Unbelievable. Come back St Anger, all is forgiven.

 

 

 

 

How to make friends and influence people 

 

Didn't really hear a "bad" album this year. The least good have been Atrium's 2011 and Arnioe's Ate My Words.

 

Yes, a little bit of common sense would teach you to ignore figures of speech.

TH IS!

 

I like pretty much everything that has been issued in 2011......but I am sure I have not heard all of it

 

And yes this thread will only lead to bad bathroom humor

Same.  Sorry the new album is bad, but you should have stopped paying attention to this band 20 years ago.

Here's a list I found:

I didn't either. How could I miss that?

But that's me. I could at least find bits and pieces off of Octavarium or Systematic that I somewhat enjoyed, but these past two left me aggravated, with a blinding headache. I was bored beyond reason, and It nearly gave me a panic attack forcing myself to listen to the whole thing through. 

But in none of this do I ever ever EVER say they are bad albums. Here: Dream Theater sucks and A Dramatic Turn of Events is one of the worst albums I've ever heard. NOW you can accuse me of being an ignorant, mentally-deficient, inconsequential child with no wisdom or common sense.

 

Snow Dog - Errors & Omissions Team......I think that's how

 

I like Six Degrees Of Inner Turbulance but since then I've completely lost interest and didn't bother with their latest release so I've no idea whether its 'vomit inducing' and will probbaly never find out.

 

You said in your later post that you didn't say that the album is bad - don't quite know what the above sentance means then and by your own admission in your later post I don't know what you are actually saying there.

 

A bad album - to me - is one where the mix is all wrong, one that was badly recorded, one where the musicians have little clue what they are trying to achieve, etc etc.

The thing that worries me is that should a prog newbie visit us here and see an album unfairly slated by a respected member of our group  - which you are Alitare - then that newbie could, in the short term, be denied the pleasure that he may derive from what is in fact a very very good album by taking what we say into account. Sure most of us don't like or positively abhor some or other band here that is adored by others and we are obviously welcome to state our opinions but then those opinions must be known to be opinions and not factual statements.

 

We seem to enjoy a lot of similar music Alitare and other than the above thing - your opinions are valued by me truth be told.

 

Most disappointing to me so far has been the new Queensryche although I do understand what they were trying to achieve.

 

and as for Metallica with Lou Reed - dunno that I'm even going to try that one on

That's why I hate Dream Theater. You'd never find a song like "Pull Me Under" or "Space-Dye Vest" on a new DT album. It's just endless streams of faceless riffs and complex, derivative jam sessions. As long as the make their music hard to play, and Petrucci lets loose with some blindingly fast solo to impress all the teen potheads, they don't give a damn. Maybe it's because my heart demands an acute sense of melody. Maybe it's because I've been burned out on complex music for the sake of complexity. How many awkward time signatures can a man withstand before he says 'screw this, I wanna weep in the corner.' 

That's why I listen to music, to have my heart blown to bits, to be reduced to a crippled, tear-soaked shell in the corner. I want music so inarguably beautiful, so insurmountably universal, so sincere and honest and life-affirming and despairing and scathing and horrifying and psychologically brutal and emotionally resonant that my heart has no choice but to crack and force me to a trembling shamble. Other things, like punchy, memorable, concise, and to-the-point grit metal that doesn't recycle riffs or moods, that's fine too. I really like soulful gospel metal and pop/rock melded with doo-wop (like great post-Beatles Lennon. I love Just Like Starting Over to death). But you tell me - would any new Dream Theater album give me what I'm looking for?

When it comes to metal, I prefer stuff like Savatage, Judas Priest, Queensryche, or Rainbow. When it comes to prog, I prefer stuff like Jethro Tull, Pink Floyd, Comus, (some) King Crimson (basically most of Court and most of Red), and such. 

I like surreal diversity, so I fell in love with maudlin of the Well. Where's the melodic sense, resonant sense, diverse sense, or surreal sense to the new DT album? Isn't just another technical metal album? Geez, it's not like Petrucci's Richard Thompson or anything. Labrie's no Antony Hegarty or Thom Yorke on the clean end. He's no Waits or Dylan on the dirty end. And he's no Halford or Gildenlow or King Diamond or Dio on the powerful end. What's the goddamn point is all I'm asking. Why should I give them the care? Don't tell me an album like Dramatic Turn goes over my head or that I don't 'get it'. That's ridiculous. Were they trying to save their souls with that album, like with Antony's I Am a Bird Now? Were they trying to bare their souls like with Pet Sounds or Soft Bulletin or Perfect Element? Were they trying to show the world the dark side of life like Rain Dogs or Bone Machine or ? No-no-no. They were just trying to look cool without working hard for it. I don't know. I hated it.

