Are there any bad/unlistenable DT studio albums?

[Darkstarshades]

Well, relativistic approach is correct, but to a limited extent.
You can see this in an album like The Astonishing, I consider it to be truly DT's magnum opus, yet someone else might consider it to be truly bad because of a thousand reasons. This is relative, as the writing quality of the album can only be denied by plain ignorance.
There are, however, pieces of music that are just pathethic, like many popular songs which are heard on many parties... Yet people like them!
That's something else, if you like it or not doesn't make it good or bad, it can be a really lame song to a musical ear that happens to be on every teenager party, or a huge compositional achievement by an ignored individual.

[BlackInk]

No. Just no.

Stop thinking your taste in music is better than all those "ignorant" people. Whether music is good or not isn't about how complex the composition or however mature you think the songwriting is. It's about how you feel when you listen to it, 100%. Some people like modern pop because it makes them feel good, which is completely fine. Who the fuck are you to assign "ignorance" to anyone for not liking something just because you do?

[Prog Snob]

Absolutely not, no. I wish people would get it into their heads that there is no such thing as a bad album; they're just albums that you personally don't like. Even if just 1 person on the planet likes it, the "badness" is rendered null and void.

Lol. This kind of relativistic approach rubs me the wrong way, especially when it's presented in such an arrogant manner. By this logic, nothing ever could be considered "bad," since there would always be some bloke on the planet who liked it. No bad movies, no kitschy paintings, no ugly architecture, no lame poetry, no pulp novels. Everything is just a politically correct safe space, there is no good or bad, and beauty is in the eye of the special snowflake beholders. "Null and void," like we're talking law here, give me a break. There's a lot of bad shit out there, and this type of exaggerated artistic relativism just perpetuates that.

Then who decides what is bad?

[BanksD]

Never seen a message board that has debates about subjectivity vs objectivity so often 

[Adami]

Absolutely not, no. I wish people would get it into their heads that there is no such thing as a bad album; they're just albums that you personally don't like. Even if just 1 person on the planet likes it, the "badness" is rendered null and void.

Lol. This kind of relativistic approach rubs me the wrong way, especially when it's presented in such an arrogant manner. By this logic, nothing ever could be considered "bad," since there would always be some bloke on the planet who liked it. No bad movies, no kitschy paintings, no ugly architecture, no lame poetry, no pulp novels. Everything is just a politically correct safe space, there is no good or bad, and beauty is in the eye of the special snowflake beholders. "Null and void," like we're talking law here, give me a break. There's a lot of bad shit out there, and this type of exaggerated artistic relativism just perpetuates that.

Then who decides what is bad?

I do. There, the truth is out, it's me. So if you're curious if something you like is bad, tell me what it is and I'll let you know if it's bad or not.

[Mladen]

Then who decides what is bad?

This is a very good question. If certain music is undeniably bad, who's to point to parameters and proof that we're dealing with objectively bad music? Where can we inform us about the facts that clearly imply inferiority of some bands or songs? And wouldn't it then be easy to scientifically prove low quality and therefore be able to use these methods to teach people what albums they should and which ones they shouldn't listen to?

I sometimes think people tend to label music as "objectively bad" because it hurts them to realize they cannot prove how superior their own favorites in music are to someone else's favorites. Using "objective truth" as an argument solves that problem.

As far as the limits of relativistic approaches go, that is a good point and something to think about. It's sometimes important to realize that when someone considers something "bad", it's not like every single aspect of the music in question is terrible. Sometimes the lyrics are terrible, but the tune is solid. Sometimes the melody is offensively generic, but the production has its value. Sometimes the production sounds horrendous, but the performances are actually solid. What the limited relativistic approach maybe does is that it shows there isn't any music out there that has absolutely no quality about it. Probably.

And in my opinion, Dream Theater has no bad or unlistenable albums. I very rarely listen to Falling into infinity and When dream and day unite, but it would be way too harsh to call them bad.

[Adami]

I'm pretty sure the only people who even mentioned anything being "objectively" blah blah blah were the people arguing against it.

I guess, in the end, there are some people who really need "IMO" or its equivalent mentioned in every single post. Dunno.

[Prog Snob]

Then who decides what is bad?

