Dream Theater self titled album discussion - [SPOILER FREE DISCUSSION ONLY]

[senecadawg2]

I've enjoyed reading all the commentary in this thread over the course of the last 24 hours. Funny to see how heated people can get over the artwork. Blob obviously takes this kind of thing seriously, understandably given his own background, so I understand why he would react the strongest. It's been interesting to see everyone else's reactions though. I myself never even cared enough to look at the past majesty logo to the point where I could distinguish between the two now. Of course, now that it has been pointed out, I can see the differences pretty clearly. I still don't care, and I'm surprised by the amount of people who do. I'm not critiquing, it's just curious.

Another thing I've found interesting is all the comments stating that the tracklist doesn't feel very Dream Theater esque. While I understand that these comments come from a place of great excitement, I can't say I agree. Besides the obvious French movement title, the only other title that doesn't feel very 'Dream Theater' to me is Enigma Machine which is, by the way, a really cool name IMO. The rest of the track names seem very much fitting for the kind of music Dream Theater produces, and the names they've used in the past. Maybe someone can clear this up for me, but I could see these names being stuck into any of Dream Theater's past albums and not seeming out of place in the slightest (with the obvious exception of SFAM)

[Rattlehead]

I find it funny that criticizing the cover automatically makes you a prog nerd  It reminds me of when I read somewhere that anyone that doesn't like ADToE is a Portnoy fanboy. Seems like the people defending the album cover are getting more heated than those criticizing it if you ask me.

[BlackInk]

^ Or that not liking Systematic Chaos and BC&SL means that you "don't understand music". That one was fun.

[senecadawg2]

I myself haven't defended or critiqued it. Personally, I like the way it looks from my very superficial perspective, and will just leave it at that. Different strokes for different folks.

[Perpetual Change]

As a new DT fan I feel I'm allowed to ask, did Hugh Syme do the artwork for all the previous albums, or were there any other artists?

Hugh Syme has done all of DT's album covers from Octavarium onwards. Fairly sure he didn't do any prior to that.

Time for some history!

Images and Awake were done by Larry Freemantle, who is not Hugh Syme, but managed to do a pretty good imitation. I don't know if Freemantle has had much of a career doing album art since then.

FII was created by Storm Thorgerson who is a huge name and who's done so many great album covers, from both classic and modern bands alike. I'm pretty sure he's dead now, unfortunately.

Dave McKean did SFAM. He's a pretty well-respected artist. Not sure who did SDOIT.

Jerry Uelsmann did Train of Thought. I just looked that up. BTW, he also did the intro to The Outer Limits, which is a cool tidbit for people who pointed out the similarities a few days ago.
Since then, it's been all Hugh Syme.

There seems to be a general consensus that Hugh isn't very good at album art? Or that he doesn't execute well?

I wouldn't go that far.  I think it's more that a subset of fans who post on an Internet forum don't like his art.

I think it is more accurate to say that he appears less committed on the artwork he has done for DT than for the bigger-named acts for whom he has produced album art.

Yeah, although I'm under the impression that he sends artwork and DT just choose from it, so I'm not sure how that works.

[Implode]

Dangarang, you guys. Now the album art looks like crap to me. 

Hopefully the jpg artifacts are from the facebook upload compression or something, and I hope they fix that cut off.

[BlobVanDam]

Thanks to PC for the facts!

[Lucidity]

Can I just quietly say that I love the cover art for Octavarium and Systematic Chaos 

[senecadawg2]

FII was created by Storm Thorgerson who is a huge name and who's done so many great album covers, from both classic and modern bands alike. I'm pretty sure he's dead now, unfortunately.

That's too bad, FII has always been my favorite DT cover

[BlastParadigm]

There seems to be a general consensus that Hugh isn't very good at album art? Or that he doesn't execute well? Am I gathering this properly or is that just my perception?

Also, which album do you think has the best art?

He does great art, but sometimes he doesn't execute as well as he used to. He did almost every Rush album cover, and those are some amazing covers.
The art for the new DT album is great, but that cut off should be fixed because, you know... it's kind of visible.

[BlobVanDam]

Can I just quietly say that I love the cover art for Octavarium and Systematic Chaos 

Me too! I think they're among DT's better ones, even with the little flaws. I really didn't like BCASL or ADTOE's covers though.

[JPX]

Time for some history!

Images and Awake were done by Larry Freemantle, who is not Hugh Syme, but managed to do a pretty good imitation. I don't know if Freemantle has had much of a career doing album art since then.

FII was created by Storm Thorgerson who is a huge name and who's done so many great album covers, from both classic and modern bands alike. I'm pretty sure he's dead now, unfortunately.

Dave McKean did SFAM. He's a pretty well-respected artist. Not sure who did SDOIT.

Jerry Uelsmann did Train of Thought. I just looked that up. BTW, he also did the intro to The Outer Limits, which is a cool tidbit for people who pointed out the similarities a few days ago.
Since then, it's been all Hugh Syme.

Dung Hoang did SDoiT. He's still active and his work is still awesome. SDoiT is my favorite DT album design by far.

https://www.shaolinfury.com/category/journal/

[bosk1]

Good info on the album covers, guys.  I am putting that information into the FAQ thread.  For completeness, does anyone know who did the ones for WDADU and ACOS?  I am assuming ACOS is Freemantle, but I don't know for sure.

[Implode]

Can I just quietly say that I love the cover art for Octavarium and Systematic Chaos 

Octavarium is still my favorite of theirs despite its flaws. 

[Perpetual Change]

Good info on the album covers, guys.  I am putting that information into the FAQ thread.  For completeness, does anyone know who did the ones for WDADU and ACOS?  I am assuming ACOS is Freemantle, but I don't know for sure.

