Certif1ed wrote: Fieldofsorrow wrote:   Something I don't understand in your argument, Certif1ed, is how Dream Theater brought little to the table that Metallica hadn't already offered.   In my mind they wrote music that was so much more intricate. Dream Theater employed far more complex rhythmic patterns - tackling terrors such as 15/8 and 21/16 sequences, and even ventured into polyrhythmic territory. In addition, the melodies covered an expansive range, rather than the somewhat restricted scope of Hetfield's voice, and in many places were modal, rather than based on the pentatonic. Their harmonies also broke from the 'power chord' syndrome, with 9th, 11th and 13th voicings, as well as much experimentation with suspended chords.   OK, so you've broken it down into 3 elemental fields, which is very helpful;   1. On the rhythmic front, while using "unusual" time signatures is more common in Prog than other genres, it is not exclusive to Prog - and neither are polyrhythms.   These are very nice mathematical devices, but more technical than progressive, because the end result doesn't really sound like new music, by which I mean it does not stop it sounding like Heavy Metal, but a revisit of the recurring tendency in metal to want to "prove itself" by making the music more technical and harder to play.   Indeed, Metallica played with rhythmic devices, albeit on a lesser scale, particularly on "...And Justice".   2. Melodically I can't really comment, as melody is probably the hardest area of music to prove anything in from a technical point of view, as so much is aesthetic.    I'm only really familiar with Dream Theater's early output - but the melodies on "Images and Words" aren't particularly interesting to me aesthetically and don't really sound so different to "ordinary" heavy metal. They're hardly comparable to the sprawling yet coherent melodies of Peter Gabriel while he was with Genesis.   The comparison to Metallica is fair - Hetfield is not the world's greatest vocalist, although there is surprising depth in his lyrics, particularly on Ride The Lightning, Master of Puppets and Justice.   However, this comparison doesn't establish the Prog credentials of Dream Theater as Prog from a vocal point of view - I've yet to hear anything beyond a somewhat second-rate Ronnie James Dio impersonation (IMO), and certainly nothing along the lines of "On Reflection" by Gentle Giant, "The Prophet's Song" by Queen or "Harold The Barrel" by Genesis. 3) Harmonically, Metallica were already breaking away from the minor pentatonic - even though Kirk does use it a lot in his solos, there are diatonic and modal tendencies - indeed, the harmonic minor scale is one of the most metal scales in existence, and the Phrygian mode is common in metal, as it gives that kind of "Eastern" sound - right back to Deep Purple. Michael Schenker (among others) was mixing pentatonic and diatonic back in the 1970s. This is all part of metal's evolutionary processes as a genre, and nothing to do with "Prog" per se.   The "power chord syndrome" was broken by Hendrix, and many, many metal bands based stuff on Hendrix - and suspended chords have been around in rock for ever - Radiohead used them on OK Computer, Barclay James Harvest used them - even Joni Mitchell used them.     The point really is that none of the rhythmic/harmonic/melodic exploration stops their music from sounding like Heavy Metal - which is what it is.   Compare with Gentle Giant, Genesis et al, where you get many, many moments in which you don't even think that you're listening to a Rock band - the music is too far beyond Rock.   Fieldofsorrow wrote: Structurally, I believe that Metallica probably had the edge - their song form possessed that spontaneous feel we were recently discussing in your blog. (I find them progressive, regardless of this.) But in multiple respects, Dream Theater, whether you find them to be progressive or not, differed from Metallica, and in many cases their differences achieved a more sophisticated compositional approach.   The phrase "compositional approach" is the weasel term here - you presumably mean the techniques employed during composition, not the approach to the actual composition, which is where the Metallica structures came from.   This is a key difference between "technical" and "progressive" to my mind - it is certainly something that separates the two, despite the common ground, and is why I think that Metallica had the more sophisticated compositional approach, despite lacking the musical education of Dream Theater.   Think about it - Miles Davis had a sophisticated compositional approach too, but he didn't attend university to the best of my knowledge. I await correction   As I drunkenly ranted in my blog last night - the music should all be mixed up to the point that you are no longer aware of listening to the "super-genre".   As they say in the biz, it's all in the mix.

