Ayreon/Arjen Lucassen Thread (Star Three on the way)

[Adami]

So Amazon just told me that my blu ray has been delayed till mid August. So I just cancelled the order.

Is there a way to get this blu ray sometime....soon?

[SwedishGoose]

So Amazon just told me that my blu ray has been delayed till mid August. So I just cancelled the order.

Is there a way to get this blu ray sometime....soon?

Huh?   I got the BR on releaseday here in sweden. Too bad that you have to wait but you have something great to look forward to...

[twosuitsluke]

Does anyone know of a website anywhere that goes in depth with the whole concept that joins all the Ayreon albums together?

I'm looking to fill in the blanks with the Ayreon discography and experience the whole thing. Is it easy enough if I just listen through with all the lyrics in front of me or will it be incredibly confusing?

[Evermind]

So Amazon just told me that my blu ray has been delayed till mid August. So I just cancelled the order.

Is there a way to get this blu ray sometime....soon?

I've got a message from US InsideOut shop that the Blu-ray won't be released until the middle of September. Ridiculous, really.

[ErHaO]

There were early reports of (US) Blu Ray's not working from several people I believe, so it might be that they took a step back and decided to print a new, working batch (don't know what the exact issue was, maybe wrong region codes/not region free?).

It was here at launch day and you guys definitely have something to look forward to  Sucks that there have been release issues overseas though.

[Ben_Jamin]

Yeah I listened on YouTube to the CD, but I want the blu-ray dammit.

[Anguyen92]

I got an email a few days back that stated that it was already getting shipped out from, I believe, Cleveland.  I already heard the live album version on Spotify, which was top-notch, but I want to see the video part of it.

[Adami]

It was here at launch day and you guys definitely have something to look forward to

This is only helpful if the release date is actually meaningful. Constantly being delayed by weeks and months, I don't care how awesome it is, it's just really unprofessional.

[Anguyen92]

Well, I finally got it in the mail today.  Now I just need to commit the two hours of intently watching the DVD.

[Ben_Jamin]

Lucky. Where did you order from?

[Anguyen92]

Lucky. Where did you order from?

I ordered it from the InsideOut US online store.  Just the DVD and two CDs, not the blu-ray.

[twosuitsluke]

So I went ahead and got Universal Migrator Parts I&II and The Theory of Everything. I'm just finishing up listening through all of it and I've got to say that on first listen UM I&II stood out and impressed me more than TToE.

Especially The Dream Sequencer, I guess that must be the side of Ayreon I like most. I kept thinking how beautiful it sounded. I liked the heaviness of Flight of the Migrator, and will be definitely listening some more, but I think when it comes to heavy music I've got plenty of bands to go to when I want a fix. After listening to it all I feel compelled to listen to The Dream Sequencer again!!

Then I might try TToE whilst reading through the lyrics. See how it fares.

The only Ayreon albums I haven't listened to now are The Final Experiment and Actual Fantasy, but I'm not in any rush to get them. I've got more than enough to be going on with.

[KevShmev]

To me, The Dream Sequencer and Into the Electric Castle stand far above everything else he did under the Ayreon name; both are great from start to finish.  Nothing else is close (although every other album has some good stuff, despite all being hit or miss).

[Adami]

To me, The Dream Sequencer and Into the Electric Castle stand far above everything else he did under the Ayreon name; both are great from start to finish.  Nothing else is close (although every other album has some good stuff, despite all being hit or miss).

I think one problem Arjen is facing for the past few albums is the amount of filler material he is putting in there, which is really blurring together. I can find multiple melodies on 01010101011100011010101010, Guilt Machine and Theory of Everything that sound way too similar, with also way too similar rhythms and just general ideas. I think he needs to start editing down some of his stuff a bit more until he cuts out some of the fluff or standard Ayreon stuff that we've heard a lot by now. Because, like you said, each album really has some amazing stuff, but it's getting more and more buried in generic Arjen ideas.

[KevShmev]

I would agree with much of that.  The last few Ayreon albums had melodies all over the place that sounded similar to ones in prior albums. 

In other "news," I finally checked out some of that Gentle Storm stuff on YT.  Shores of India is pretty great. The rest sounded solid, but not too spectacular.

[Ben_Jamin]

Which album did you listen to?

[ErHaO]

All of Arjen's albums have his trademark elements (to varying degrees), sure, but I disagree they are too similar, especially in the case of Theory of Everything. The structure of the songs on TTOE (with songs I mean the parts of the 4 larger songs), the contributions of several intstumentalists and the very distinct and relatively small cast of vocalists make the album quite a bit different when taken as a whole. For me at least. And the story has a noticable different feel to it as well. 01011001 does feel a bit more by the books than his other works, and it has several vocalists with similar qualities. But given it is kind of the climax of his first Ayreon storyline, I feel that approach worked. By no means I would call the album a rehash of the preceding Ayreon albums. The Gentle Storm's more folksy direction with the lack of synthesizers (often a huge part of his sound) also make it quite different for me as well, particularly the Gentle version.

To me, these similar musical elements are what makes his sound, just like I can recognize any of my favourite artists based on certain elements that are present troughout their discography.

[KevShmev]

Which album did you listen to?

