30 Years of Images and Words

[cramx3]

Tomorrow is the 30th anniversary of the release of Images and Words.  My all time favorite album by any band.  Just figured it deserved a shout out 

I had to check setlist.fm but they haven't played most of these songs since the 25th anniversary tour 5 years ago.  Here's a clip of the end of Learning to Live from the last show of the 25th Anniversary tour  https://twitter.com/Cramx3/status/1544850934777495554

[faizoff]

My first album of the band, crazy I discovered them 30 years ago and is the only one I've been following consistently since then. Many bands I've followed in waves that come and go but DT has been the only one I've followed throughout.

[Deadeye21]

Just found this. Great interview.

https://youtu.be/nGUEZLXscbc

[Dream Team]

Wow! Great day in music history.

[faizoff]

Just found this. Great interview.

https://youtu.be/nGUEZLXscbc

Awesome video, I could listen to John talk for hours, he speaks so well and is calm and composed.

[Elite]

Happy birthday to my favourite (Dream Theater) album

[MirrorMask]

Unreal to think that the time that passed between the release of the album and them playing it full for the 15th anniversary (first date ever of the 2007/8 world tour), is the same time that passed since that gig and now!!!

Happy birthday Images and Words, you deserve all the praise and adoration you got over the years 

[bl5150]

I had it at #2 in my DTF Top 50 albums of all time and it was only knocked out by the childhood #1 band Van Halen.  I think it's my most collected album of all time too - I never really bother with buying the same album more than once (just this and Van Halen I in various guises) but I have I&W on CD, cassette and 4 or 5 different collectible vinyls

In my view it's as close to a perfect album as it gets and they never really got close to matching it when it comes to my taste......which is no insult to them as they set the bar so damn high.

[Lonk]

The ending of Learning to Live is my favorite musical moment, nothing comes even close to it, it's just perfect.

I'll give the album a spin today

[T-ski]

The album that opened my ears to a whole new world of music. Thanks Dream Theater!

[cramx3]

It wasn't my first DT album.  That would be Octavarium, but a girl who lived on my floor in college found out I was just starting to listen to DT and she let me borrow her Images and Words CD and it was then that I wanted to do a full deep dive into DT and them becoming one of my favorite bands.  I just had to see that I&W 25th anniversary tour 3 times when I finally had opportunities to see the album in full.

[pg1067]

I've told this story before, but I remember hearing PMU for the first time on the radio.  Southern California's metal station in the late '80s was still on the air in '92, but it was sputtering with the advent of grunge.  One of my friends tipped me off about the song, so I was making a concerted effort to listen for it.  Finally, it came on and I was blown away.

I harkened back a few years earlier.  Sometime in 1989, while Operation: Mindcrime was still popular, MTV had a little snippet about "bands you might also like if you like Queensryche."  They mentioned Fates Warning, Crimson Glory and Dream Theater.  I went to the local "underground" record store and immediately found No Exit by Fates Warning.  I bought it and was immediately hooked.  Either at the same time or soon after, I found a Crimson Glory album, but I didn't buy it because I was put off by the masks and the singer calling himself "Midnight."  Try as I might, though, I never found anything by DT.  I'm guessing that the distribution channels for WDADU resulted in it not making it to the west coast.

After several months, I forgot about DT until...late October 1991.  Fates Warning releases the Parallels album featuring, on one song, "background vocals . . . by James Labrie courtesy of Dream Theater."  So they do exist!  I looked again, but still nothing, until the summer and PMU comes on the radio.  FINALLY, I found this band.

I bought I&W immediately and played the shit out of it.  A few months later, I learned that DT would be playing at a small club near me (a club where my own band had played a couple years ago and which is now a "gentlemen's club").  My friend and I were right up front (not a difficult thing given the size of the club).  They opened with Metropolis and gunned through several tracks from I&W before pulling out Ytse Jam.  What is this?  Oh...there's another album?!  Gosh...that drum solo sounds almost exactly like Neil Peart on Exit...Stage Left.  Another Hand/The Killing Hand.  Holy crap!  And then closing the set with Learning to Live.

