Scenes From a Memory vs. The Astonishing

[ytsejam58]

Is this a fair assessment?... if you look at The Astonishing as a separate entity all together and as a shining musical rather than a proper album than I guess there's really no comparison. But I really want to treat The Astonishing as an album and compare it Dream Theater's work in the past.

Shall we? And feel free to be brutal with me in the comments because I know this is an unpopular opinion but I just can't get over how distressed this album makes me.

1. The Format/length

Scenes from a Memory feels like one big song with each song fading in and out of each other in a 77 Minute CD long feast of Prog.

The Astonishing is 132 Minutes, 80 of which take up the whole first CD while the rest of the 50 is left to the second CD. Now let me ask you, is this fair to the story? The decided break in the story between act I and act II happens because... they ran out of length on the first CD? No. If it were truly fair, the album would have been split 65 to 65 or even 70 60 for that matter but this 80 50 thing makes Act I feel too long and Act II feel too short. And not to mention that more than not, each song ends and fades out like a separate track, making the album feel less like 2 CD length songs but rather multiple songs that just so happen to share a poorly baked story.

2. The Story/Lyrics
Scenes from a memory tells a story of about 2 core character; Nicholas, Victoria, with a few minor characters; The Miracle, The Sleeper, The Therapist, and the old guy he went to see. It's the story of a man in present (1999) days who feels a deep connection to his past life in 1928 and seeks out a hypnotherapist to help him divulge the meaning of his dreams. The story isn't explicitly told through the lyrics, it takes a lot of re-reading and analysis and thought. Even after reading the booklet, I still went on to forums to find out just what the heck is going on in the story. This... is a GOOD thing! There needs to be some mystery. That's what keeps the listener engaged in the story and the lyrics and the music. They keep coming back because they keep noticing new details that unlock more of the mystery. And the settings and the characters feel like something that actually Could happen with a little bit of fairy tale thrown in. And it's original! No other movie or album has the same kind of story that i've seen from Scenes From a Memory (or if you can think of a comparison, let me know in the comments)

The Astonishing's story: The story has 8 main characters that they keep flipping back and forth to in a Game of Thrones like fashion, sometimes in the same song. It's a story of a dystopian future where any form of music is presented by these drones that look like it came from Oblivion fly around and create these noises disguised as music. There is a guy who is the brother of the rebellion force against the evil empire kind of like Star Wars, who finds a guitar and plays this beautiful new melody that captivates everyone, like 2112, but the nefarious emperor Nafaryus is not too happy about it!.. like 2112...... Do you see where I'm going with this?!! I didn't even get to the totally bull crap romance between Faythe (horrible name in the world of lyrics. Are we talking about Faythe or faith??) and Gabriel. (in the world of on-the-nose futuristic names that is the most normal guy name ever!)
The lyrics in The Astonishing spell out everything for the listener. It no longer engages them. The album is saying "This is what happens. Take it or Leave it." There is no discovery. No endless hours browsing forums to learn the true meaning. It's all just right there. And they are so on the nose and sloppily written that even some of the better songs get ruined because of lyrics. "Her true identity will be revealed when she sheds her disguise." Like... anything else will happen when she sheds her disguise. "She will bring out a basket of baked muffins when she sheds her disguise."  It's redundant and lazy! they spent 3 years writing the lyrics to this album and this is the best they could come up with? They... this is all John Petrucci. This is the best John could come up with?!
In Scenes from a Memory, every titled track had a specific feel and a specific purpose (except maybe Dance of Eternity.. that's just a prog fest) Each one had a focus and when they went to a new track, the mood and focus shifted too. There were many tracks on the Astonishing that shifted moods and focuses WAY too often and it felt like not a single track was coherent on it's own. But the way the songs end and fade out it sounds like it should.... It's contradicting itself! Is this one big long song or is it not?! Come on!

