Why does DT not get all the respect they deserve?

[King Postwhore]

It's Roger Goodell's fault.

[Stadler]

As for why dream theater is not POPULAR, though, is another story. Listen to some pop music or rap; that's what most people like. Then listen to some DT. There isn't really a lot of overlap. The songs are too long, epic, and complex to be fully appreciated by many people, and the public has a short attention span. Not a lot of people will take 20 minutes to listen to one song.

AND

Prog should be up there alongside classical and jazz as the "technical/hard/intricate" music genres. It's also often looked down upon by more casual music listeners.

Is it at all possible to stop with this nonsense?  "IMO" and all that, I get it.  You're entitled to think what you want to think.  But there's not a SHRED of factual evidence that supports this notion.   NONE.

I'm a Mum (Google it) and the band I was in had some guys that were PHENOMENAL musicians.  I mean "I recorded with Brandon Marsalis" level musicians.  And they almost universally looked at prog as an interesting diversion at best, but in some senses a noble failure.    This idea that somehow "if only people were just smarter, had longer attention spans, and didn't care what others thought, they'd just LOVE prog, and DT would be the next Beatles/Springsteen/U2 all rolled up into one!" is purely and utterly not accurate.  You don't think that a band like Floyd, that toured STADIUMS, didn't have at least SOME fans that went back and bought "Ummagumma" thinking there was another "Comfortably Numb" on there?  You don't think a band like Genesis that toured STADIUMS, didn't have at least some fans that went back and bought "Selling England..." hoping there was another "Misunderstanding" on there?   

People aren't "dumb"; they want to be entertained.  They want to be part of something.  They want to connect.  They want to SHARE.   There are plenty of very good (read: "not Britney Spears") bands that are hugely popular, that play complex music, but that CONNECTS.  The Eagles.   The Dead.   Fleetwood Mac.  Floyd.  Billy Joel (arguably his second most famous song is a seven-and-a-half minute song suite in three parts).   Regardless of your taste, regardless of what emotion it is, people connect with EXPERIENCES and with EMOTIONS.   

The reality is, this argument is really a manifestation of this very point.  We are fans of what is, for better or worse, a niche market.  We just are.  But our own human nature - self-justification, reinforcement of what WE like as "something important", a distancing from the "masses" - precludes us from seeing what is in fact reality:  it is as popular as it deserves, and we happen to like something that is outside the mainstream.  Doesn't make us better, or smarter, or more aware, or superior.  It just means we like something outside the mainstream. 

[Prog Snob]

The prog snobbery is strong in this thread.

I didn't even say anything yet.

Will you mind if I adore you if only for this exchange, your nickname and your signature? 

But to answer the op, it's just that prog rock has it tough generally, prog metal even worse (because prog rock fans won't touch it with a hundred feet pole cause it's "too heavy") and so it will never be that popular. Yes, I don't like it too, but that's pretty much everything I can do with that. (Oh, and I converted my wife! I succeeded! One more snob walking the Earth! Yes!)

Yes, you may.

And good job converting the spousal unit.

[thosava]

My post was more directed towards the fact that prog rock/metal is not regarded alongside genres such as jazz. Jazz is also very uncommercial, maybe even more than prog (as most of it is instrumental). I don't want or think that prog doesn't should be very popular. But i do think that it should get the respect it deserves alongside jazz.

[rumborak]

Jazz was the music of an entire decade. It is orders of magnitude bigger than prog. If I wanted to I could see at least 3 live jazz shows in Boston tonight, I would be very hard pressed to even see one prog show this whole week.

[lovethedrake]

See below post... technical difficulties.

[lovethedrake]

I dont agree with this.... a band doesn't have to be the most innovative band to be considered an all time great.   Look at Elvis.. guy was a cover artist and he's a legend.    Few bands have ever had the instrumental prowess that DT has.   IMO DT took the metal of metallica and the prog of Rush and combined them to create something even better than both.


Now as for why DT might not get respect from all channels...

Long songs, Labrie, Labrie, too much wanking, keyboard solos, weak lyrics, labrie, and labrie.