Remember though, whilst the attributes I mentioned do not inherently make progressive music, I was only trying to articulate that Dream Theater were tackling waters that Metallica had not, in response to a previous comment you made. Their progressiveness is another matter, which I'd be happy to address as well, but for now I'm just challenging the idea that the band lived in Metallica's shadow.

Also, I don't think that unusual time signatures are much of a feature of technical metal, and they're certainly not mentioned in any online definition I can find. A band like Cannibal Corpse for instance generally just play in 4/4, and the challenge of the music lies in the furiously fast, angular riffs, rather than anything rhythmically strange, as far as I can see. Besides, playing in odd time isn't such a question of 'technique' so much as just a good 'feel', and an ability to coordinate irregular patterns smoothly - a game I think DT play very well.

Again, melodically Dream Theater weren't ever wild, no. But James LaBrie certainly made use of his four octave range, and the difference in vocals (preferences aside) is fairly evident, I think. Still, there's nothing inherently progressive about this, but this was a different approach from Metallica.

And sure, many interesting chords had been used previously in metal - but when directly comparing them with Metallica, you can tell that Dream Theater employed much more involved harmonies, generally speaking. Hammet's playing, whilst sometimes modal, steered well away from the diminished and augmented lines that can be heard on DT's works, and Petrucci used extensive chromatic soloing, rather than the chromatic thrash riffing that was popular in both Metallica and Megadeth's work.

All I'm stressing here is that Dream Theater had different things to offer. I'll happily make a case for their progressiveness, but I was merely focusing on a particular point that you made, rather than discussing their credentials as a progressive band, in this instance.

Certif1ed wrote: Definitely not.   Two words.   Fanny Adams   Doesn't follow Purple, it predicts Judas Priest.   If it follows anyone, there's a heavy Queen influence in there - granted, Purple are in the mix too, but so are a whole load of other things (yes, and embarrassing and obvious thefts from Eddie Cochran, Chubby Checker and Free).   But "Set Me Free" and "Sweet F.A." are heavy metal, albeit rather "experimental" in places. "Into The Night" isn't too far off the mark, and neither are the singles (which don't appear on the albums); Ballroom Blitz, Hellraiser and Action.   I'll have to revisit "Desolation Boulevard" (always a pleasure, but not as much as Fanny Adams), as I haven't noticed a strong Purple connection - I don't know the album "Come Taste The Band", which might explain things.     Secondly, it's not hard at all to hear Quiet Riot, and a host of guitar solo experiments which Randy Rhoades among MANY others incorporated into their soloing - possibly nicked from Blackmore, but hard to say - certainly Blackmore's style isn't overtly copied. Motley Crue and all the other "Hair Metal" bands are more than hinted at.   Apologies to purists, but "Hair Metal" is a branch of Heavy Metal. The clue is in the name     If you want to go further into the wonderful and colourful history of Heavy Metal (any colour as long as it's BLACK!!!), there's an old thread of mine over on Music Banter that's overdue a revival; http://www.musicbanter.com/rock-metal/44034-history-heavy-metal-thread.html   Loads of YouTubes to get you banging your head like a mofo... now what did I do with that devil's horn emoticon...

I think your timeline is going a bit skewed - Sweet FA was 1973 - Purple had already release In Rock, Machine Head, Fireball and Who Do We Think We Are by then, Budgie were on their 3rd studio album, Zepp had entered the House Of The Holy, Naz had just hit the big time with Razamanaz. It could be argued that any one of those albums (but more the DP songs like Highway Star, Space Truckin', Super Trouper, etc) can be heard in the self-penned songs on S-F.A. [I'm ignoring all the Chinn/Chap songs and the various covers they did since they don't really reflect what The Sweet were about]. Where they differ is that Sweet didn't have Jon Lord so they are essentially a power-trio and the riffs are more dominant (something that was common in Glam Rock anyway).

