Interesting thread. I have a few general thoughts, none of which are a response to any specific post or poster:
- Whether or not an artist changes style over time is not a huge deal to me. I think that overthinking that kind of thing can cause one to miss the forest through the trees, so to speak. What matters is whether a riff makes you want to pick up a guitar, or a chorus makes you want to go sing karaoke.
- On the other hand, I also understand that the law of diminishing returns applies to music, and that if you're listening to a band all the time, and then they release an album that's more of the same, that album's impact could be reduced by the familiarity of it all. The solution there, at least in my experience, is to simply not overplay bands too much. Leading up to new albums from artists I like, I'll make a conscious effort to go as long as six months without touching their stuff, which a lot of times is enough to make even their most overplayed hits sound fresh.
- Dream Theater may not make huge changes from album to album, but the changes are significant enough that if you skip between albums in half-decade intervals, the differences are actually quite stark. As an example, I can imagine a new listener being taken a back if you played them Images and Words -> Falling into Infinity -> Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence -> Systematic Chaos -> A Dramatic Turn of Events -> The Astonishing in succession. I must admit, however, that as people have already stated, the differences lessen as you go deeper in that run.
- In comparison to Opeth and Steven Wilson, I see a couple of very obvious differences between them and Dream Theater that explain their varying approaches:
- Petrucci and Rudess seem to have a very joyful, optimistic view of their music. They love playing what they play. Mikael and Steven, on the other hand, have a more introspective and, dare I say, pretentious approach. Those dudes never seem happy with anything.
- Dream Theater knocked out their experimental stage early, versus Opeth, who didn't significantly change their sound until around 20 years in.
Now, none of those contrasts apply to Rush, who were experimenting their whole career and don't have an uptight bone in their body (well, at least Geddy and Alex don't, who write all the songs). Please understand that I'm not trying to make brilliant, all-encompassing rationales for why Dream Theater are the way they are. Just making a few observations.
- Frankly, I think that the changes in Opeth and Steven Wilson's music are a little overblown. Don't get me wrong, the shifts from Watershed ->Heritage and The Incident -> Insurgentes were very significant, but since then, they actually haven't changed things much. I would actually argue that the three album run of ADTOE -> The Astonishing has at least as many twists and turns as Heritage -> Sorceress or Grace for Drowning -> Hand. Cannot. Erase.
I'm about to do something that I usually hate. I'm also probably wrong. I'm going to put my Skip Bayless hot take hat on and make a totally random statement devoid of any evidence or support: I think that artists like Opeth, Radiohead, Steven Wilson, etc. sometimes get a little more credit than they deserve for their experimentation because they are always talking about how much they like to experiment. It's kind of like how Mike Portnoy always talked about how he didn't like Falling into Infinity, which then led to some fans who automatically didn't like it.
- While there are many bands who have evolved more than Dream Theater, I think that there are perhaps even more bands, especially within the metal universe, who have actually evolved much less than Dream Theater. Big-time groups like Iron Maiden and Megadeth come to mind. At the end of the day, this is all relative, basically.
Anyhow, just my two cents. Props to anyone who actually read through all that crap.
Topic: Did DT miss its chance to mature as a band? (Read 7833 times)