I personally really like Labrie, especially from 1992-2001.  However, I know he is a big reason as to why people don't like DT.  Its not necessarily Labrie's fault either.  I think it has to do with how serious they take themselves vocally... which comes off as super cheesy and lame.   Definitely the worst part of DT is the cheesy parts (beginning of innocence faced, surrounded)  and I love both those songs but the beginning of both of them is terrible.

DT tends to be extremely polarizing, either you absolutely love them or you think they suck.   

I absolutely love them for various reasons but they are nothing like my other top 5 bands.... genesis, clash, kinks, alice cooper.  All of which use a great deal of humor in their music.

[bluehaze]

Why did Beethoven not get the respect he deserved in his day??? You can't dance to him. No dance, no women... Witness the Grateful Dead's popularity with women while expanding the bounds with improv and over 100 songs at their fingertips that could be played on any night. They've become to formulaic...intro...main theme...chorus...main theme...instrumental... chorus...main theme...outro..  With regards to respect from other musicians, many do not like the schmaltzy, cheesy ballads or James' breathy singing or the straddling the line between intense musicality and playing for 12 year old boys. With regards to exposure, the recording/radio industry never catered to bands playing 7 minute songs because according to these industries the average radio listener only listens to the radio for about 12 minutes a day and they want to make sure one hears a song they are familiar with to catch them long enough to listen to the commercials. Also, there are very few radio stations that even play new music anymore. Classic Rock radio has been on auto-pilot for the last 25 years. Pandora and Spotify mean that many don't even listen to albums anymore. Their technical playing and odd time signatures aren't unique anymore as there are more intense bands out there like Animals as Leaders, Scale The Summit, and musicians like Angel Vivaldi pushing the boundaries of Prog. Metal. They don't tour enough or play enough dates to expose more listeners. Seventeen shows in the states is hardly a tour. Guys like Roger Waters do tours that include more than 100 shows in the states. They are too safe and aren't as adventurous as Liquid Tension Experiment was.  This is just my opinion, so no arguing please....

[Skeever]

Simply put, while DT have expanded on the creations of Yes, Rush, Iron Maiden, and Metallica, it's much harder to argue that they ever truly exceeded them. DT will ultimately always have a special place in my heart, though it's mostly for having opened me up to the greater world of prog rock and heavy metal. I supposed you could say DT gave me the "gift of music".

[chaossystem]

All time great? Nah. Not even close to being part of that body for work, even for just progressive rock bands. They're more like a footnote  - A really long and interesting footnote, but still a footnote.

The "problem" I have with grouping DT into the same echelon as Yes, or Rush, or Floyd, or some of the truly great progressive rock bands is that DT never took as many creative chances as those other artists. Everything they've done has some immediate and obvious precedence in the past, and nothing they've done has ever really felt that "new" or off-the-wall. So what did DT do? DT refined the progressive metal genre and were successful as its bannermen for an extended period of time. That's great, but it's not that important. Other bands, like Radiohead, did a lot more to innovate of the principals of progressive and experimental rock music, while being far more influential. Meanwhile, DT are about a safe and conservative as progressive rock gets, at least anymore.

Don't get me wrong, they're a personal favorite of mine, for different reasons - not because I think they belong in some all time great category.

I keep hearing that Dream Theater is "A" progressive metal band. This term gets thrown around a lot. But before they came along, I never even knew such a style or genre of music  EXISTED. as far as I'm concerned, they pretty much invented it. Even Queensryche, who I will admit is more melodic than most hm bands, and obviously had a lot of influence on DT, are not really a band that I would consider to be equally as "prog" they are metal. Before I heard of DT, there was no such thing as a band that I would have classified as "progressive metal," and  you can to criticize them for being unoriginal all you want, but then you pretty much have to admit that most or all of the other "prog-metal" bands that have come along since then are even MORE derivative, because you really can't do what DT does without sounding like and being compared to DT. Symphony X is a good example of this. To me, at least, their sound is VERY derivative of DT. I've also tried to give Haken a chance-and I'm probably going to get LYNCHED for this!-but to me, they sound just plain awful. So in conclusion to this part of my thought on this subject, I think they deserve respect because they dared to do something different, they did it first, and they did it best.

