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Dream Theater => Dream Theater => Topic started by: Architeuthis on May 10, 2023, 02:46:40 AM
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Why PMU ???
This has had me perplexed for years. We all know that Pull Me Under is a great song and that it really put Dream Theater on the map.
DT now has 15 strong studio albums with many outstanding tracks. Many of these songs are just as good and some are superior to PMU as far as I'm concerned. How is it that not even one DT song since then has gotten the same type of recognition? They have been one of the hardest working bands in the business and they deserve to have more than one big hit.
I know they got a grammy for The Alien, but it never received mainstream recognition outside of DT's hard-core fan base like PMU did.
Has it been bad promoters, lack of press, or lame record companies and radio stations turning their back on the band??
Out of DT's immense and impressive catalog, why PMU? :-\
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It was striking lightning in a bottle I guess. It's not that Pull Me Under is far superior to other accessible songs in the DT catalog, it's just that it was the perfect convergence of the musical climate of the time, the right song and the right moment essentially.
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So it makes me wonder why that didn't start a chain reaction leading to more DT hits. They have caught lightning in a bottle many times since then as far as great songs go. If PMU garnered that much attention, you'd think that would be just the beginning of many more to come. What happened?
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What happened?
Grunge, I guess?
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Yeah, I mean, as someone who came of age during that time period, the answer is pretty obvious.
No one with long hair and shredding guitar solos was going to have a string of hits on alt-rock radio in 1994. Nothing personal and certainly not a reflection on DT—it’s just business.
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Yeah, I mean, as someone who came of age during that time period, the answer is pretty obvious.
No one with long hair and shredding guitar solos was going to have a string of hits on alt-rock radio in 1994. Nothing personal and certainly not a reflection on DT—it’s just business.
Pretty much says it all.
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Dude, PMU is the greatest hit. Everyone knows that. What's the big mystery? :lol
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It is odd, though. Songs like this never get the chance to go mainstream, and yet, Pull me under not only made it, but younger fans latch onto it more than onto other songs. There's something about it.
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Ok skip the nineties (grunge era). DT has put out plenty of albums the following two decades, you'd think that at least one of their songs or more would have caught on at some point. 💫
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Ok skip the nineties (grunge era). DT has put out plenty of albums the following two decades, you'd think that at least one of their songs or more would have caught on at some point. 💫
I personally don't like the song, but didn't Panic Attack get some considerable success?
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They needed to make a video for another rockin' song like PMU, instead they kept trying to have a Mr Big/Extreme ballad hit (Another Day, The Silent Man, Hollow Years), which didn't work out.
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Ok skip the nineties (grunge era). DT has put out plenty of albums the following two decades, you'd think that at least one of their songs or more would have caught on at some point. 💫
I personally don't like the song, but didn't Panic Attack get some considerable success?
It was in the video game Rock Band 2, which was my first exposure to the band. That game came out when rhythm games were at their peak in popularity, ‘08-‘10.
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Why PMU ???
This has had me perplexed for years. We all know that Pull Me Under is a great song and that it really put Dream Theater on the map.
DT now has 15 strong studio albums with many outstanding tracks. Many of these songs are just as good and some are far superior to PMU as far as I'm concerned. How is it that not even one DT song since then has gotten the same type of recognition?
Serendipitous timing.
Has it been bad promoters, lack of press, or lame record companies and radio stations turning their back on the band?
No, no, no and yes. The radio part is easy. Very few people still listen to terrestrial radio to hear new rock music. I assume DT gets played on certain satellite radio stations, but I assume people who listen to those stations are already fans of the particular genre being played.
The reality is that PMU's success was an absolute fluke. People were still listening to terrestrial radio. While grunge had taken over, there's still heaviness to grunge, and there were still radio stations that played metal. MTV was also still playing music videos. The better question than why PMU is why was it PMU and not Another Day, which has "radio hit" written all over it.
They needed to make a video for another rockin' song like PMU, instead they kept trying to have a Mr Big/Extreme ballad hit (Another Day, The Silent Man, Hollow Years), which didn't work out.
You mean like Take the Time and Lie?
I personally don't like the song, but didn't Panic Attack get some considerable success?
I think it got a bit of a bump as a result of being included on one of the Guitar Hero/Rock Band video games, but I don't think it could be called "considerable success."
DT has put out plenty of albums the following two decades, you'd think that at least one of their songs or more would have caught on at some point.
I wouldn't. I can't think of a single song by any band that is anything like PMU that has had any degree of mainstream success. Even PMU didn't have significant mainstream success. It hit #68 on the U.S. singles charts, but it dropped off pretty quickly. While I&W was certified Gold by the RIAA, PMU never hit Gold status. The success was in the hard rock/metal community - i.e., people who were predisposed to that type of music. In my case, I was seeing most of the bands I liked take turns for the worse, and DT came along and renewed my faith a bit.