A variety of songs from both discs (gentle and storm).

[The Letter M]

Didn't see it mentioned yet, but Arjen is re-releasing his covets album Strange Hobby, along with some bonus tracks. It's quite an oddity and never featured his name on the album's original release!

-Marc.

[twosuitsluke]

CHAOS!!

 

[Darkstarshades]

Regarding the launch of the DVD/BD over here, I've asked my local music store for a release date and they have failed to provide me with any specidic date.
One of the guys even went as far as googling it, but it appears nobody knows shit. (also, according to Amazon.mx, it comes out on August 26th).

Seriously, two months delayed here, wtf.

[Evermind]

Hey guys, I'm planning to run an Arjen Lucassen Discography Thread if there's enough interest. Here's what I posted in Discography Tracker Thread:

Alright, so as some of you guys know already, I'm planning to run a big Arjen Lucassen-related Survivor in Polls / Survivors section in 2017, which will include all Ayreon albums and most of his side project albums (not counting the various spin-off survivors and some other content I'll need to check with mods about before I'm going to get into details). I'm laying the schedule for it right now and it looks like it will take the whole year with threads popping up on daily basis.

The thing is, 2017 is more than four months away, and I'd like to get as many people as I can on board, so it seems reasonable to run Ayreon and Arjen Lucassen-related projects Discography Thread to maybe get some people into Arjen's music, nudge people into discovering some Arjen albums they've never bothered with or just to enjoy relistening to some great records Arjen has put out over the years. And after it's done, maybe I'll get more people in the P/S section for the survivor thing. Or maybe not, but it's worth it in any case.

I've checked with Chad about this (since he called dibs on Arjen's discography thread earlier) and he gave me a green light. I'll need about two weeks to prepare enough material so that I don't fall behind but manage to maintain decent pace instead. With more or less one album a week schedule, I'm planning to finish this right before Christmas.

Is there enough interest in this?

Let me know if you're interested either here or in the thread I linked. This kind of thing requires some effort on my part so naturally I won't be doing it if we have like three people participating.

Also, if anyone wants to cover everything pre-1995 (Bodine; Vengeance; Pools of Sorrow, Waves of Joy and Strange Hobby), we can team up, because I can only do this from The Final Experiment onwards (I know Strange Hobby was technically after that, but I don't know that album). Other than that, I'm good.

[jakepriest]

If there's a survivor, I will definitely participate for Electric Castle and The Human Equation (maybe TTOE, how are you even gonna run that survivor?  ).

[Evermind]

The survivor will take place in 2017 if there are at least eight constant participants including me except for the least popular albums like Actual Fantasy and Fate of the Dreamer. And I'll just go with four songs for TTOE, there's not a lot of options.

The Discography Thread should allow some of the fans to check out more albums by Arjen if they wish to, so they can participate in more album survivors later in 2017. And, well, just discover some more awesome music too.

[twosuitsluke]

I'd follow. I've got almost all of Ayreon's albums now (just missing the first two) and I have the two Star One albums. Other than that I've not heard any of his other albums. I'm finally kind of 'getting' Ayreon and all their albums are growing on me so this is perfect timing for me.

In.

[Kwyjibo]

I'd definitely follow the discography thread and probably add my unnecessary 2 cents. And probably the survivor too.

Would be cool if someone knows and can write about the Arjen records before Final Fantasy, because I don't know them and would like to know something about it.

[Evermind]

I'm hoping maybe Nick can, he's a big Arjen fan. If not, I probably will eventually start checking them out after I'm done with his more popular work, and I'll be updating the thread accordingly. Ditto for any of Arjen's upcoming records and projects.

[Cyclopssss]

Awesome, I will read with interest and participate some info if I can.

[Bolsters]

I would follow.

[Ben_Jamin]

I'd follow the discography thread.

[The Letter M]

Will the discography thread cover Arjen's two solo albums before The Final Experiment? I think it'd be neat to discuss at least Strange Hobby, considering it's re-issue was just released.

-Marc.

[Evermind]

I'm not familiar with either Pools or Strange Hobby. I plan to check them out eventually and when I do, I will add them to the thread, but I won't be starting the thread with these two records because I simply won't have enough time to digest them.

Or if you're familiar with these albums and want to do the writeups for them, we can team up.

[Cyclopssss]

I'm sorry I'm not much help with Bodine. I do remember when the first album came out and it caused quite a stir in the hardrock/metal community over here in the Netherlands. But none of the focus was on Arjen in those days, although the guitarwork on the album(s) was unanymously praised. I do have the third album somewhere on download, but I'm pretty sure Arjen wasn't part of that album anymore. Anyway, I'll check out Bodine and if I'm able to do a little write up on them I will. Looking forward to your discography!

[Evermind]

Actually as I said, I do plan on checking out Bodine and Vengeance and doing writeups for their albums, but it won't happen before 2017 and it definitely won't happen before we do all of his more popular albums.

But yeah, if you think you're up to it, I'm fine with this. I'm fairly sure I haven't heard anything from Bodine or Vengeance yet.

[Nick]

For as big an Arjen fan I am I have honestly never checked out his pre-Ayreon work. I have of course checked out every project since then, but never went back to that stuff.