We hung out in the parking lot waiting for the guys to come off the tour bus.  Everyone except Kevin did so.  They were really cool and signed my I&W CD booklet (I got Kevin to sign sometime on one of the subsequent legs of the tour).  Stealing from David St. Hubbins on the Hear 'n' Aid video, when talking about Yngwie Malmsteen, I told JM his playing made me want to repurpose my bass as a coffee table.  He sheepishly responded, "well...I've been playing a long time."  What he should have said was, "yeah, well...I guess those 6 hours a day of practice paid off!"

And here we are THIRTY years later.  Fuck.  Thirty years before I&W, the Beatles didn't exist, and now it's been the same amount of time since I&W.  Damn!

[hefdaddy42]

Definitely one of the pivotal musical events of my life.  I first heard Pull Me Under on the radio in 1992, and it was all over.

[King Postwhore]

Definitely one of the pivotal musical events of my life.  I first heard Pull Me Under on the radio in 1992, and it was all over.

The same for me as well.

[Dublagent66]

Fan for 30 years. 

[romdrums]

Fates Warning releases the Parallels album featuring, on one song, "background vocals . . . by James Labrie courtesy of Dream Theater."  So they do exist!  I looked again, but still nothing, until the summer and PMU comes on the radio.  FINALLY, I found this band.

That's how I discovered DT as well!  . I found the cassette in August of 1992, and I remember listening to it on a walkman on my Grandparents' front porch.  Side A was cool and all, but when the auto reverse kicked in and brought up Side B, it was all over.  Once Met I kicked in, I was on the ropes, and by the time of the intro of UAGM, I was out for the count.  I instantly listened to it again, and again, and then the Walkman ate the cassette.  I was crushed, because my Dad was driving down to take me to see ELP in Cleveland and Detroit that week, and I really, really, really wanted to play him that tape, because I knew it was the next leap forward in progressive music, and I thought my Dad would get a huge kick out of it.  Alas, the record store I bought the cassette from didn't have another copy of I&W. The back half of I&W is still one of my favorite 30 minutes of music ever made.

[Kram]

An absolute game changer of an album for sure!

[gmillerdrake]

Definitely one of the pivotal musical events of my life.  I first heard Pull Me Under on the radio in 1992, and it was all over.

The same for me as well.

Yep....same here. It's crazy to think that it's been 30 years!!

[dparrott]

The album that opened my ears to a whole new world of music. Thanks Dream Theater!

Same here.  My first prog rock album.  Fan since it came out.

[Trav]

A perfect album. Probably my favorite album ever. A magical culmination of five musicians. They grew as songwriters and musicians over the years. And the production got better on later albums. But man, there is just something special about this one that can never be duplicated.

[wolfking]

In my view it's as close to a perfect album as it gets

I think this sums up I&W when it comes to music in general.  it stacks up against anything IMO.

[Mladen]

Great story by pg1067. I envy the people that were around when the album came out. 

[Awaken]

pg1067's intro to DT sounds very similar to mine, only I didn't hear about them until spring/summer of 1993.  Same  circle of bands, too - Crimson Glory (Transcendence is still an album I spin somewhat regularly), Fates Warning (other 'Favorite Band' ever) and DT. 

Really hard to believe I was a wee 15 year old when I first heard this band.  They've been a major component to what would eventually become the soundtrack of my life, for lack of a better way to say it.  So many thanks to this band for keepin' on - 29 years later (for me) and I'm still waiting for new DT on release day.

[Stadler]

Definitely one of the pivotal musical events of my life.  I first heard Pull Me Under on the radio in 1992, and it was all over.

The same for me as well.

Put me in that group too.  Loved it then, love it now. 

[nick_z]

Bought I&W, I think, sometime around September of 1992. In discussing music with my buddies at the time, someone had mentioned seeing this review on a magazine. A band that sounded like a mix of Metallica, Rush and Yes (or something), and an album that was a masterpiece. Fifteen year old-me knew Metallica, but not Rush and/or Yes. I was intrigued enough that when I saw the CD at my local store I went for it (hadn't seen the video for Pull Me Under, so I went in 100% blind).

Needless to say, my musical journey was changed forever  I think it's fair to say it's still my #1 favorite album of all time. It prompted lots and lots of additional musical discoveries (including Rush, of course, who proceeded to be my my favorite band). But even after discovering some of DT's "forefathers", which had an influence on the way they sounded, I&W firmly stayed on top.