As for the metal side: as much as I love bands like Sabbath, BOC, Maiden, Priest, Metallica, Queensryche, etc.,...can you honestly tell me that you don't think they take that music to much more creative places? They do things that those other metal bands probably never thought of. So even if you want to say that they're not better than ELP, Genesis, Floyd, Kansas, Rush, Yes, etc., you pretty much have to admit that they have PIONEERED something that few if any OTHER bands even THOUGHT of doing before they did it.

[chaossystem]

Simply put, while DT have expanded on the creations of Yes, Rush, Iron Maiden, and Metallica, it's much harder to argue that they ever truly exceeded them. DT will ultimately always have a special place in my heart, though it's mostly for having opened me up to the greater world of prog rock and heavy metal. I supposed you could say DT gave me the "gift of music".

This is too FUNNY!

I wrote my previous post as a response to what you said earlier, but THIS one reads like it was in RESPONSE to what I said!

[thosava]

I agree 100% with you chaossystem. DT are an innovative band. They may sound somewhat like some of their inspirations and in a couple of songs a bit too much, but they were very innovative in the beginning of prog metal. Of course they will sometimes sound like music that came before them, but what music doesn't? All innovative music is an evolution of something else, even if it's new. In 1992 Images and Words was a very innovative album. Of course it has sounds that are familiar, but it was also something very unique.

[chaossystem]

Another point that needs to be made is that if you are going to say that Dream theater doesn't deserve respect for being original, then NO rock musician EVER deserves credit for "inventing" ANYTHING!

Rock and roll ITSELF was derived from blues, country, gospel and jazz, among other kinds of music.

[Enigmachine]

Before I heard of DT, there was no such thing as a band that I would have classified as "progressive metal,"

You may not agree with them being called prog metal, but there was actually a big four of prog metal in the 80s with the bands Queensryche, Fates Warning, Savatage and Crimson Glory. When Dream Theater came along, the term prog metal was alredy (I think) being used to describe those bands, which all had distinct elements which characterised them. This makes DT not really innovators, but one of the most (probably just most, depending on how far we are stretching the term) successful and creative early adopters of the genre.

Another point that needs to be made is that if you are going to say that Dream theater doesn't deserve respect for being original, then NO rock musician EVER deserves credit for "inventing" ANYTHING!

Rock and roll ITSELF was derived from blues, country, gospel and jazz, among other kinds of music.

I don't disagree with this though, there is no shame in musicians showing influences on their sleeves (as long as there is no plagiarism involved).

[bosk1]

I keep hearing that Dream Theater is "A" progressive metal band. This term gets thrown around a lot. But before they came along, I never even knew such a style or genre of music  EXISTED. as far as I'm concerned, they pretty much invented it. Even Queensryche, who I will admit is more melodic than most hm bands, and obviously had a lot of influence on DT, are not really a band that I would consider to be equally as "prog" they are metal. Before I heard of DT, there was no such thing as a band that I would have classified as "progressive metal," and  you can to criticize them for being unoriginal all you want, but then you pretty much have to admit that most or all of the other "prog-metal" bands that have come along since then are even MORE derivative, because you really can't do what DT does without sounding like and being compared to DT.

I agree.  I mean, in retrospect, we can go back and label some earlier bands, like Queensryche, as being in that vein.  But none of those other bands or their fans considered them to be "progressive metal" before Dream Theater.  I'm sure someone can maybe come up with some more obscure bands that were doing it.  But Dream Theater are the first that were really out there in the public eye enough to get noticed.  Bands that truly combined metal and progressive rock elements in significant amounts prior to DT are virtually nonexistent, with the exception of maybe Fates Warning.  Yeah, Metallica at times defied common song arrangements and wrote long songs.  Yeah, Queensryche used complex chord arrangements and melodies, and experimented with nontraditional song structures on occasion.  But that does not really make them progressive metal bands.  So, yeah, great point.