3. The Music

Look... I can say that The Astonishing has too many ballads and is too slow but that's just personal taste. I don't like ballady songs. I feel they bog down the whole album so much that I need to delete them to find Any enjoyment out of this. But this is just me. From a critical stand point, my biggest issue is this. And it goes along the whole Mangini vs Portnoy thing.
Portnoy in Scenes from a Memory knew how to work With the song to change his drum pattern and intensity to reflect the build up and release of the song. Take the ending of Finally Free. The drums start off like a normal beat but as the riff continues to climb and evolve, the drumming evolves with it. In the Astonishing, I want to highlight A New Beginning. (A New Beginning and A Life Left Behind are my favorites from the album) A new beginning ends with Petrucci riffing while the rest of the band backs him up. If Portnoy were on drums, the drums would build up along with Petrucci's riffing. But Mangini doesn't do that! Mangini just uses the same stagnant drum beat for the entire minute or so that the riff goes on. I saw Dream Theater live and Mangini is a beast on drums and he could do things no other drummer can... but my goodness. His playing has no soul! He doesn't know how to play With the band. Instead, he treats each song and section as a series of numbers and plays to those numbers (IE the 3/8 13/8 stuff) But that's how he plays.
with drums soulless and Myung's bass almost non-existent, this band becomes a trio of Guitar, Keyboard, and Vocals... The band formed from Myung, Petrucci, and Portnoy making the early stages of Dream Theater being more Guitar/Bass/Drum focused. This should be the core of Dream Theater. but they changed. Some people don't mind this change... but I do.

4. Live performance

They performed the entire Scenes from a Memory album live in "Live Scenes from New York" And it felt different enough that it remained interesting but was also a very solid together performance of the album as a whole. It's those small little (Oh they did this differently or they changed a sound effect) that really make live performances worth going to. Even in Live at Bodukan, they added a whole Portnoy/Rudess back and forth improv section in the middle of Beyond This Life. THAT is the live stuff I was hoping to see. Those special once in a life time moments that happen when 4 amazing musicians are on stage together.
I went to the Astonishing show... It felt like 5 guys reading from a script. There were no deviations whatsoever or breathing room for improv. The only word I can think of is soulless. Even during A New Beginning, I hoped Mangini would take this time to do the drum build up thing that I was talking about but he didn't! The same stupid stagnant beat that was on the album. Not to mention that the mixing was WAY too loud for those tiny Theatre speakers. For a band called Dream Theater they were not meant to play in one.

5. The production

Scenes from a Memory sounds perfect. They didn't overdue the sound effects but when they were needed they really enhanced the story.
The Astonishing has so many issues. The beginning of Brother Can You Hear Me I guess is supposed to sound like soldiers sparring or something. It doesn't sound like that at all! It sounds like people banging soup cans together. And the trumpets in A Savior in the Square are so off key it hurts! In A Tempting Offer, the ending lyric "Take an Evening to Dec---Ide"   What the heck happened there? And this is just on the first CD!

Look... I can go on but these are the main reasons why I HATE the Astonishing and why I think it not only fails in comparison to Dream Theater's previous works but as an album on it's own...
You can argue with me... You can call this a masterpiece. You can tolerate the ballads and enjoy the Game of Thrones/2112/Star Wars stir fry of a story... But this is just too flawed for me to really appreciate it. I'd rather listen to literally anything else than this album AS A WHOLE ever again!

[Darkstarshades]

Chaossystem, is that you?

[ytsejam58]

No?   I'm known as Ytsejam58 on almost everything I do online.

[Mindflux]

No?   I'm known as Ytsejam58 on almost everything I do online.

Nice try Chaossystem!

[ytsejam58]

...Anyway

[CDrice]

Chaossystem, is that you?

Nice try Chaossystem!

But there's no ALL CAPS words ANYWHERE.

As for the subject of this thread, one of the thing that I feel The Astonishing did better than Scenes was giving the feeling it is something special. To me, no matter how good it is, Scenes from A Memory feels just like a regular album. It just happens that the lyrics are telling a story. The Astonishing feels a bit more, I don't know, ''magical'' or something. It's kind of hard to explain.  The album do have some things that some could considered flaws by some, but I'm not particularly picky so they don't bother me all that much.

All of that to say that I really enjoy both albums 

[Peace and Love]

OP: I think your post is definitely reasonable and worthy of a decent discussion, instead of simply calling you a troll and pushing you out.

However, I largely disagree with your main points.

Yes, the lyrics are not that great, and often state the obvious - but that is just how Dream Theater have always been.
Yes, the division between Acts 1 and 2 could have been a bit better - but given how monumentally ambitious a project this was, I think they did a very creditable job.
Yes, the story is a bit What Would Rush Do? - but then again, Dream Theater have almost made a career doing that.
I disagree about the production - I think it's quite good.

The one where I agree the most is Mike Mangini's performance. When I saw TA live, I was simply blown away by him. However, on the record it does sound a bit stiff. Sections where he should be pushing the energy, like in A New Beginning, he plays a very staid, stiff, beat. I wish he'd play more like he did in Annihilator or Extreme rather than how he seems to prefer in DT. But his live performance was marvellous, and if DT release a Blu Ray of it, I will be more than satisfied, because I love The Astonishing, flaws and all.

