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General => General Music Discussion => Topic started by: Dream Team on March 27, 2018, 03:34:22 PM
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Something I noticed just recently . . . obviously most albums start out with what a band feels are the strongest tracks. This was especially true in the old days of LPs and cassettes. Dream Theater is one of the few bands where I like “Side 2” better on several of their albums. Specifically:
Images & Words
Awake
Falling Into Infinity
Train of Thought
Octavarium
Black Clouds
ADTOE
This is a rare thing, over half their albums. Thinking about some of my other favorite bands with extensive discographies, Maiden has a few like that and I feel Metallica’s albums have been fairly well balanced when it comes to the track listing (TBA and HWTSD being obvious exceptions).
What does everyone think? How common is it for one of your favorite bands to have weaker songs on Side A?
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2112
Just kidding....
Genesis - Foxtrot
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2112
Just kidding....
J Dude, the way you've been posting lately, it's hard to tell! :lol
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But to be honest....I think you're right. The more I thought about it, nearly all my favorite albums are much stronger on Side 1 than Side 2. Even modern albums that tend to have a natural "halfway point", the first half is stronger. The Mountain springs to mind. Even though that is a nearly perfect album, I still put the first half as much stronger than the ending.
Operation Mindcrime is a side 1 album
So is Hemispheres.
Actually, I would say side 2 of Rage For Order is possibly stronger than Side 1....but it's almost a dead heat.
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Pink Floyd's Meddle is the first to come to mind. Side A is great, but Echoes is another level to anything the band had done before, and with a couple of exceptions (Shine On You Crazy Diamond and Dogs), anything they'd do after.
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DT12 songs 5-9
Mike Lepond's Silent Assassins songs 5-9
Rush. Caress of Steele
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-Every DT album
-Avenged Sevenfold: City of Evil and The Stage
-Metallica: Ride the Lightning and Death Magnetic
-All That Remains: The Fall of Ideals
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Styx - Pieces of Eight
Side A is really good, but Side B slays it.
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Pink Floyd's Meddle is the first to come to mind. Side A is great, but Echoes is another level to anything the band had done before, and with a couple of exceptions (Shine On You Crazy Diamond and Dogs), anything they'd do after.
I'd actually say, and this coming from a Floyd fan, that Side A is mediocre at best. The fact that on Side B the sole song is Echoes makes this a more clear choice for me.
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Great thread!
few albums that come to mind:
Savatage- edge of thorns
The who- who's next
Black Sabbath- Sabbath bloody sabbath
The Beatles- Abbey Road
Queen- Queen II
Helloween- Keeper of the seven keys
Tesla- the great radio controversy
Opeth- orchid
Genesis- trespass
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'Dark Side of the Moon' just to get the obvious one out of the way. And, of course, 'Abbey Road' (my go to side after an extremely tough or exhausting day)
'A Night At The Opera', 'A Day At The Races', and 'News Of The World'
I'll also mention 'Synchronicity'.
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Probably not a lot of Offspring fans here, but yesterday I was listening to "Ixnay on the Hombre" and trying to figure out why I used to like that album so much through the first 5 or so songs. Started getting really good by track 6, but those first few tracks aren't very good at all. Definitely a better B side with Amazed, All I Want, Change the World, etc...
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The Decemberists - Picaresque.
1. "The Infanta"
2. "We Both Go Down Together"
3. "Eli, the Barrow Boy"
4. "The Sporting Life"
5. "The Bagman's Gambit"
6. "From My Own True Love (Lost at Sea)"
VS
7. "Sixteen Military Wives"
8. "The Engine Driver"
9. "On the Bus Mall"
10. "The Mariner's Revenge Song"
11. "Of Angels and Angles"
Side 1 great, Side 2 Awesome.
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GREAT call on Sabbath Bloody Sabbath.
I'd put Screaming For Vengeance in here too:
Screaming For Vengeance
You've Got Another Thing Comin'
Fever
Devil's Child
Number Of The Beast (the way it was supposed to be):
Number Of The Beast
Run To The Hills
Total Eclipse
Hallowed Be Thy Name
Powerslave:
Back In The Village
Powerslave
Rime Of The Ancient Mariner
I might even put Destroyer here:
Flaming Youth
Sweet Pain
Shout It Out Loud
Beth
Do You Love Me?
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Michael Jackson's Thriller had the biggest hits on Side-B, same with Mr. Mister's Welcome to the Real World.
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Talking about "sides" with albums that came out in 1988 or later is a bit tough (that's when I stopped buying LPs or cassettes), so with DT, you end up looking for an arbitrary "first half" and "second half."