[chaossystem]

To put it another way: There was NEVER a band BEFORE Dream Theater that was considered "heavy metal," but at the same time you could CLEARLY hear that they were influenced by the likes of ELP, Genesis, Kansas, Alan Parsons, Pink Floyd (although there is some of what Floyd did in Queenseryche's approach to their music) Rush and Yes, among others.

[rumborak]

To put it another way: There was NEVER a band BEFORE Dream Theater that was considered "heavy metal,"

Was that a typo? I mean, that can't possibly be what you mean.

[lovethedrake]

I assume he meant "prog metal"

[BlobVanDam]

Given the list of bands mentioned, I'll assume he meant progressive metal, because none none of those influences are metal at all.

[KevShmev]

Actually, given the style they play, it's pretty amazing that DT is as popular as they are, which fans should take as a good thing. 

[chaossystem]

To put it another way: There was NEVER a band BEFORE Dream Theater that was considered "heavy metal,"

Was that a typo? I mean, that can't possibly be what you mean.

Maybe I didn't word it exactly right, but you kind of took it out of context. What I MEANT to say was that DT is  the first heavy metal band that had such a clear influence from the progressive bands that I named, among others.

[TioJorge]

Er...I don't think it was worded wrong at all, I think Chaos worded it as he meant but the quote cut off the important part, the 'but'. "Heavy metal, BUT with an influence of *progressive bands*". Which I agree with; I mean that's exactly what progressive metal is...it's heavy metal with a huge influence of progressive musicianship. I was close to saying that such a statement is overblown but now that I think on it...most of the bands that came before DT (with few exceptions and as Bosk said, were not just underground but might as well have been non-existent as far as influencing the musical culture is concerned) are pretty much pure 'progressive' or at the most cynical, 'progressive rock'.

We're at a point now where there are so many fucking sub-genres that the argument is a bit pedantic, but if you consider the musical landscape at the time when DT came about and blew up the scene, I'd absolutely say they were the pioneers of the term "progressive metal" and kept hammering down the sub-genre even more with each release; then it was just fully integrated and clear by the time Train of Thought came about. Arguably...easily before that but that is when it was like "This is progressive METAL" *mic drop*. 

[TioJorge]

Uhhh okay I just have to post this because it was too perfect.

*Browses Apple Music's "For You" section right after writing this post*

...

...





Boom, confirmed! Apple says it thus it is true.

(Just kidding, Apple haters cool your jets)

ED: Crap, totally meant to modify. My bad double dipping.

[ariich]

To put it another way: There was NEVER a band BEFORE Dream Theater that was considered "heavy metal,"

Was that a typo? I mean, that can't possibly be what you mean.

Maybe I didn't word it exactly right, but you kind of took it out of context. What I MEANT to say was that DT is  the first heavy metal band that had such a clear influence from the progressive bands that I named, among others.

I think your wording was fine, though the rogue comma might have thrown rumby a bit. But this is why it's generally a good idea to read, you know, full sentences.

[MHStrawn]

Dream Theater is the greatest band of all time.

First, this is just your opinion.  Yes, many on this board share it, but there are many, many more music fans who disagree. 

Why is it so scarce to find someone in real life who has ever heard of them; or more than PMU.

Because Dream Theater's music is dense and isn't laden with hooks and sing-along choruses that kick in within the first 15 seconds of the song.  Music is also the focus of the band, not image or fashion or branding or corporate sponsorships.  This isn't unique to Dream Theater.  In fact, Dream Theater receives MASSIVE attention compared to many other equally great bands who go almost completley unnoticed. 

Why are there so few concerts in North America compared to the rest of the world?

Good question.  Prog music has always been more popular in Europe than America, but especially post-70's. 

I am actually curious because i do not understand why they are not played more on the radio or barely ever nominated for any awards. Clearly the band does it for the fans and the music so they might not mind but it would be nice to see the band get the recognition they deserve.