[fischermasamune]

I could write a longer reply, and may do it later.

First, I'd like to mention that they didn't have 3 years to write the lyrics. Also, Gabriel doesn't find any guitar. Also, the simplicity of the drums in A New Beginning is on intentional and fits the song. Also, for you, the change of mood in SFAM songs is good for SFAM, but in TA songs is bad for TA. There's a lot of sugarcoating overall of the past (you didn't mention the minute of moaning in Home for example).

And I don't even know how to respond to "Mangini has no soul".

[metrojam]

Simple answer to the OP's question. One was a masterpiece the other is a million miles away from being so.

[ytsejam58]

I said Mangini's playing has no soul. It's very mechanical and by the numbers. Mangini himself is a very likable guy! His chemistry with the reminds me of how Geddy Lee and Alex Lifeson interact with each other.

[Orbert]

What is Scenes of a Memory?

[ytsejam58]

edited

[ytsejam58]

Crap... wish I can delete. or something. Just noticed it said Of instead of From... but still. We all know what I mean

[Darkstarshades]

Back on thread.
The ending to Finally Free and the ending to ANB couldn't bee the same style simply because they don't serve the same purpose.
I really don't imagine what would have MP done differently, except being more extravagant and adding a lot of fills.

[JediKnight1969]

The astonishing is a great work. A huge achievement.

Scenes from a memory is one of the greatest albums of all time. An absolute masterpiece.

[Orbert]

Crap... wish I can delete. or something. Just noticed it said Of instead of From... but still. We all know what I mean

True, but as the resident pedant, it's part of my sacred duty to give people shit if they can't even get an album title correct.

[Outcrier]

Simple answer to the OP's question. One was a masterpiece the other is a million miles away from being so.

[CDrice]

Simple answer to the OP's question. One was a masterpiece the other is a million miles away from being so.

Come on. Scenes from a Memory is not that bad

[Darkstarshades]

Simple answer to the OP's question. One was a masterpiece the other is a million miles away from being so.

Come on. Scenes from a Memory is not that bad

It is.
That line-up clearly had no idea of what they were doing, fortunately, they got better with subsequent albums.

[bosk1]

So...you don't like the Astonishing? 

Fair comparison, though.  Interestingly, I don't think anyone has really done a DETAILED comparison between the two albums and what they like and dislike about them side by side like you did.  I disagree with a lot of your points, but cool topic anyway.  For me, I'll just say that I REALLY like the Astonishing.  A lot.  I think it will eventually sit somewhere in the middle of the band's discog. for me.  SFAM, on the other hand, is #2 (behind Six Degrees).  So I agree with you in terms of ranking SFAM higher.  But I wouldn't say there is a LOT of separation between the two for me.

[Progmetty]

Ehhh SFAM is better but I mean, it's SFAM. The Astonishing is a great effort and certainly enjoyable but it lacked the intrigue that SFAM had and it also lacked the satisfying conclusion to the story. The Astonishing is a great ride that ends abruptly, to me, even though it's longer than SFAM. I feel like there were so much wasted opportunities with The Astonishing and things I would have done differently, I never felt that way about SFAM.

[Mosh]

Honestly, the comparison ends at them being concept albums. The Astonishing is better at really driving the story, but the music on SFAM is better.

[arkdtmp]

Honestly, the comparison ends at them being concept albums. The Astonishing is better at really driving the story, but the music on SFAM is  WAY better.

[Darkstarshades]

Well... SFAM was almost fully written before they even started doing lyrics, so naturally the music is a greater display of skill, since that was their focus.

However, please face it, neither SFAM nor TA stories are really original, and in any case, TA is more original and worked.

[arkdtmp]

Totally. Though I don't really care for the stories as much, personally. I LOVE the 'nuggets' or whatever in Octavarium, and the closing album-starting album cycle and stuff like that though.

[Cyclopssss]

I agree with almost all. The 'flaw'  with TA for me is, that Act I is Wayyyyyy overlong. There are about three false endings tacked on, just too much. While the performance of the music is flawless, it does lack 'something'  in the emotional spectrum. But I do enjoy both a lot and I'm thankful I took the opportunity of seeing TA being performed live. Something I couldn't do with SFAM.

