Dream Theater

Everyone who does not like DT will die in a fire after they already died from natural causes.

Catcher10 wrote: I think he is an accomplished drummer and writer........Nobody says you have to 100% like what he does, I certainly do not. But the majority of the body of work he has done is excellent IMO. We talk about influence and all that on this site like its the #1 quality of a band...well other than Neil Peart, I don't know of any other drummer in the last 20yrs that has influenced more "new" drummers than Mike Portnoy....I fail to see how that could be if he is so horrible.   I don't really care much to know about his personal life, unless he wants us to know about it in a book or bio DVD...so most of what I hear I take with a small grain of salt.   We buy music albums and discuss that stuff.....I don't think his comments to people mean much, heck 90% of all musicians are drug addicts, alcoholics, womanizers and suffer from severe marital infidelity while touring....but we don't trash them for that do we.   But I guess if you are OK with an artist being a known alcoholic, drug addict, womanizer and cheater...then I can see how Mike Portnoy telling some kids his personal opinons on other music might bother you...really??

Edited by JS19 - March 02 2011 at 04:09

New favorite DT tune: "Blind Faith" My goodness, that is a killer tune.

Still no announcement on who's filling the drummer's seat?

E

Mangini I guess. It seems Labrie runs the show now. 

rogerthat wrote: JS19 wrote: Referring back to my original post, now I've given it a bit more thought, I think that what makes DT popular, is their quirkiness in the mainstream metal scene (Also known as their prog side). Their most highly rated albums: Six Degrees, Scenes From A Memory, Images and Words. The proggiest things they ever did. And their worst? (Not counting Falling Into Infinity and When Dream And Day Unite) Systematic Choas, the most straightforward metal thing they did. Octavarium, only worth it for the title track, which sees them in full out Prog mode, while the other tracks are rather throwaway. Black clouds and silver lining turned up the metal and the prog, and the worst parts about it? The terrible lyrics (metal), the odd grunts from Portnoy (metal) and 'A Rite Of Passage' (metal).  I see a pattern forming! I think if they keep the prog, they may stay afloat without Portnoy, ditch it completely and they'll sink without a trace. PS. Yes we all know Portnoy is a complete A-hole, but he's a damn good drummer, I fail to see how the two are connected? But, commercially, Black Clouds was a rebound.  As with SX, metal and prog crowd have divergent views on which are the better DT albums.  The metal crowd likes the more metal side of both bands and since metal fills the arenas to this day, I guess metal will win the day.   Then again, Petrucci loves fusion so he might want to ease up on the metal and lean more towards fusion and since he is likely to be the chief songwriter in the absence of Portnoy, he might exert a lot of influence over the rest of the band.

Alright, so what's been annoying the crap out of me lately is I've seen a lot of people, including here at progarchives, hate on Dream Theater for being "emotionless" or "sterile."  That really gets to me.  I don't understand music at all, so I don't appreciate pointless w**kery, yet somehow I love a good deal of Dream Theater's output.

Hanyou wrote: Have these people just not heard Dream Theater's music?  I know appreciation of music can be subjective, but it just seems incredibly strange that the band that put out songs like "Finally Free" or "Sacrificed Sons" would have that criticism leveled against it.  What songs are these people listening to?

I don't even remember much about Sacrificed Sons but Finally Free is like an 80s cliches epic.  I don't like that kind of cliched pop/rock expression - and I don't mean just LaBrie but the whole band here - and I don't discriminate there, I dislike it in whatever band I find it. Ayreon is another.  Because DT is a big band, they get picked on more, it's natural. Focus also made Anonymous and yet it's ELP who always get picked on for criticism. You are free to like songs like Finally Free, but I'd not be surprised that people whose appetite has earlier been whetted by Firth...or Fallen Angel would call it soulless.  Hardly any music is OBJECTIVELY soulless, so that's not what they are saying anyway, they just mean it's not soulful enough for their liking.   As for sterile, compare DT's covers of Hallowed Be Thy Name or Love Lies Bleeding with performances by the original artists.  Do you really not hear the flatness and obtrusive loudness in DT's delivery and specifically Portnoy?  I do and so, again relatively speaking, find their approach a little sterile.   And I only mentioned covers to make a comparison, their approach is not very different even when they play their original songs. 


Edited by rogerthat - March 06 2011 at 20:04

For anyone needing to remember why Dream Theater is the best, here you go.