I think you grossly underestimate how much attention the band receives.  There has been tons of coverage of The Astonishing BEFORE it even comes out.  Try being Symphony X, who has a huge catalog of music that is very similar (some say better) than Dream Theater's.  Steven Wilson is arguably the best, most prolific progressive musication of the 21st century but his solo albums and former band (Porcupine Tree) play clubs and get a fraction of the attention of Dream Theater. 

Dream Theater is fine.  Music audiences are fragmented today and it's not like the 70's / 80's or even 90's when bands received massive, uniform exposure via radio / MTV and everyone a certain age knew a similar group of bands.  Those days are over. 

[MHStrawn]

Because the general public has abysmally short attention spans and if it can't be fit into a 4-ish minute radio piece, then people will lose focus and change the channel.  I admit to being one of those people.

Wow...I can't believe you went there.  I never thought anyone would admit to listening to the radio. 

[BlobVanDam]

Because the general public has abysmally short attention spans and if it can't be fit into a 4-ish minute radio piece, then people will lose focus and change the channel.  I admit to being one of those people.

Wow...I can't believe you went there.  I never thought anyone would admit to listening to the radio. 

I never thought anyone would admit to listening to prog, but apparently there are even whole forums dedicated to it!

[MHStrawn]

Given the low musical standards of today's music I am amazed that they are as popular as they are.

The world likes brainless simple crap for the most part.

I don't know; I don't want to start a fight, but I reject this.   There's nothing "low" or "brainless" about, say, Bruno Mars or Adele.  It's just going for a different vibe.   I think if you want to say anything about more popular music is that it taps into more 'baser' emotions.   I don't think the average person is all that interested in lyrical discussions of stem cell research, but that doesn't make them "simple" or "brainless".  Many people, myself included, use music as a way to step back from the "stem cell research" type questions.   It's a way of capturing that feeling of love or loss or anger that is sometimes hard for people to express or wrap their arms around.  If writing a song like "Once In A Lifetime" by One Direction was so damn easy, everyone would do it.  But they don't. 

I don't want to minimize what they do, because I love it and I am a dedicated Dream Theater fan, but there is an element to which some of what we profess to adore is "muscle dexterity".  Even I, a two-bit shitty guitar player, can, with enough time, sit down and figure out complicated pieces, but I could sit for 1,000 years and never write a song as beautiful as "Yesterday".  2:03 of almost pure perfection, and nary a diminished chord, polyrhythm, or unison line to be found.

Well-said.  There's lot of good reasons to listen to music.  If you're hosting a party and want to get everyone movin' & groovin' DT is not what you're putting on.  Similarly, a great 3-minute rocker is a good way to expend some energy.  Jazz, classical, country, pop, dance, rockabilly....depending on my mood I can enjoy all these types of music.  Sometimes "simple" is both beautiful AND exactly what I'm looking for.

[MHStrawn]

All time great? Nah. Not even close to being part of that body for work, even for just progressive rock bands. They're more like a footnote  - A really long and interesting footnote, but still a footnote.

The "problem" I have with grouping DT into the same echelon as Yes, or Rush, or Floyd, or some of the truly great progressive rock bands is that DT never took as many creative chances as those other artists. Everything they've done has some immediate and obvious precedence in the past, and nothing they've done has ever really felt that "new" or off-the-wall. So what did DT do? DT refined the progressive metal genre and were successful as its bannermen for an extended period of time. That's great, but it's not that important. Other bands, like Radiohead, did a lot more to innovate of the principals of progressive and experimental rock music, while being far more influential. Meanwhile, DT are about a safe and conservative as progressive rock gets, at least anymore.

Don't get me wrong, they're a personal favorite of mine, for different reasons - not because I think they belong in some all time great category.

You might want to familiarize yourself with the entire 80's metal scene.  While maybe no band quite embraced "progressive" as DT did, there were legions of bands that played progressive metal.   You mention Queensrybhe, but there are many others you can find who had a 10-minute song here or an 8-minute song there that we would, today, call "progressive metal".  Dream Theater is not very innovative or adventurous; IMO it's why I've never quite considered them as accomplished as some other bands. 