Funnily enough, I had never realized the release date was July 7th. That's my wife's birthday  I guess it's fitting...although when I mentioned it to her yesterday (as I was reading posts celebrating the 30th anniversary), she didn't seem to care all that much 

[faizoff]

I've told this story before, but I remember hearing PMU for the first time on the radio.  Southern California's metal station in the late '80s was still on the air in '92, but it was sputtering with the advent of grunge.  One of my friends tipped me off about the song, so I was making a concerted effort to listen for it.  Finally, it came on and I was blown away.

I harkened back a few years earlier.  Sometime in 1989, while Operation: Mindcrime was still popular, MTV had a little snippet about "bands you might also like if you like Queensryche."  They mentioned Fates Warning, Crimson Glory and Dream Theater.  I went to the local "underground" record store and immediately found No Exit by Fates Warning.  I bought it and was immediately hooked.  Either at the same time or soon after, I found a Crimson Glory album, but I didn't buy it because I was put off by the masks and the singer calling himself "Midnight."  Try as I might, though, I never found anything by DT.  I'm guessing that the distribution channels for WDADU resulted in it not making it to the west coast.

After several months, I forgot about DT until...late October 1991.  Fates Warning releases the Parallels album featuring, on one song, "background vocals . . . by James Labrie courtesy of Dream Theater."  So they do exist!  I looked again, but still nothing, until the summer and PMU comes on the radio.  FINALLY, I found this band.

I bought I&W immediately and played the shit out of it.  A few months later, I learned that DT would be playing at a small club near me (a club where my own band had played a couple years ago and which is now a "gentlemen's club").  My friend and I were right up front (not a difficult thing given the size of the club).  They opened with Metropolis and gunned through several tracks from I&W before pulling out Ytse Jam.  What is this?  Oh...there's another album?!  Gosh...that drum solo sounds almost exactly like Neil Peart on Exit...Stage Left.  Another Hand/The Killing Hand.  Holy crap!  And then closing the set with Learning to Live.

We hung out in the parking lot waiting for the guys to come off the tour bus.  Everyone except Kevin did so.  They were really cool and signed my I&W CD booklet (I got Kevin to sign sometime on one of the subsequent legs of the tour).  Stealing from David St. Hubbins on the Hear 'n' Aid video, when talking about Yngwie Malmsteen, I told JM his playing made me want to repurpose my bass as a coffee table.  He sheepishly responded, "well...I've been playing a long time."  What he should have said was, "yeah, well...I guess those 6 hours a day of practice paid off!"

And here we are THIRTY years later.  Fuck.  Thirty years before I&W, the Beatles didn't exist, and now it's been the same amount of time since I&W.  Damn!

Great post! I was just looking back and apparently, I discovered the album in 1993 and not 1992 when it came out. One of my friends had this tape he got from either Malaysia or Singapore, can't remember where exactly and it was a compilation of Slow Rock songs and this one had Another Day as the 2nd song on the B-side. This was on Vol. 5

I found someone on Ebay selling the tape!, though the one I listened to was those clear plastic cassettes. Another Day stood out amongst all those tracks as it was stylistically so different than a typical ballad. It had a sax solo, killer guitar solo and double-bass parts which fascinated me endlessly at the time.
I had started listening to a ton of Metal in late 91 and all of 92 so was discovering a ton of music mostly Hard Rock, Heavy Metal and Thrash,  so double bass in my mind at the time was only for Thrash and to hear it on Another Day was wild.


I then happened to see the album in a music store, the store let you open CDs and try them out on a CD player with headphones and listened to Pull Me Under and was just immediately hooked. I bought the album on cassette and was completely blown away at all the styles the album had. Still such an amazing album, and holds an extremely special part in my life.

[Adami]

Good album. Didn't hear it in 1992. But I heard Metropolis Pt. 1 on a friend's request in the late 90's and that definitely changed the entire trajectory of my musical journey. Not my fav DT album, but I like and enjoy every song on it.