This is a very good question. If certain music is undeniably bad, who's to point to parameters and proof that we're dealing with objectively bad music? Where can we inform us about the facts that clearly imply inferiority of some bands or songs? And wouldn't it then be easy to scientifically prove low quality and therefore be able to use these methods to teach people what albums they should and which ones they shouldn't listen to?

I sometimes think people tend to label music as "objectively bad" because it hurts them to realize they cannot prove how superior their own favorites in music are to someone else's favorites. Using "objective truth" as an argument solves that problem.

As far as the limits of relativistic approaches go, that is a good point and something to think about. It's sometimes important to realize that when someone considers something "bad", it's not like every single aspect of the music in question is terrible. Sometimes the lyrics are terrible, but the tune is solid. Sometimes the melody is offensively generic, but the production has its value. Sometimes the production sounds horrendous, but the performances are actually solid. What the limited relativistic approach maybe does is that it shows there isn't any music out there that has absolutely no quality about it. Probably.

And in my opinion, Dream Theater has no bad or unlistenable albums. I very rarely listen to Falling into infinity and When dream and day unite, but it would be way too harsh to call them bad.

Naturally, we would first have to define what is good and what is bad. From a personal standpoint, and I know I'm not alone in this, I would define bad music as music with out of tune instruments and singers who are obviously tone deaf. However, if history has shown us anything, is that there are some people who actually find that sort of thing listenable. Some punk rock comes to mind. Personally, I find that music horrible but it does have some merit among, but not limited to, the short attention span types and those who only know three chords. However, my definition of punk being bad music would be disagreed upon by many. Am I wrong? Nobody can unequivocally say yes because the truth is there is plenty of punk rock that IS horribly out of tune. Should that automatically make music bad? One would think the inability to play the instrument properly, or at least without the cacophonous sounds, would lead to bad music. I don't care if someone thinks I'm wrong because I think out of tune instruments and tone deaf vocals DO sound horrible. Nobody can argue that because that is my opinion and an observable fact.

[BlackInk]

The annoying problem here is that while this

Even if just 1 person on the planet likes it, the "badness" is rendered null and void.

is true, it completely misses the point of the thread. There no such thing as objectively good or bad music, but this isn't a philosophy discussion thread. This is at its core an "are there any DT albums you don't like?" thread. It's such a simple question and there's no need to bog it down with definitions of obscure concepts.

[Shadow Ninja 2.0]

^ I think this is right.

I don't really think any of their albums are 'unlistenable,' but I guess I find DT12 to be pretty 'don'tlistenable.'

[Darkstarshades]

No. Just no.

Stop thinking your taste in music is better than all those "ignorant" people. Whether music is good or not isn't about how complex the composition or however mature you think the songwriting is. It's about how you feel when you listen to it, 100%. Some people like modern pop because it makes them feel good, which is completely fine. Who the fuck are you to assign "ignorance" to anyone for not liking something just because you do?

Let's see, chillout dude, nobody is insulting anyone.
I'm a big electronic music fan and frequently listen to that, and speaking of popular music, people like Bruno Mars have very high quality music writing there and great voices, so don't judge like that.
But there are certain kinds of music which repeats three notes over and over through a constant beat and sing about absolute shit topics. The thing isn't hard to do and it doesn't leave any message.

I can safely conclude that it is relative, but that it's also true that there are things that are good to a majority of people, and that depends on how accesible to everyone is the piece made. There are, however, quality standarts, which makes us facedesk everytime you see someone pay thousands for a random painting or with random paint dots around (not the white ones, since I heard that was a hoax).

[DarkLord_Lalinc]

Such a prog discussion lol

[Mosh]

This is one of the dumbest discussions ever had on this forum.

And yet, this is like the third time I've seen it happen.

[Mladen]

I don't know, I'm enjoying it. 

I also think it's very important. If it weren't for people giving more thought about the music and being maybe even slightly philosophical about it, every discussion might as well end with "this sucks", "this rules", "this is shit", "this fuckin' rawks" and stuff like that. Not to mention that if certain things were objective, we wouldn't be able to discuss them, which is what we've been doing for ages.

[Evermind]

This is one of the dumbest discussions ever had on this forum.

And yet, this is like the third time I've seen it happen.