I keep hearing that Dream Theater is "A" progressive metal band. This term gets thrown around a lot. But before they came along, I never even knew such a style or genre of music  EXISTED. as far as I'm concerned, they pretty much invented it. Even Queensryche, who I will admit is more melodic than most hm bands, and obviously had a lot of influence on DT, are not really a band that I would consider to be equally as "prog" they are metal. Before I heard of DT, there was no such thing as a band that I would have classified as "progressive metal," and  you can to criticize them for being unoriginal all you want, but then you pretty much have to admit that most or all of the other "prog-metal" bands that have come along since then are even MORE derivative, because you really can't do what DT does without sounding like and being compared to DT. Symphony X is a good example of this. To me, at least, their sound is VERY derivative of DT. I've also tried to give Haken a chance-and I'm probably going to get LYNCHED for this!-but to me, they sound just plain awful. So in conclusion to this part of my thought on this subject, I think they deserve respect because they dared to do something different, they did it first, and they did it best.

As for the metal side: as much as I love bands like Sabbath, BOC, Maiden, Priest, Metallica, Queensryche, etc.,...can you honestly tell me that you don't think they take that music to much more creative places? They do things that those other metal bands probably never thought of. So even if you want to say that they're not better than ELP, Genesis, Floyd, Kansas, Rush, Yes, etc., you pretty much have to admit that they have PIONEERED something that few if any OTHER bands even THOUGHT of doing before they did it.

[MHStrawn]

but if you consider the musical landscape at the time when DT came about and blew up the scene, I'd absolutely say they were the pioneers of the term "progressive metal" and kept hammering down the sub-genre even more with each release; then it was just fully integrated and clear by the time Train of Thought came about. Arguably...easily before that but that is when it was like "This is progressive METAL" *mic drop*. 

LOL

1988's Operation Mindcrime and then 1990's Empire made Queensryche HUGE stars; Metallica were also music superstars.  Both bands sold out huge stadiums and topped music charts; not ROCK charts or METAL chars but general MUSIC charts. 

Dream Theater's Images and Words didn't come remotely close to having that kind of impact.  Dream Theater were playing clubs up until Scenes From a Memory hit.  You guys are ignoring what actually happened in thinking that DT were some revolutionary, daring, innovative band that reshaped musical landscapes and invented an music genre.  Prog Metal was a core component of many successful bands, including MASSIVELY successful bands, long before Dream Theater could headline an arena.

[Fluffy Lothario]

I think DT get the right amount of praise from prog fans. But on the other hand, i don't think prog in general is getting the amount of praise it should. Prog should be up there alongside classical and jazz as the "technical/hard/intricate" music genres. It's also often looked down upon by more casual music listeners.

Even putting aside the fact that jazz has had almost a century and classical hundreds of years to build their respective cases, AND assuming that the average prog piece does actually deserve similar praise as the average jazz or classical in terms of musicianship:

Equating prog to jazz and classical and expecting it to have garnered praise and followers on a similar scale is insanely unrealistic.

Prog is one sub-genre, a backwater niche within the greater body of rock. How much praise does rock music get overall? Plenty.

Jazz and classical are both entire worlds of music on a scale comparable to rock. Take one specific "sub-genre" strand of the greater genres and it will be similarly a minor note in the greater body of the genre, like prog is in rock. How respected and well-known is European free jazz? How much respect and praise does Minimalist classical get?

Not to mention that if you take a modern classical or jazz piece and look at how much attention it gets compared to prog, it will give you a different perspective. Kamasi Washington's The Epic is one of the most publicised, well-received jazz albums in a very long time, maybe decades. It's been around for about 9 months, and its most viewed song on youtube has 423,000 views, and that's WAY out in front of the average track on the album. The Astonishing hasn't even been released yet, and The Gift of Music has twice that.

[rumborak]

I'll also say, I wouldn't have minded if DT had stayed *less* popular. When ToT came out, the fan demographics changed significantly, with a lot of metalheads joining. Since then, DT, inmyeversohumbleopinion, have been far less prog than they used to be in the early days. They noticeably shifted to the metal side since ToT.