I didn't like Harvest or The Hunter, either. Both of them left me terribly cold. I tolerated King of Limbs, and Road Salt Two was meandering. It was inconsequential to me. Every album I've heard this year, from the new Devin Townsend two to Radiohead's new one, left me cold and bored. The only record, and this is because I'm horribly biased, that hit me and forced me to pay attention was Tom Waits' Bad as Me. The fifteen or so records I've heard otherwise didn't do anything for me. Out of all the newer releases, I haven't found an album I really liked since Part the Second, and haven't found an album I love to death since 2004 (the last great year in music for me - Modest Mouse's The Moon and Antarctica, Ayreon's The Human Equation, etc.)

In shorts, I'm too hairy and sometimes my pasty skin seems-

In short, I don't give half a sh*t about anything new coming out except in a couple places (none of which are a formal aspect of prog). No, I haven't heard Fly From Here. I won't for some time. Where are the important, original, heart-wrenching masterpieces? Where's the Abbey Road for 2011? Where's the Mollusk or the Soft Bulletin or The PEt Sounds or the Highway 61 or the Blood on the Tracks or the Small Change or the Dark Side of the Moon or the "Melt" or the Hounds of Love or the Dummy for 2011? Where's the Kid A or OK Computer for 2011? Hell, I'd settle for a comparable Bringing it All Back Home or Sgt. Pepper for 2011. I just don't see it there. I detest Porcupine Tree. Phideaux bores me (except one short instrumental!) Opeth's mood has NEVER changed. Even my favorite bands, like Pain of Salvation and Devin Townsend have faltered in my eyes and fallen into self-caricatures and derivative repetitiveness. 

Okay, so I was really bored and in a rambling mood. I wrote this inbetween a few cups of coffee and an excitedly screaming and jumping 3-year old. Yep, my son turned 3 a week ago. We're trying to download some movies about planets and trains and cowboys and pirates for him. He tried to tell me a knock knock joke:

Him: Knock knock

Me: Who's there?

Him: Nothin'............knock knock

Me: Who's there?

Him: Orange banana

I hate the band 'HIM'. I hate Poisonblack, Turbonegro, 69 Eyes, HIM, Evanescence, and I really dislike Nightwish. What do you call a Christ that whips himself? an 'Autopilate'. 

Henry: That was almost a brilliant review but the final paragraph about Tebow nearly sunk the ship. It had no business being there.

And as for the DT controversy, I was simply taking exception to the remark that you are "moronic" to call ADTOE a poor album, as if it's some kind of moral/intellectual failure and oughtn't be allowed.

Right now on RYM, Lulu is #2 on the worst albums of the year list. Number one is Justin Bieber's remix disc but as that is almost certainly blind hate and not any kind of genuine reaction to the music, Lulu may be the real number one.

 

This is just one of a series of anti-prog moves Pitchfork has made that has made it notorious on PA, but in this case it's funny because it's Dream Theater ;)

You know the bacon ones and the hey momma.

Goob goob guh jews are smelly. Strawberry wedding cake. 

Cake is like cock for the 

Strawberry longco---

Texaco's spilling.

This is your conscience. You can't spell conscience without science (or cocc). Ever heard of a band called the Flaming Groovies? I haven't. I read it on the internet.

Outernot. Do not ah-just your telemarking set. You are being beamed with an L. Frank Beam.

A tattoo of a butt on a butt on my butt. Washing the dog washing the dog!

I really hated Iced Earth.

Hitler sounded pretty ambitious too.

 

Metallica haven't had the wherewithal to execute something ambitious well for a long time now.  S&M was glossy and overblown but at least it was listenable, not least because some of the original compositions had their merits, but Lulu is just

And what I've heard from the album is terrible. 

Can't say the same for the internet Lulu streaming. Can't even break the disc in anger (unless you manually extract the files as .mp3 and burn them to a cd, and then you're just torturing yourself in a roundabout manner).

I hate them so much it makes me pee on my socks. Can't you just feel the importance of this rising up from my pasty white-ass skin, homie?

The Message: We all care, or else we wouldn't be wasting time talking about it.

Not the message: Anything with swear words.

 

If nobody cared, they wouldn't buy flight tickets to travel a thousand miles or so to catch Metallica. They wouldn't scream their throats out the way we did when we saw Iron Maiden for the first time. If I didn't care, I wouldn't have gone into such a wild state of ecstasy after a performance of Beethoven's Ninth as to walk over to a nearby sea facing promenade and embrace the breeze with outstretched arms.  People do care, and some care a lot. If they didn't, artistic engagement loses all meaning and relevance, like this Lulu album. Post modernism is a highly destructive illusion and I wish people would pay no heed to these bookish philosophers and just pursue what they believe in with zest because it's nothing to be ashamed of.