If you assume that the break in I&W is between Surrounded and Metropolis, then I&W would definitely fit the bill. I think DT's subsequent albums have been too long to think of in terms of "sides." For example, if FII, had been released on vinyl (maybe it was; I don't know), it would have to have been a double album, right?
Others:
Iron Maiden - The Number of the Beast and Powerslave (DESPITE Back in the Village)
Led Zeppelin - In Through the Out Door
Metallica - Ride the Lightning
Ozzy Osbourne - Blizzard of Ozz
Styx - Equinox and Pieces of Eight
Triumph - Allied Forces and Thunder Seven
UFO - Force It
Yes - Going for the One (this is a little iffy
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Dream Theater almost always structures their albums to end with a bang which is why the second halves are always stronger. The exception would be the concept albums, SFAM and The Astonishing, and I think it's because they take the idea of a concept album seriously that latter songs reprise a lot of the musical themes in the later spngs are callbacks to the first set of songs.
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UFO - Force It
LOVE the UFO references lately!
Side A:
Let It Roll
Shoot Shoot
High Flyer
Love Lost Love
Out In The Street
Side B:
Mother Mary
Too Much Of Nothing
Dance Your Life Away
This Kids
I gotta go with Side A, bro.
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UFO - Force It
LOVE the UFO references lately!
Side A:
Let It Roll
Shoot Shoot
High Flyer
Love Lost Love
Out In The Street
Side B:
Mother Mary
Too Much Of Nothing
Dance Your Life Away
This Kids
I gotta go with Side A, bro.
My favorite UFO album. But I'm going with side A too.
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Iron Maiden - The Number of the Beast and Powerslave (DESPITE Back in the Village)
Don't you mean "BECAUSE", since it's the best song on the album? :)
(It's not the "best" but it's one of my favorites).
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I think side B of Journey's Escape is better than side A but that's not saying much because the whole record is nearly flawless
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I think side B of Journey's Escape is better than side A but that's not saying much because the whole record is nearly flawless
:tup
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Operation Mindcrime is a side 1 album
So is Hemispheres.
I agree on Hemispheres, even though the whole album is solid gold! As for Operation Mindcrime, I like side two way better...
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UFO - Force It
LOVE the UFO references lately!
Side A:
Let It Roll
Shoot Shoot
High Flyer
Love Lost Love
Out In The Street
Side B:
Mother Mary
Too Much Of Nothing
Dance Your Life Away
This Kids
I gotta go with Side A, bro.
Can't go wrong with either side, but Mother Mary and This Kid's are both top 5 UFO songs for me, so that tips the scale.
Iron Maiden - The Number of the Beast and Powerslave (DESPITE Back in the Village)
Don't you mean "BECAUSE", since it's the best song on the album? :)
(It's not the "best" but it's one of my favorites).
Nope...not only do I think Back in the Village is the worst song on Powerslave, I would say it's the worst song on any of the first four Dickinson albums.
Operation Mindcrime is a side 1 album
So is Hemispheres.
I agree on Hemispheres, even though the whole album is solid gold! As for Operation Mindcrime, I like side two way better...
I couldn't possibly choose between sides on Hemispheres, and the same is probably true with Mindcrime, but was Mindcrime really released on a single vinyl record? The song lengths on Wikipedia give side 1 a running time of 25:43, which is pretty long but not unheard of (comparable to both sides of Powerslave), but it shows side 2 as having a running time of 33:17, which just seems ridiculous.
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Rush - Hemispheres!
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Talking about "sides" with albums that came out in 1988 or later is a bit tough (that's when I stopped buying LPs or cassettes), so with DT, you end up looking for an arbitrary "first half" and "second half."
If you assume that the break in I&W is between Surrounded and Metropolis, then I&W would definitely fit the bill. I think DT's subsequent albums have been too long to think of in terms of "sides." For example, if FII, had been released on vinyl (maybe it was; I don't know), it would have to have been a double album, right?
I came in here to say this - Using the term "sides" in context to albums that were originally released on CD is a bit difficult. Some bands didn't think about music in terms of sides after CDs became mainstream, and if they did, it was because a vinyl release came out as well.
In today's world of vinyl-resurgence, it's possible many modern albums (in the last ten years) have vinyls where track order was created with the vinyl format in mind again, but for most 60+ minute albums, these tend to be double vinyl albums, so "side B" is just one side of 3 or 4, which isn't what we're really discussing here.
Titling the topic "Albums where the 2nd half is stronger" would be more apt to cover all bases, both CD and Vinyl, or even Cassette.