Make it "like the tenth time" and I will agree with you.

[Prog Snob]

I don't know, I'm enjoying it. 

I also think it's very important. If it weren't for people giving more thought about the music and being maybe even slightly philosophical about it, every discussion might as well end with "this sucks", "this rules", "this is shit", "this fuckin' rawks" and stuff like that. Not to mention that if certain things were objective, we wouldn't be able to discuss them, which is what we've been doing for ages.

I don't see the harm in some insightful discussion, either. It can't all be, "my band is better than yours. neener, neener, neeeeener."  Never mind the philosophical discussion for the third or tenth time. Let's have the "your band sucks" discussion for the thousandth time. 

[Skeever]

Absolutely not, no. I wish people would get it into their heads that there is no such thing as a bad album; they're just albums that you personally don't like. Even if just 1 person on the planet likes it, the "badness" is rendered null and void.

Lol. This kind of relativistic approach rubs me the wrong way, especially when it's presented in such an arrogant manner. By this logic, nothing ever could be considered "bad," since there would always be some bloke on the planet who liked it. No bad movies, no kitschy paintings, no ugly architecture, no lame poetry, no pulp novels. Everything is just a politically correct safe space, there is no good or bad, and beauty is in the eye of the special snowflake beholders. "Null and void," like we're talking law here, give me a break. There's a lot of bad shit out there, and this type of exaggerated artistic relativism just perpetuates that.

In this case, sometimes it just strikes me as fanboyism. We're talking DT here, god forbid someone imply that the mighty prog metal maestros aren't perfect (or even just "good" all the time!)

[Dream Team]

Absolutely not, no. I wish people would get it into their heads that there is no such thing as a bad album; they're just albums that you personally don't like. Even if just 1 person on the planet likes it, the "badness" is rendered null and void.

Lol. This kind of relativistic approach rubs me the wrong way, especially when it's presented in such an arrogant manner. By this logic, nothing ever could be considered "bad," since there would always be some bloke on the planet who liked it. No bad movies, no kitschy paintings, no ugly architecture, no lame poetry, no pulp novels. Everything is just a politically correct safe space, there is no good or bad, and beauty is in the eye of the special snowflake beholders. "Null and void," like we're talking law here, give me a break. There's a lot of bad shit out there, and this type of exaggerated artistic relativism just perpetuates that.

Then who decides what is bad?

People used to clearly know what was good and bad music, movies etc. However, just as each successive generation hates more to be told anything is morally right or wrong, that has naturally bled over into entertainment where each individual feels that their view, no matter how skewed, corrupt, perverted, ignorant, etc etc is totally justifiable and "I'm right!" no matter the evidence to the contrary.

[Prog Snob]

Absolutely not, no. I wish people would get it into their heads that there is no such thing as a bad album; they're just albums that you personally don't like. Even if just 1 person on the planet likes it, the "badness" is rendered null and void.

Lol. This kind of relativistic approach rubs me the wrong way, especially when it's presented in such an arrogant manner. By this logic, nothing ever could be considered "bad," since there would always be some bloke on the planet who liked it. No bad movies, no kitschy paintings, no ugly architecture, no lame poetry, no pulp novels. Everything is just a politically correct safe space, there is no good or bad, and beauty is in the eye of the special snowflake beholders. "Null and void," like we're talking law here, give me a break. There's a lot of bad shit out there, and this type of exaggerated artistic relativism just perpetuates that.

Then who decides what is bad?

People used to clearly know what was good and bad music, movies etc. However, just as each successive generation hates more to be told anything is morally right or wrong, that has naturally bled over into entertainment where each individual feels that their view, no matter how skewed, corrupt, perverted, ignorant, etc etc is totally justifiable and "I'm right!" no matter the evidence to the contrary.

It's what happens when everyone has their hand in the cookie jar. Two generations ago there were far fewer options and most music was good, just as most movies were good. Sure there were probably still some horrible forms of music/film entertainment, but the ratio of good to bad was much better.

[BlobVanDam]

This thread is why we can't have nice things.



And every other thread.

[Prog Snob]

[Shadow Ninja 2.0]

Absolutely not, no. I wish people would get it into their heads that there is no such thing as a bad album; they're just albums that you personally don't like. Even if just 1 person on the planet likes it, the "badness" is rendered null and void.