[TheFrozenInferno]

DT is the best in their genre, it just happens that it's not a mainstream genre. The Grammy nods for their last couple of albums are the prog metal equivalent of a Nobel prize as far as I'm concerned. I'd love to see them win a Grammy before they hang it up but just getting that "mainstream" recognition at this stage in their career is awesome to see.

When I talk to people outside my circle of DT fan friends and the subject of music comes up, it's always fun to tell them who my favourite band is and listen to their reaction. Most conversations go like this:

Me: My favourite band is Dream Theater
Them: Who the hell is that? Sounds weird
Me: They're a prog metal band. Ever hear Rush?
Them: Of course! I love Rush
Me: Similar style, though heavier and far more complex
Them: Never heard of them. They must be a newer band
Me: They've been around for 30 years, recorded 12 albums, and have been touring the world for decades
Them: ........are they any good?
Me: Yeah, they've pretty damn good

And a lot of folks seem to think they're some kind of pop band or something when they hear the name "Dream Theater" because it doesn't sound like a metal band name. I've even had people say "sounds kind of gay to me". Then I put on something like The Glass Prison or Panic Attack and it changes their tune pretty quick.

[Outcrier]

Prog is one sub-genre, a backwater niche within the greater body of rock. How much praise does rock music get overall? Plenty.

This is what i thought as well. Comparing prog to jazz and classical when it's only a sub-genre? You should be comparing rock, the main genre, to them.

[The Dark Master]

As far as respect goes, Dream Theater actually get a relatively high degree of respect from their fellow musicians, far higher then a band of their considerable but still limited amount of commercial success would normally warrant.  There will always be those artists (insert Blind Melon reference) who will take a shot at them because of their "wankery", and that is to be expected.  However, when you consider the fact that the last two consecutive DT albums have both received Grammy nominations when the band only had one hit single worthy of being referred too as such 20 years before that first nomination, it should be apparent that Dream Theater are pretty well respected in the world of professional music.

Now as for popularity, that is an entirely different matter.  It's worth noting that Dream Theater came along at a time when rock was nearly spent as a major commercial force, and pop and rap were taking over the charts.  Had they been around 10 or 15 years earlier, it might have been a different story, but at the time they made their breakthrough, the mass market was moving further and further away from the kind of music DT liked to write.  Couple that with the fact that DT's music is in many ways a throwback to the 70's prog scene, just with an 80's metal edge, and it should be obvious that their style is just not fashionable.  Part of it is indeed the length of their songs; radio and MTV heavily favor 3 and 4 minute singles for a variety of reasons (more songs can be played throughout the course of a day; shorter songs are easier for a mass audience to digest; etc).  Part of it is also a lack of trendiness; prog isn't exactly "in" right now, and it hasn't been for nearly 40 years. 

Part of it also though is that DT, for all their talents, have never really been able to write an entire album that was accessible to the mainstream.  The handful of progressive bands that have managed to attain big mainstream success after prog's heyday in the 70's was finished all have at least one album that is loaded with potential hit singles (Rush- Moving Pictures; Queensryche- Empire; etc.)  Dream Theater has never made a record like that, and in all probability they never will.  Without a potential hit record, or at least some sort of gimmick to draw in mainstream attention (like Trans-Siberian Orchestra), DT will always be relegated to their niche, much appreciated by their fans that love them, but largely overlooked by everyone else.

All that said, Dream Theater is insanely popular when one considers all the factors they have working against them.  A band that is a mix of 70's prog-rock and 80's metal that didn't make their debut until 1989, at the height of hair metal, just on the edge of grunge, and right before hip-hop surpassed rock as the preferred music of pissed off male teens?  By all rights, Dream Theater should barely even have a career, let alone having sold over 12 million records and getting covered in magazines like Entertainment Weekly.  The fact that they can even command such attention is a massive anomaly in the modern music business.  DT may not be selling out arenas to 20k+ crowds in the US, but they are doing quite well for themselves all things considered.  There is nothing wrong with being the biggest fish in a small pond.