I can chec linear notes later. I think DTs label at the time did all that stuff in house. I think.

[Dellers]

Good info on the album covers, guys.  I am putting that information into the FAQ thread.  For completeness, does anyone know who did the ones for WDADU and ACOS?  I am assuming ACOS is Freemantle, but I don't know for sure.

According to the Wikipedia article about him Storm Thorgerson did the ACOS cover.

[Whatsername]

Can I just quietly say that I love the cover art for Octavarium and Systematic Chaos 

Octavarium is still my favorite of theirs despite its flaws. 

I also love the art for Octavarium. I also really like ToT and ADTOE, but I'm not looking at them with a critiquing eye. I just find them visually the most appealing.

[?]

Good info on the album covers, guys.  I am putting that information into the FAQ thread.  For completeness, does anyone know who did the ones for WDADU and ACOS?  I am assuming ACOS is Freemantle, but I don't know for sure.

According to the Wikipedia article about him Storm Thorgerson did the ACOS cover.

From the ACOS booklet:

Cover Concept: Mike Portnoy
Art Direction: Larry Freemantle

[TheAtliator]

You guys are crazy.. I've always thought every single DT cover was incredibly great except for having to see the shirtless guy on WDADU. Every cover has such fantastic concept, and is put across perfectly well.

[jonnybaxy]

Just seems like Syne's work (at least for DT) is getting so lazy, less detail in them these days... They don't seem as descriptive or ambitious and they are decreasing on both of them each time...

[Zydar]

According to Lifting Shadows, the cover for WDADU was done by New York artist Amy Guip.

[wasteland]

Well, in all fairness the ACOS cover looked nothing like any work by Storm Thorgerson

I guess I like FII the most, but it's really close. On some other day I could have said TOT, or even Images!

[emtee]

Don't you think the band fed him the concept and asked for something minimalist...and upon seeing it loved it signed off on it?

[Hanz Gruber]

I wonder if "Along For the Ride" is the instrumental.  Sounds like a good title for a crazy instrumental that jumps around everywhere

[Big Hath]

I wonder if "Along For the Ride" is the instrumental.  Sounds like a good title for a crazy instrumental that jumps around everywhere

the title makes me think of a Dixie Dregs song, or some kind of fusiony song from Chick Corea or Dave Weckl.

[Kotowboy]

Really not a fan of this, sorry.

The logo now looks really flat, and the outline on the upper portion of the logo doesn't look correct.
The lens flair detracts from the composition and washes out the entire image.
The only improvement to me is the image used for the planet.

I appreciate the time you put into it though. I just happen to love the cover the way it was.

All of this.

[Super Dude]

Some of the titles are pretty lol, but honestly, who cares? We like DT for what the songs sound like, not how pretty the cover looks. It's cool to have standards and whatever, but in the grand scheme of things, it's not going to affect your choice to buy the album or not the way the actual songs will. And they're not going to change the names or artwork because a bunch of people on the internet start bitching about it.

[Dream Team]

There's really only a few titles over the past decade that I'm not fond of, usually because of being too generic or too awkward:

Build Me Up, Break Me Down
This is the Life
The Best of Times
Constant Motion
The Answer Lies Within
I Walk Beside You
Panic Attack

I think the only one of the new ones that sounds a little awkward is False Awakening Suite. The "Suite" should have been dropped, or something.

[wolven74]

Some of the titles are pretty lol, but honestly, who cares? We like DT for what the songs sound like, not how pretty the cover looks. It's cool to have standards and whatever, but in the grand scheme of things, it's not going to affect your choice to buy the album or not the way the actual songs will. And they're not going to change the names or artwork because a bunch of people on the internet start bitching about it.

This 100%

Come on people. Stop bitching and whining. We're all starting to sound like a bunch of children who asked for cake and got cookies instead. Artwork is a done deal. Every time I come to the forum and see more people saying how the artwork isn't what they'd hope for, that they really don't like it, or that they could have done a better job, all I'm hearing is Never Enough. The lyrics are very fitting for how we the fans are behaving right now.

[KevShmev]

Are we really gonna quibble about some of these song titles supposedly sounding pretentious?  I mean, this is the same band that named one of their albums Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence.

Besides, if the song titles were too ordinary, then people would bitch about them sounding too vanilla.  It's not like anything on this album immediately sounds as blatantly absurd as The Count of Tuscany.

[DarkLord_Lalinc]

Some of the titles are pretty lol, but honestly, who cares? We like DT for what the songs sound like, not how pretty the cover looks. It's cool to have standards and whatever, but in the grand scheme of things, it's not going to affect your choice to buy the album or not the way the actual songs will. And they're not going to change the names or artwork because a bunch of people on the internet start bitching about it.

This 100%

Come on people. Stop bitching and whining. We're all starting to sound like a bunch of children who asked for cake and got cookies instead. Artwork is a done deal. Every time I come to the forum and see more people saying how the artwork isn't what they'd hope for, that they really don't like it, or that they could have done a better job, all I'm hearing is Never Enough. The lyrics are very fitting for how we the fans are behaving right now.

is the new cover art your brand new floor lol

[snapple]

If Mike Portnoy had still been in the band, we wouldn't be getting an album with subpar album art and 13-year old inspired song names.

[DarkLord_Lalinc]

[Podaar]

Pretentious

If Mike Portnoy had still been in the band, we wouldn't be getting an album with subpar album art and 13-year old inspired song names.

12 year old is more likely. 

[kirksnosehair]

Meh - I still prefer the original album cover.

Me too