Lol. This kind of relativistic approach rubs me the wrong way, especially when it's presented in such an arrogant manner. By this logic, nothing ever could be considered "bad," since there would always be some bloke on the planet who liked it. No bad movies, no kitschy paintings, no ugly architecture, no lame poetry, no pulp novels. Everything is just a politically correct safe space, there is no good or bad, and beauty is in the eye of the special snowflake beholders. "Null and void," like we're talking law here, give me a break. There's a lot of bad shit out there, and this type of exaggerated artistic relativism just perpetuates that.

Then who decides what is bad?

People used to clearly know what was good and bad music, movies etc. However, just as each successive generation hates more to be told anything is morally right or wrong, that has naturally bled over into entertainment where each individual feels that their view, no matter how skewed, corrupt, perverted, ignorant, etc etc is totally justifiable and "I'm right!" no matter the evidence to the contrary.

bro are you for real

[Skeever]

Absolutely not, no. I wish people would get it into their heads that there is no such thing as a bad album; they're just albums that you personally don't like. Even if just 1 person on the planet likes it, the "badness" is rendered null and void.

Lol. This kind of relativistic approach rubs me the wrong way, especially when it's presented in such an arrogant manner. By this logic, nothing ever could be considered "bad," since there would always be some bloke on the planet who liked it. No bad movies, no kitschy paintings, no ugly architecture, no lame poetry, no pulp novels. Everything is just a politically correct safe space, there is no good or bad, and beauty is in the eye of the special snowflake beholders. "Null and void," like we're talking law here, give me a break. There's a lot of bad shit out there, and this type of exaggerated artistic relativism just perpetuates that.

Then who decides what is bad?

People used to clearly know what was good and bad music, movies etc. However, just as each successive generation hates more to be told anything is morally right or wrong, that has naturally bled over into entertainment where each individual feels that their view, no matter how skewed, corrupt, perverted, ignorant, etc etc is totally justifiable and "I'm right!" no matter the evidence to the contrary.

It's what happens when everyone has their hand in the cookie jar. Two generations ago there were far fewer options and most music was good, just as most movies were good. Sure there were probably still some horrible forms of music/film entertainment, but the ratio of good to bad was much better.

What there are thousands of terrible movies and songs and albums from every generation. You just don't know about them because no one bothers with them anymore.

[Darkstarshades]

I think bad movies in the XX century were much worse than bad movies now...

[Adami]

There have always been tons and tons of terrible movies and terrible music. They just got filtered out of pop-culture and have largely been forgotten/irrelevant. On top of that, the internet brings MUCH more awareness to every movie/every album to the point that we are just more aware of the horrible stuff coming out recently than we might have been in the past.


Warning: The above post is entirely subjective. It is not meant to imply objectivity in any sense and is strictly personal opinion. End warning.

[home]

I really don't think you can say whether or not a song is good, though it does depend on how you define a good song. I you define it as enjoyable, moving or pleasent to listen for example that's entirely subjective.

There are certainly some objective qualities about music, like production quality, originality, songwriting to a certain degree etc, but they do not automatically make a song good (enjoyable to listen) There are plenty of good songs with really bad production quality.

[hefdaddy42]

There are tons of bad albums, and bad songs, and bad bands.

There are tons of bad films, and bad TV shows.  And bad actors, and bad directors, and bad writers.

There are tons of bad authors, and bad poets, and bad painters.

There are tons of bad EVERYTHING.  That is what makes the exceptional seem...exceptional.

The only thing is that there is no accounting for taste.  There are things that will appeal to person A that repulse person B, and vice versa.

So no one should object to the proposition that there are tons of bad things out there - in fact, MOST of the things out there are bad, to varying degrees.  But people aren't always going to agree on which ones are good and which one are bad.

I guarantee that the few song by DT that I find absolutely repugnant have lots of fans here.  I have no idea why they like those songs, because they are truly awful.  But for whatever reason, those songs appeal to those people.  And that's OK.  That's what makes the world go 'round.

[Prog Snob]

What there are thousands of terrible movies and songs and albums from every generation. You just don't know about them because no one bothers with them anymore.