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I think it was because they all ran out and put on their best shirts.
:neverusethis:
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Ok skip the nineties (grunge era). DT has put out plenty of albums the following two decades, you'd think that at least one of their songs or more would have caught on at some point. 💫
DT was a metal band who had their success during the "hair metal" era. Once that scene had passed, radio program managers mostly wouldn't even listen to any new DT singles. There are a few DT songs that could have been hits after that, if they had been released by a new band. But, the same songs arriving with the "Dream Theater" name on the label wouldn't have been given the time of day by radio program managers.
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Ok skip the nineties (grunge era). DT has put out plenty of albums the following two decades, you'd think that at least one of their songs or more would have caught on at some point. 💫
DT was a metal band who had their success during the "hair metal" era. Once that scene had passed, radio program managers mostly wouldn't even listen to any new DT singles. There are a few DT songs that could have been hits after that, if they had been released by a new band. But, the same songs arriving with the "Dream Theater" name on the label wouldn't have been given the time of day by radio program managers.
That is so strange. DT was new onto the scene at that time, and the Images and words tour was also called by ticketmaster a "Rising Star" tour. Why wouldn't radio stations be interested in a young hungry band with tons of talent and a great singer? DT were just getting off the ground with a full tank.
Also I remember hearing Take the Time on the radio a bunch of times. Why did PMU and TTT fizzle out so fast while Queensryche, STP, Jane's Addiction, etc etc songs are still staples on hard rock radio to this day. 🤔
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I didn't read every post here, but I'm not seeing key letters: MTV. I got into DT at this time; I saw the video, I then heard the tune on radio (WPLR in New Haven, that played a lot of the songs we heard/saw on MTV) and got into the record.
The success of PMU has almost ZERO to do with the quality of that song, individually, or in relation to other songs in the catalogue. I was there; this was something different, and that's why it made a sort of splash (again, let's not overplay this; "PMU" was NOT "Thriller" or "Hungry Like The Wolf"). There are a 100 or more bands/songs that were something interesting in the video age that made a splash, and the bands have been relatively chasing that success ever since. The difference is, credit to the band - mainly Mike and John, sorry, but it's true - for keeping the band in ever-expanding waters. Most bands just did the "album/tour (as an arena opener)/album/tour (as an arena opener)" cycle until they burnt it to the ground. DT didn't really do that.
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Ok skip the nineties (grunge era). DT has put out plenty of albums the following two decades, you'd think that at least one of their songs or more would have caught on at some point. 💫
DT was a metal band who had their success during the "hair metal" era. Once that scene had passed, radio program managers mostly wouldn't even listen to any new DT singles. There are a few DT songs that could have been hits after that, if they had been released by a new band. But, the same songs arriving with the "Dream Theater" name on the label wouldn't have been given the time of day by radio program managers.
That is so strange. DT was new onto the scene at that time, and the Images and words tour was also called by ticketmaster a "Rising Star" tour. Why wouldn't radio stations be interested in a young hungry band with tons of talent and a great singer? DT were just getting off the ground with a full tank.
Also I remember hearing Take the Time on the radio a bunch of times. Why did PMU and TTT fizzle out so fast while Queensryche, STP, Jane's Addiction, etc etc songs are still staples on hard rock radio to this day. 🤔
I have to ask...how old are you?
My reason for the question is that if, like me, you are in you forties (or older), then I suspect you will remember the sea-change that occurred EVERYWHERE (radio/tv/magazine/fashion).
Honestly, the answer to every question you've posed seems painfully obvious (at least to me).
Anecdote time: I tagged along with my older sister to the mall the day she picked up Images & Words (bc of "Pull Me Under"), and a couple of weeks later I remember asking if I could borrow the cassette. She obliged, but the funniest part is, when I asked her if she liked the rest of the album, she said she never made it past the third song.
Let's be honest—if, like my sister, your favorite songs at the time were "Silent Lucidity," "Enter Sandman," and whatever Bon Jovi song was charting, the majority of Images & Words was probably not going to be your thing.
Don't get me wrong, I LOVE the album, but I am not at all confused why it didn't get more run alongside STP, Nirvana, and Tupac on MTV.
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Let's be honest—if, like my sister, your favorite songs at the time were "Silent Lucidity," "Enter Sandman," and whatever Bon Jovi song was charting, the majority of Images & Words was probably not going to be your thing.
Don't get me wrong, I LOVE the album, but I am not at all confused why it didn't get more run alongside STP, Nirvana, and Tupac on MTV.