I'm suprised about two things - the respect that some seem to have for Metallica where many seem to see them as the founders almost of Progmetal. The other thing is the lack of support that I get in my own theory that Deep Purple played a much greater role in Dream Theater influence than Metallica ever did.

The main problem here is... that we could say that every band differs from the others, and we could even assign an own genre for each band. Maybe every genre is a mix of other genres, and that's another main problem here. You can hear so many genres in one genre, and so many bands in one band, but they're rarely "identical".

That first chapter was linked to this:

Certif1ed wrote: Ironically, through this reply, you've affirmed the very statement you were disagreeing with!   You're talking about various "genres" of metal - of which every single one is merely a sub-type of Heavy Metal, and the reason so many of these "sub-genres" exist is due to the popularity of heavy metal.   Compare now with 10 years ago, then go back another 10, and another 10 and so on - see how exponentially it's grown? There's always been some crossover between heavy metal and heavy rock, after all, heavy rock is where metal emerged from - but the general differences are quite plain. The easiest to hear is tone (quantities of distortion, as a rough guide), followed by rhythm (rock tends to have more "swing"), then harmony (rock hangs onto the minor pentatonic without shame, and shies away from tritones).

I agree you, but... you see, for example black metal and doom metal are heavy metal though they're quite different (though, sometimes they can be very similar... so maybe that was a bad example?). There's also fusion genres like deathgrind etc., but anyway, if you say for example that Black Sabbath and Burzum (maybe not a good example) are both heavy metal, there's no use for that term. Totally it's useless, unless you say for example that heavy metal = metal, and separate classic death metal and for example traditional doom metal (from atmospheric melancholic alternative pop metal, doom/gothic metal etc., like let's say Anathema). And in some places on Wikipedia, genres emerged from some genre are only subgenres, not "emerged genres", but anyway there's origin genres.. that can't always be considered as main genres. For example, black metal is also hard/heavy rock. It's logical, but in many ways it's useless. The more there's genres, the better :P

@ progressive

All of the above arises only from people's need to classify music simply based on what it sounds like...in itself a flawed idea, at least imo.  Music should be classified based on the approach, otherwise we could never tell whether something played on piano is jazz or classical, right?  Because it would sound the same, broadly speaking, it's the underlying construct that would be different.  To answer your question about Black Sabbath and Burzum, aren't King Crimson and Genesis both indubitably prog?  I think that's quite enough.  Add Necrominocon, Hatfield and the North, Jethro Tull, Magma, Hawkwind...I could go on.  I don't think it's such a bad idea at all to call both Sabbath and Burzum heavy metal...ok, metal, if you like but we could stop right there.  The surfeit of genres in metal has only led to bands becoming more and more one dimensional...as in death metal is supposed to sound like this, so every band strives to achieve that sound and so on...why not just play metal and keep your options a little more open?  Metal is distorted riff-based music in a nutshell and black metal and traditional metal would both easily be covered under the umbrella term.  Yes, there are points of distinction and exception to be made, but this does not warrant classifying each and everything.  Might as well classify each band as a separate genre.  

Likewise,  prog is not meant to be identified by transparently obvious elements.  It is only an approach to developing music.  Please refer Keith Emerson's definition of prog...it has been mentioned in a few different places in the forum, so you should have no trouble locating it.  Prog is all about taking an idea and exploring it inside out...in the process of doing so, something new may emerge but this is not a necessary condition nor does all new music get called prog, which is what you seem to suggest.  This is a definition which can be seen to be applicable to a broad variety of bands in the classic scene, which was when prog emerged, so I for one don't see any reason why it should be bent to accommodate bands that get called prog these days. 

By the way, why exactly is music best when it is in one genre?  Care to elaborate?  I find that some of my most favourite artists or bands were the ones who were prepared to break new ground...which is often achieving by fusing genres or simply by incorporating influences from different genres to make something wholly different in turn and new.  That it can often turn out clumsy results doesn't mean it is in itself a bad idea.  Unless you think Beatles made bad music.

So... is Dream theater already a Prog Legend? I don't know but that was this thread point right...?