There have always been tons and tons of terrible movies and terrible music. They just got filtered out of pop-culture and have largely been forgotten/irrelevant. On top of that, the internet brings MUCH more awareness to every movie/every album to the point that we are just more aware of the horrible stuff coming out recently than we might have been in the past.


Warning: The above post is entirely subjective. It is not meant to imply objectivity in any sense and is strictly personal opinion. End warning.

See, the both of you seem to have a problem with details. I never said there were NO bad movies or albums made in the past. I simply said the number of bad ones have increased over the years. Is this provable? Absolutely. Population has increased, which means people producing films and books and albums has increased. The number of albums released has increased over 150% in the last two decades alone. Now, going back two generations, to the time of my grandparents, how much has media production increased since then? These days it's far easier to self produce and self publish, which creates an exponential increase over the last 10-20 years. So, my original point that the ratio of bad to good is far more favorable for good going back a couple of generations holds plenty of water.

[avishwanath28]

Leaving aside the philosophical debate (not that it's unimportant in general, just not very relevant to the question at hand), I would say personally they don't have any unlistenable albums, but I don't find TOT very interesting (and I say that as a metal fan).

[DarkLord_Lalinc]

On topic, I can't listen to Black Clouds as a whole. I'm in the mood of listening to ANTR or Tuscany every now and then, but that's about it. I know the album has some great stuff, but I don't think it works that much as a 70+ min experience.

[Prog Snob]

On topic, I can't listen to Black Clouds as a whole. I'm in the mood of listening to ANTR or Tuscany every now and then, but that's about it. I know the album has some great stuff, but I don't think it works that much as a 70+ min experience.

BC&SL has grown on me over the years. It's tough when it goes up against albums like Awake or Six Degrees, but I've come to love all of the tracks. AROP is probably my least favorite song on the album but I do like the lyrics since it's about Freemasonry and secret societies in general. TCOT is a Top 10 song. TBOT has one of JP's most amazing solos. Being a writer, Wither is something that's quite personal to me. The "hopelessly drifting" section on ANTR is one of my favorite DT moments and the riffs throughout TSF are killer.

Overall, I prefer it to SC, WDADU, FII, and maybe even 8V.

[DarkLord_Lalinc]

I get what you mean! I have a weird relationship with Black Clouds:

I love A Nightmare to Remember
I hate A Rite of Passage, most boring DT song in years
I kinda like Wither
I love The Shattered Fortress but I'm not always in the mood for it
Sometimes I love The Best of Times, sometimes I don't
I love The Count of Tuscany

I can take any of those songs (the ones I like, of course) and pump them and feel just as excited as I felt when I first heard the record back in 2009, but the album doesn't work for me as a whole. I can't listen to The Best of Times after Shattered, and I can't listen to Tuscany after The Best of Times and so on, you know? I like looking at it as a cool collection of songs, but the album's flow as a whole loses me very easily.

Also, as much as I love A Nightmare to Remember, I think it's an exhausting song. Every time I listen to it I love it and I headbang and air-drum like a crazed gorilla, but I feel the urge of putting something that's not DT afterwards. It always leaves me on need on a break. Also, speaking of the album flow, it doesn't help when it's followed by one of DT's worst songs ever lol.

[Prog Snob]

The only thing I dislike about ANTR are the MP vocal parts. I don't know if you've ever listened to Dimmu Borgir, but the beginning of ANTR with the double bass and haunting keyboards are completely reminiscent of their music. It's one of DT's heaviest, and darkest, moments.

[DarkLord_Lalinc]

Yeah, same. I can't take that part seriously. I basically love everything that's before that part and everything that is after that part. Given that JLB didn't work out to that part either, I would've made a friggin' church choir sing something scary and epic or something. Not that 'Ima be a badass gang guy' approach.

I know the guitar/keys/guitar/keys trade-off is standard DT at its best, but I think that the way the solos are presented and how are played is totally badass. One of my favorite DT trade-offs.

[Dublagent66]

Are there any bad/unlistenable DT studio albums?

Yes.  However, I didn't used to think so up until about 3 years ago.  Before, it might have been a song or two here and there.  Now, it's many songs which usually ends up being a turn off to an entire album or albums.