This exactly.
There was also this little thing called grunge that happened.
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I'm not arguing with either of you, but grunge just sealed a deal that had already been reached in a hand-shake agreement. :) I love DT, top band for me, and Images and Words is in my top five or so albums of all time, but having been there at the time, I didn't then and don't see now a path for them having a sequence of radio/MTV hits. It WAS a fluke, in the sense of it was being in the right place at the right time. It wasn't likely happening again even without grunge (though, to complicate matters, grunge happened in large part as a result of the phenomenon I'm talking about, so it was arguably inevitable).
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Ok skip the nineties (grunge era). DT has put out plenty of albums the following two decades, you'd think that at least one of their songs or more would have caught on at some point. 💫
DT was a metal band who had their success during the "hair metal" era. Once that scene had passed, radio program managers mostly wouldn't even listen to any new DT singles. There are a few DT songs that could have been hits after that, if they had been released by a new band. But, the same songs arriving with the "Dream Theater" name on the label wouldn't have been given the time of day by radio program managers.
That is so strange. DT was new onto the scene at that time, and the Images and words tour was also called by ticketmaster a "Rising Star" tour. Why wouldn't radio stations be interested in a young hungry band with tons of talent and a great singer? DT were just getting off the ground with a full tank.
Also I remember hearing Take the Time on the radio a bunch of times. Why did PMU and TTT fizzle out so fast while Queensryche, STP, Jane's Addiction, etc etc songs are still staples on hard rock radio to this day. 🤔
I'm curious about your reference to Ticketmaster. This was 30 years ago. How do you know how Ticketmaster referred to the tour? I attended four shows on the I&W tour cycle. I have no recollection how Ticketmaster referred to the tour (or whether I actually bought tickets through Ticketmaster, which I doubt for at least the first two shows I saw in November 1992).
As for what radio stations were interested in at the time, as everyone else has said, it was grunge, and by the time Awake was released, and the somewhat grungy "Lie" was released as a single, radio stations weren't terribly interested in heavy rock at all. As far as why DT didn't stick for the modern day "classic rock" radio stations, I have no idea, but I would guess it's WAY more of a metal song than anything else those stations play, and none of those program directors are interested in scouring DT's catalog for some less metal songs when they do just fine with the same songs they've been playing for 3+ decades.
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Ok skip the nineties (grunge era). DT has put out plenty of albums the following two decades, you'd think that at least one of their songs or more would have caught on at some point. 💫
DT was a metal band who had their success during the "hair metal" era. Once that scene had passed, radio program managers mostly wouldn't even listen to any new DT singles. There are a few DT songs that could have been hits after that, if they had been released by a new band. But, the same songs arriving with the "Dream Theater" name on the label wouldn't have been given the time of day by radio program managers.
That is so strange. DT was new onto the scene at that time, and the Images and words tour was also called by ticketmaster a "Rising Star" tour. Why wouldn't radio stations be interested in a young hungry band with tons of talent and a great singer? DT were just getting off the ground with a full tank.
Also I remember hearing Take the Time on the radio a bunch of times. Why did PMU and TTT fizzle out so fast while Queensryche, STP, Jane's Addiction, etc etc songs are still staples on hard rock radio to this day. 🤔
I have to ask...how old are you?
My reason for the question is that if, like me, you are in you forties (or older), then I suspect you will remember the sea-change that occurred EVERYWHERE (radio/tv/magazine/fashion).
Honestly, the answer to every question you've posed seems painfully obvious (at least to me).
Anecdote time: I tagged along with my older sister to the mall the day she picked up Images & Words (bc of "Pull Me Under"), and a couple of weeks later I remember asking if I could borrow the cassette. She obliged, but the funniest part is, when I asked her if she liked the rest of the album, she said she never made it past the third song.
Let's be honest—if, like my sister, your favorite songs at the time were "Silent Lucidity," "Enter Sandman," and whatever Bon Jovi song was charting, the majority of Images & Words was probably not going to be your thing.
Don't get me wrong, I LOVE the album, but I am not at all confused why it didn't get more run alongside STP, Nirvana, and Tupac on MTV.
This is a good post. In addition to what you and others have said - I think PMU had some success because it has a catchy chorus, a catchy pre-chorus and a nice Metallicaesque chuggy riff that the public could latch onto, while still sounding somewhat "fresh" at the time. A lot of the other songs on the album were too heavy or proggy to have mainstream success. And then, as everyone has been pointing out, the grunge craze took over.
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Sometimes you are just in the perfect place at the perfect time. It doesn't need to come down to a simple explanation because I don't think it exists. PMU was the right song at the right time. While we, as DT fans, might argue there's been other instances for that, the general public would disagree it seems.