[ZirconBlue]

I was driving home from Michigan to Kentucky after spending the summer marching Drum & Bugle Corps.  Driving down I-75 through Cincinnati, the I heard "Pull Me Under" on the local Z-Rock affiliate station, and cranked up the radio.  Luckily the DJ mentioned the name of the band after the song.  The next day I went to Cut Corner Records, just off the University of Kentucky campus and bought Images & Words. 

[The Letter M]

I spun the album last night for the first time in awhile. And while I like the studio versions of these songs, I feel like every song on IAW is elevated in the live setting, be it from their 92/93 tour (as heard on the NYC show), or the various live albums since then, I feel like every song from IAW just hits higher levels when it's played live.

Now I have the urge to spin that NYC 93 show later on!

-Marc.

[KevShmev]

Definitely one of the pivotal musical events of my life.  I first heard Pull Me Under on the radio in 1992, and it was all over.

The same for me as well.

Put me in that group too.  Loved it then, love it now.

This is me joining the group with hef, Joe and Bill. 

I have a short list of albums that were life-changing as far as my musical trajectory went as a fan of music, and Images and Words is on that list.  30 years later, it is still amazing from start to finish.  The lyrics, the music, the production, everything is spot-on. I wouldn't change a thing about it.   

[bosk1]

I was just looking back and apparently, I discovered the album in 1993 and not 1992 when it came out.

I've always said 1992, and I'm pretty sure I heard Pull Me Under several times in 1992 and took note of it.  But I think I probably bought the album in early 1993 if I had to guess.  I just don't recall specifically when it started getting airplay.  But I remember hearing it quite a few times and really digging it, and then picking up a copy.

[Kram]

I was just looking back and apparently, I discovered the album in 1993 and not 1992 when it came out.

I've always said 1992, and I'm pretty sure I heard Pull Me Under several times in 1992 and took note of it.  But I think I probably bought the album in early 1993 if I had to guess.  I just don't recall specifically when it started getting airplay.  But I remember hearing it quite a few times and really digging it, and then picking up a copy.

My brother gave it for me for Christmas 1992.  I'll never forget that.  I remember telling him about Pull me Under (and he may of heard it on the radio himself), then he surprise me with the CD for Christmas. I think I wasn't even aware they had a full album out at that point.

[Max Kuehnau]

As I had mentioned during my roulette (which I've neglected, as I noticed recently but anyway), I/W was my gateway into DT as well, although that happened much later than for most of us here, in 1998, when I was 8. At the time, DT were one of the most out there bands that I've ever heard (I didn't discover Frank Zappa yet, but once I did, I could easily connect the dots as it were. DT were partially responsible for my discovery of him), the instrumental sections during Met1 were a brain chopper for me at the time. Needless to say, DT were in my (and my father's) life from that point on.

(Oi, Stadler, how about me getting back to my roulette then? Any objection? I'd do it though, seriously.)

[TAC]

I am not sure a new album had ever had an impact on my the way I&W did. After seeing them in June of '92, I couldn't wait for their album to be released. Then I see that they're coming to Boston in October...then again in December!! I have never fallen for a band like I did with Dream Theater.
I thought...this was the music Rush should be making. It had the progressiveness of late 70's Rush, the power of Iron Maiden, and the vocals of Helloween. Perfection.


In 1992, I was really worried about where my favorite bands were headed. I was out of college and wondering if there would ever be a new band that would interest me.

I wore my tape out. I think I played it non stop for a year.

I also remembered thinking, how could they follow this up? Where would they be in 5 years, in ten years?

They would become the soundtrack to my adult life.

[krands85]

I didn't first hear the album until halfway between its release and now - so 2007. I think DT were my first real foray in to this type of music and I&W wasn't actually something that immediately grabbed me, I guess I needed a little time for it to simmer and get my head round it. Looking at my Last.fm, early on I was mainly listening to the album they had just released - Systematic Chaos; the first DT album I actually heard - Octavarium; and the one that became my early favourite - Train of Thought.

It wasn't until the next year that I really began to appreciate I&W, though early on I seem to recall mainly being interested in Metropolis. Eventually I came to realise just how special the whole album is, it overtook ToT as my #1 DT album and then also my favourite album by anyone, with my 2 favourite songs of all time in LTL and Metropolis.

Just a phenomenal piece of art.