In the case of Dream Theater albums after IAW, we've gotten vinyls for nearly all of them, I believe, including the above mentioned Falling Into Infinity (https://www.discogs.com/Dream-Theater-Falling-Into-Infinity/release/5107286), all of which were double vinyl sets.
-Marc.
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I'm thinking pretty much on 2nd half of albums. If there's 10 songs, it would be 6-10..
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I'm thinking pretty much on 2nd half of albums. If there's 10 songs, it would be 6-10..
But in the case of something like SDOIT, that's like putting TGP/BF/Misunderstood against TGD/Disappear/SDOIT, which seems hardly unfair.
I would go with length divided in half to determine where the A/B split would be, to be closer to how vinyl albums worked.
-Marc.
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Yeah, that makes sense as far as the time thing goes. :tup
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Interesting factoid regarding Operation Mindcrime.
Suite Sister Mary posed a big problem because it made the album lopsided no matter which half you put it on. For the narrative, it belonged as the end of “act 1”....but the time was just slightly more balanced if you put it at the beginning of side 2. This was important to consider at the time, because if you wanted to listen to it in the car, you had to make a cassette copy. (Many of us were only just beginning to get CD players, and almost no one had them in their car.)
But the OFFICIAL release was done both ways, actually.
The cassette had Suite Sister Mary at the end of side 1. This was the actual artistic intention, as SSM does end “act 1” of the story. But it created a very annoying LOOOONG gap of silence at the end of side 2.
But the vinyl release has SSM beginning side 2 because of the limitations of time on an LP.
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Tarkus
Just kidding.
For me they are often the album where the center piece is on the second side.
Genesis - Foxtrot (Side A is fantastic, but Supper's Ready is just, you know.. Supper's Ready.)
Camel - Moonmadness
Creed - Weathered (Probably not too popular here, and there doesn't even exist a Vinyl version of it (so no "B-side"), but the second half of this album has just such great songs. Hide, Don't Stop Dancing, Stand Here With Me, Lullaby....)
Dave Brubeck - Time Out (First side has the "proggy" Blue Rondo, Strange Meadow Lark with its beautiful intro and the famous Take Five. But the second side is AT LEAST just as good, if not even better.)
I agree on Meddle by Pink Floyd
Possibly Yes - Going For The One (then again, Turn Of The Century is just magic)
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Having mulled it over...
I really love the second half of Electric Light Orchestra's first album, but never really listen to the first side much.
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Some great candidates cited here. I suppose to make it a little tougher we should only consider albums where there isn’t an all-time classic epic closer (which is why I chose Octavarium for example).
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Scrolling through my album list, I can only find two thus far that fit this category:
Operation: Mindcrime
Deadwing
The first has been mentioned. Not sure the second has, but I've only casually scanned the replies thus far.
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Abbey Road is the really obvious one. I'd also say SW's Insurgentes and Deep Purple's Machine Head; love both albums but in both cases the second halves are just slightly better than the first
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I don't own anything with a side a or b, so I'll just go with the 2nd half. For me, Angra's Temple of Shadows is the first album that came to mind. First half is great, 2nd is kinda Astonishing (hey, my phone automatically capitalizes that...)
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But in the case of something like SDOIT, that's like putting TGP/BF/Misunderstood against TGD/Disappear/SDOIT, which seems hardly unfair.
Ummm...
Interesting factoid regarding Operation Mindcrime.
Suite Sister Mary posed a big problem because it made the album lopsided no matter which half you put it on. For the narrative, it belonged as the end of “act 1”....but the time was just slightly more balanced if you put it at the beginning of side 2. This was important to consider at the time, because if you wanted to listen to it in the car, you had to make a cassette copy. (Many of us were only just beginning to get CD players, and almost no one had them in their car.)
But the OFFICIAL release was done both ways, actually.
The cassette had Suite Sister Mary at the end of side 1. This was the actual artistic intention, as SSM does end “act 1” of the story. But it created a very annoying LOOOONG gap of silence at the end of side 2.
But the vinyl release has SSM beginning side 2 because of the limitations of time on an LP.
I'm somewhat amazed that they could get over 33 minutes of music on one side of a vinyl record. I remember Maiden making a big deal out of the fact that they had 25+ minutes on each side of Powerslave.
I copied my Mindcrime CD onto a C60 cassette for the car and had to split SSM between the two sides. I remember meticulously fading out the volume level on side one and then starting the song over and fading in at the start of side two. Not sure why I didn't just use a C90, but I assume it was because I'd only be able to add portions of some other album and didn't want to do that.