[ytsejam58]

I've thought very long and hard about why this album didn't do anything for me. Dream Theater has been my obsession since 2009 when I discovered them. Every album had something different and interesting to offer. I was okay with A Dramatic Turn of Events (Kind of twist of irony since the day I bought it I also witness a stunt plane crash -.-)  and I loved Dream Theater. I feel like The Looking Glass and The Bigger Picture are some of their most solid work while Illumination Theory ranks on my top Epics along with Breaking All Illusions, Count of Tuscany, Octavarium,   I would list Six Degrees but I just think that is on a whole new level. But yeah. I am comfortable with the new line up and the new albums. But for some reason, The Astonishing just irked me in all the wrong places, and I wanted to find out why.
This isn't simply just "Oh the Astonishing sucks, don't listen. blehhh" I feel I put in enough though and time to make a comprehensive list of why I (emphasis on I) thought that The Astonishing didn't work in comparison to other albums as well as an album by itsself. I was hoping someone would agree with me and be like "Finally someone said it" or at least give some reasonable arguments. And I have seen some reasonable arguments in the threads so Thank you for that! I was expecting a lot of hate for this but I just can't get this out of my head. Everytime I see something new about The Astonishing come up on the DT facebook, it brings back those feelings of anger towards it.
In my review, I said I will never listen to this album as a whole again. That's true. But with careful consideration, I narrowed down 12 of the 34 tracks that I found to be enjoyable to me. And from now on. That version of Astonishing stands proudly on my DT lineup because honestly those songs are amazing! It's just the other 22 songs I had to wade through to get to those awesome songs that was hindering the whole experience for me.
I feel like A Life Left Behind and a New Beginning are very strong Dream Theater songs while the Path That Divides, A Walking Shadow, and My Last Farewell are excellent story driven power house songs. I wish I heard more of those songs on the album. And for some reason, Out New World serves as a better album ender to me than The Astonishing did.
I'm just tired of Music Critics comparing This to something like Taylor Swift's 1989 saying "In a world of 3 minute long pop singles, it's nice to have an album length story"  Album length prog concepts still exist in the 2010's they just aren't looking in the right place. Everything I said for Scenes From A Memory apply to Transatlantic The Whirlwind (2010) And Rush's Clockwork Angels is only 4 years old (Jeese, I remember when that was new.) And I feel both are much superior more enjoyable albums to The Astonishing (As a whole) is.

[bosk1]

I was expecting a lot of hate for this...

  Why?  If you spent much time perusing other threads, I would think it would be fairly apparent that most people here don't just "hate" on arguments they disagree with.  That isn't how we do things here.  Now if someone comes on and just rudely bashes something without any tact or throws something out there without any explanation, they may get a hard time for it.  But you tactfully put forth arguments and comparisons.  Anyone throwing around "hate" for something like that would get into trouble for doing so.

[Bill]

The Astonishing was the first DT music I ever heard, and it completely blew me away, which in turn means it will always be so special to me. SFAM is great but for me there are areas where it dips, whereas TA is brilliant throughout.

Music has such emotional ties, it is not just about 'the music'. Misplaced Childhood by Marillion had a huge effect on me when it was released, mainly because of what I was going through at the time, and no matter what they did after that, nothing would top MC for me, it's part of my life.

[ytsejam58]

I guess I was expecting hate because I know so many cherish this album and hold it very highly whereas I just don't see it.

I do understand the whole "This album was important to me because of the time I was listening to it" Thing. That's why Metallica's St. Anger has a very special place in my heart. I was 14 and new to the whole Metal scene. I wanted to get into everything Metallica had to offer but St. Anger was the only album with an Explicit label on it. Being 14 and still under my dad's influence, he would not let me get anything Explicit. I had to fight to get that album and it felt like such a triumph when I finally got my hands on this "forbidden" music. I can see how St. Anger let down hardcore Metallica fans who were wanting more Master of Puppets sounding material or newer fans who wanted another Load, but St. Anger was neither. It very experimental and seemed like a very awkward time. James was dealing with Alcoholism and Jason Newsted left to form Echobrain. They thought Metallica was done. But anyway. A lot of people hated the change and just the over all production quality of the album. But I didn't care because of what it meant to me.

