News: Dream Theater Forums:  Still "a thing" since 2007.

Very sad...anyone have the details as to why the band parted ways with him?

Essentially, his relationship with Aaron broke down and he was extremely frustrated with the whole process of the self-titled record. He felt it was rushed and incomplete. Like I said, I love that record. I remember playing Eyes Wide Open for a buddy who does not like Staind. I asked him who he thought it was. He couldn't tell. I told him it was Staind and he was shocked.

I just saw a comment from Johnny who called that album a cross between Tormented and Dysfunction.

I was really late picking up the latest as I have some issues with Aaron and it held me back a bit. With that said, I think Confessions is excellent and it got quite a bit of play from me. For some reason, I really love when Aaron gets into those growl vocals.

122 - Onward
119 - Sound Chaser
96 - Homeworld (The Ladder)
88 - Mood For A Day
86 - Leave It
81 - Mind Drive
72 - City Of Love
68 - The Remembering (High The Memory)
65 - The Fish
63 - The Ancients (Giants Under The Sun)
57 - I Am Waiting
56 - To Be Over
51 - Ritual

50 - Fly From Here
49 - Long Distance Runaround
48 - Parallels
47 - Changes
43 - Does It Really Happen?
39 - Hold On
37 - I've Seen All Good People
36 - Cinema
33 - Perpetual Change
31 - Endless Dream
30 - Into The Lens
28 - It Can Happen
27 - Future Times/Rejoice
26 - Owner Of A Lonely Heart
25 - Release, Release
21 - The Calling
20 - Hearts
18 - On The Silent Wings Of Freedom
15 - Love Will Find A Way
13 - Final Eyes
12 - Lift Me Up
10 - Wonderous Stories
9 - Tempus Fugit


Wonderous Stories - I LOVE that song.  I know it's short, but who cares? It's beautiful, and it makes me think of beautiful things.  In the latter day, with her growing up and moving on in the world, the song really makes me think of my daughter, and how I have to make time for her when I can.

Long Distance Runaround - Fragile is a favorite album of mine, and this to me is the best example of the immediate impact Rick Wakeman had on the band; I cannot see this song taking this form with Tony Kaye in the band.  It would be higher but for the other epic numbers on that excellent record.

To Be Over - Honestly, I just don't get Relayer.  Only one song made my Top 50, and that's even WITH "The Ladder" and "Open Your Eyes" in existence. Haha.  It's a good song, it's not something I skip, but while it's beautiful, I'm not sure I'm going to listen to this over Turn Of The Century or Awaken.

Tempus Fugit - Shouldn't have to be explained at this point; I'm a Squire guy, and that bass line... Yes! Yes!

I've Seen All Good People - I agree, this is a better song live, but it's one of those melodies that just sticks.  It's not a great song, except, well, it is.

Sound Chaser - Blech.

Out of more than 600millions monthly users, 230millions are Premiums.
Spotify makes 13.2 billions out of the 28 of the global music sales.
It's not profitable because record companies are still those who make the most out of all of this.

Good point. I remember a little while back Snoop Dogg was talking about how much he got for 1 billion streams of a song, it was some crazy low amount. What he failed to disclose is that the song had 18 different writers and sample credits and that the gross amount the song made was much higher.

I'm not defending Spotify at all but whether it's a record deal or streaming there are many avenues taken to grab more pieces of the artist pie, and of course some is to blame on the artists signing a bad deal.

This is something we will hardly ever know, but I'd be really curious to know. Would a less rigid schedule with a better performing James (and, as a result, higher attendance, but this is a big maybe) result in less profit, would it be comparable, or worse? There are too many unknowns, I guess, even for the people making these decision.

On a related note, in all those discussions about how different singers preserving or losing their voices, it would be really informative to compare their touring schedules. From my perspective, based on my - admittedly very limited - personal experience, full gas singing 5-6 days a week is just too much, something you can partially recover from when younger, but not really when age hits you. IMO, spacing of the shows is an elephant in the room as it is rarely brought up when talking about singers' performance decline, but I suspect it is one of the major factors. But more data would be needed to confirm (or refute) this claim.

Honest question, what part don't you know?   I think the only part we can't really know for sure is how the extra days impact James, and that's only because it's specific to him.  How the extra days impact profitability is just simple math.   If you've read any of the liner notes from the Fish remasters from a couple years ago, he goes into great detail on how cancelled shows (for various reasons) impact the profitability of a tour.  Add to that the location of the shows - can't just tack on a show in Munich to that tour of England and hope the profit doesn't change - and the logistics there, and you have material impacts. All calculable. 

A day off on tour costs a lot of money.  IM can take the cut I assume, maybe DT can't.  More rest does seem ideal for JLB, but the touring finances may say otherwise sadly.

This is something we will hardly ever know, but I'd be really curious to know. Would a less rigid schedule with a better performing James (and, as a result, higher attendance, but this is a big maybe) result in less profit, would it be comparable, or worse? There are too many unknowns, I guess, even for the people making these decision.

On a related note, in all those discussions about how different singers preserving or losing their voices, it would be really informative to compare their touring schedules. From my perspective, based on my - admittedly very limited - personal experience, full gas singing 5-6 days a week is just too much, something you can partially recover from when younger, but not really when age hits you. IMO, spacing of the shows is an elephant in the room as it is rarely brought up when talking about singers' performance decline, but I suspect it is one of the major factors. But more data would be needed to confirm (or refute) this claim.