It's pretty mediocre, but it's hardly prog. It's still good pop rock.

One of the more retarded additions.

One of the more retarded posts. Watch it. 

 

Operation Mindcrime is a prog metal classic and is universally recognised as such. To put Metallica and Queensryche on the same page relating to prog, to me, is ludicrous.

I own many Metallica albums but if they were stolen it wouldn't worry me in the least. Having said that Lulu does intrigue me after having listened to some of it .

 

 

This aint a discussion I wanna be having because it doesn't make sense to me  .

 

Basic Metal music has a very simple structure and I seldom listen to it unless the Metal has musical reason behind it - virtuosity, melody, strong structure. 

 

The Quadrophena album by the Who I don't like because it is too poppy for me but I won't argue that there isn't prog there.

Metallica are a heavy basic grunge, thrash band who wrote music that appealed to the masses a while back. I dunno who they appeal to now .  

 

 

 

 

But I agree with Roger. I never found Mindcrime to be particularly "proggy"

 

Note I referred to Basic Metal

Metallica capitalised on bringing thrash metal into the mainstream sure - yes they did. They did nothing, to me, more unique than that - they poppified thrash.

The truth of their prowess is today - that they are almost a 1 or a 2 hit wonder - their creativity was so stunted that they have never been able to equal or get close to 2 or 3 albums that admittedly were good in what they were trying to achieve.

In music I look for melody - definately can't hum a Metallica song. I like for nuances - changing moods, I look for the dramatic. Or I look for virtuosity. I love prog almost purely because prog boasts greater intelligence than mind numbing pop music and I enjoy prog because the instrumentalist actually work on their skill and accordingly for their money. To me there is a vast difference between a Van Gough or a Picasso to a cartoon comic strip relating to art.

DavetheSlave wrote: Metallica capitalised on bringing thrash metal into the mainstream sure - yes they did. They did nothing, to me, more unique than that - they poppified thrash.

Or, rather, they were among the earliest thrash metal bands.  There was Venom in Britain and there was Metallica, Overkill, Exodus in America. Slayer joined the pack a bit later.  They were at the forefront of the scene and they were also the most proactive in overcoming thrash's extreme stylistic limitations, which, of course, gets dubbed popification by metalheads who would sooner roll over than give them some credit.  Beatles they were not but their impact on thrash metal and 80s metal as such was as pervasive as Beatles to rock. But I doubt a reference to Beatles would resonate with someone so hung up on virtuosity as you.

DavetheSlave wrote: The truth of their prowess is today - that they are almost a 1 or a 2 hit wonder - their creativity was so stunted that they have never been able to equal or get close to 2 or 3 albums that admittedly were good in what they were trying to achieve.

And 2-3 great albums is all Dream Theater had too.  For the rest, they have shown very slow growth in their style and have been content to carry on in that way.  Metallica, however, had the gift of writing accessible metal music and traded in their true metal points for commercial success and worldwide fame whereas Dream Theater have only managed several  "really cool" songs since Pull Me Under.

DavetheSlave wrote: In music I look for melody - definately can't hum a Metallica song.

Can't hum a Dream Theater song either, the melodies are usually so cliched.  More interested in when Petrucci has something nice to say on guitar, which used to be quite often in the Images and Words days.

DavetheSlave wrote: I like for nuances - changing moods, I look for the dramatic.

Good luck with that with a singer like LaBrie to murder carefully developed drama and moods.

DavetheSlave wrote:   I love prog almost purely because prog boasts greater intelligence than mind numbing pop music

Except Metallica is not here for the mind numbing pop of Black or Load - and it's not THAT bad - but for the first four albums. 

DavetheSlave wrote:  To me there is a vast difference between a Van Gough or a Picasso to a cartoon comic strip relating to art.

Dream Theater are neither as definitive creatively speaking as Van Gogh or Picasso nor have the commercial smarts of Scott Adams. They are among a breed of musicians who seem to carry the impression that playing technical exercises is somehow highly sophisticated and arcane and pure, artistically, when their aesthetic sense frequently takes them uncomfortably close to MTV (case in point: Another Day).  For all Metallica's flaws, they don't have a ballad that makes me cringe as much as does Another Day. At least, Nothing Else Matters and Unforgiven are just terribly boring and no worse. And for all Petrucci's technical prowess, how many unforgettable riffs has he ever written to match Master of Puppets or Tornado of Souls? And is he as bold in expanding his and listeners' horizons with a flexible approach to music as a Robert Fripp?  Admirable musician, is Petrucci, but neither here nor there really at the end of the day in terms of his output.

Metallica are a garage thrash band at very best. Their ability died when they got rid of or lost Dave Mustaine and his influence over immediate future albums. I can't hum the melody of "the Spirit carries on"  Huh?