Now, with Dream Theater. I loved the self titled album actually. I think it's their best work since Octavarium where the band finally felt like a band again making great singles like The Looking Glass as well as an epic The Illumination Theory. It also helped that this came out around the time Vapor Trails (Remixed) came out which was my favorite Rush album for the reason above. The production quality suffered due to the loudness war and to have it re-released in stunning quality was a dream come true for me.
I think the first teaser for The Astonishing came out around October of 2015. What? I have to choose between the empire and the rebellion? How very Star Wars of Dream Theater. But I love Star Wars so I was excited. This felt like some sort of Five Nighs At Freddy's scheme with teaser images coming out every month or so until its release. Finally the track listing came out and... wait, 34 songs? It was almost guaranteed that no song was going to exceed 8 minutes. (I was right) But one of my favorite things about Dream Theater were the 10+ minute epics. Okay... whatever, I can live with this. I'm still excited. Finally! it's February of 2016. I was eagerly waiting outside the FYE for it to open, expecting to be listening to the epic to break all epics as it was built up to be. I get it, listen to it. And about 9 tracks in, I just get super bored. A couple of tracks in, okay it's still not going anywhere. I'm halfway through the album and it dawns on me that this isn't the epic I was looking for. I spent the last year or so exploring Transatlantic, Flying Colors, Neal Morse's stuff, Yes, and other Great Prog epics and, to me, this just felt WAY short. It was so built up, so hyped. It was called The Astonishing... and it was everything but that. I listened to it, and relistened to it. Act of Faythe just bores me to tears and that line in Ravenskill "True Identities, blah blah" Has me banging my head against the desk every time it comes up. Act II is a lot better than Act I but again, Act II feels too short while Act I feels too long. So many things should have gone differently, I don't understand why Petrucci didn't see this before declaring the album finished. They should have spent some extra time and REALLY look at the album critically. It could have been better.

So I guess a lot of it depends on the who and the when and the how. But I felt like critics on Rolling Stone or whatever weren't reviewing this album right. It's been prying on my mind ever since until I could coherently express what was going on inside my mind. And I think this review finally did it.

[Kotowboy]

I hate this bizarre binary behaviour whereby you can only like one thing and the other thing is SHIT.

[Polarbear]

I hate this bizarre binary behaviour whereby you can only like one thing and the other thing is SHIT.

This..

Obviously i like Scenes a lot more, but i don't hate The Astonishing.

By far the biggest problem with the Astonishing is, as i've said before, that it would have worked much better as a single album. There should have been an editor with this project, who would have hopefully cut out half of the songs.

[Darkstarshades]

I hate this bizarre binary behaviour whereby you can only like one thing and the other thing is SHIT.

This..

Obviously i like Scenes a lot more, but i don't hate The Astonishing.

By far the biggest problem with the Astonishing is, as i've said before, that it would have worked much better as a single album. There should have been an editor with this project, who would have hopefully cut out half of the songs.

Sorry, but this idea sucks.
It isn't about how much the album runs, but about how it flows.
No use in removing songs, and honestly the issue some people have is Act I and Act II being so uneven in lenght.

[SebastianPratesi]

I've read everything here. Ytsejam58: like Bosk said, your post is an interesting reading. I agree with you on a few of your opinions, but I disagree on a few others.

For instance, Scenes From A Memory isn't technically 1 song, but 2; remember, that album was also divided into 2 acts. And, like The Astonishing, they are not evenly divided as well. (But yeah, the album was also called Metropolis, pt. 2, so I can see your point.)

Yes, to have similar lengths, John could have decided to put "A New Beginning" and "The Road To Revolution" on the second CD; actually, storywise, that would have made sense (Act I would have ended on the night of Day 2). Plus, it would have allowed for the Richard Chyki intro as Nafaryus to be included as the intro to the album (which is what they originally intended anyway).

That said, I guess they probably wrote and structured everything storywise (where each Act should begin and end), and then realised they had a length issue on the first Act, and that's why they cut/shortened some stuff. Plus, The Astonishing was basically conceived as the soundtrack to a live show, so that might have had to do with the lengths of the CDs as well.

About the story - yes, I also think that the one in SFaM is far more engaging.

And it's original! No other movie or album has the same kind of story that i've seen from Scenes From a Memory (or if you can think of a comparison, let me know in the comments)

Obviously it's not the exact same thing, but there's this British TV show called Black Mirror, of which every episode takes place in a different place/time, has different characters, etc. Some episodes remind me of the kind of story of SFaM - particularly "White Bear" (from season 2) and "White Christmas" (a 75 min. special). If you are not familiar with the show, I strongly recommend you give it a chance. They trigger similar emotions, I think.

With regards to the music on the albums: you should not forget that music is a central part of the story on the new album. We should give credit to the guys for including so many genres/styles/'nuggets' on The Astonishing. Tango, swing, gospel, the bagpipes on "The X Aspect", the mandolin on "Hymn Of A Thousand Voices", the Disney-like ending on "Begin Again", etc. (¿dubstep on "The Hovering Sojourn"? ) Just when most of us thought they were going to repeat the prog-metal formula to death (I remember reading some of the discussions here a couple of years ago), they came up with this extended piece of work with all those little references to different music.

There you go, a couple of my cents.

[Zantera]

One is really good and one is really mediocre