I actually played PMU for my gf recently for the first time and said this was DT's only "hit" and she was a bit flabbergasted how it became a hit since it's still a relatively long song for MTV. But if we put ourselves back at that time, it might make a lot more sense (I was only a child and not familiar so it's not an experience I can relate to).
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The fact that Pull Me Under was even a hit at all is a miracle, but Dream Theater is one of the few one hit wonders who are successful in SPITE of that fact instead of BECAUSE of it. They were able to gain an audience with one unlikely hit, and being a prog band, they were able to maintain that fanbase for their career, as prog fans are few and far between, but are also fiercely loyal.
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Just backing up that I definitely saw Dream Theater on the “rising star” portion of their tour of North America. Tickets were offered at a discounted price. This has been a regular thing for decades in my area. Although I didn’t know it was a Ticketmaster thing, I thought it was a local radio station thing. Some new band that has a hit single comes to a local theater that might be larger than usual for that band, but they fill it because the tickets are offered at a discounted price.
In my case, local radio station, 99.9 KISW had actually been playing PMU and the “Rising Star” ticket prices were always $9.99 per ticket.
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This song has a timeless and enduring power that I think crosses generations. You could say the same for the entire album. I was not "there when" and yet, Images and Words is my #1 ranking album. In fact, you could say the same about all of their music that it sounds as new and relevant as the day it was written. Truly, in a word, timeless. Not to mention it provides an alternate reality from the mindless drivel that the music world has been mostly putting out over the last 15 or 20 years.
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Just backing up that I definitely saw Dream Theater on the “rising star” portion of their tour of North America. Tickets were offered at a discounted price. This has been a regular thing for decades in my area. Although I didn’t know it was a Ticketmaster thing, I thought it was a local radio station thing. Some new band that has a hit single comes to a local theater that might be larger than usual for that band, but they fill it because the . are offered at a discounted price.
In my case, local radio station, 99.9 KISW had actually been playing PMU and the “Rising Sttar” ticket prices were always $9.99 per ticket.
Yes! I remember only paying ten dollars per ticket for that show at the Paramount Theater in Seattle. It also said "Rising Star" on the ticket stub from Ticketmaster. I wish I still had that stub but it somehow escaped my oversight in the last 30 years.
Somebody else asked how old I was at that time, I was 21 years old in 1993. DT was my saving grace through the nineties while most of my friends jumped on the grunge bandwagon.
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The stars certainly had to align for PMU to become a hit at the time, but circumstances can only take a song so far. PMU had drive, melody and sing-along catchiness to its verses and especially the chorus that stood out while the surrounding parts, while not as straight-forward as in standard rock and metal, never got overly in the way of the song's flow or ruined the mood in any way. And in that way it does stand out in DT's discography at the time, as I can't say the same for their subsequent attempts to score a hit. And let's not kid ourselves, they DID try for years. Awake had lots of short and somewhat streamlined songs, but catchy choruses were not what that album is known for, and the FII era saw lots of further attempts that had them dial down the metal aspect, but without really adding a whole lot of melody in return. None of these songs were nearly as catchy and focused as PMU, so their lack of traction with the public doesn't strike me as surprising, even completely disregarding popular music trends and whatnot. What was the next song that even came close in the self-produced era? Maybe As I Am, over a decade after PMU? But even that is very far from having a catchy sing-along chorus. Panic Attack? Catchy in parts, but too convoluted to become a hit. Forsaken? That one hardly became a classic even among DT's fans, much less their detractors. And then we're already over 15 years away from PMU without a song that at least seems like a potential hit, if we're being honest.
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Forsaken? That one hardly became a classic even among DT's fans, much less their detractors.
Ironically, I think Forsaken is the easiest and most streamlined song that COULD have been a (minor) hit. It was not even that heavy. For the record, I love that song!
You're so right in saying that Pull Me Under flows so well. MP called A Rite of Passage the equivalent of PMU but if he really thought that a song that stops in the middle to go into a "never ending" solo section disjointed from the rest of the song could make it big......
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Ironically, I think Forsaken is the easiest and most streamlined song that COULD have been a (minor) hit. It was not even that heavy. For the record, I love that song!
I love Forsaken. It's actually in my top 5 songs.
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Let's be honest—if, like my sister, your favorite songs at the time were "Silent Lucidity," "Enter Sandman," and whatever Bon Jovi song was charting, the majority of Images & Words was probably not going to be your thing.
Don't get me wrong, I LOVE the album, but I am not at all confused why it didn't get more run alongside STP, Nirvana, and Tupac on MTV.
This exactly.
There was also this little thing called grunge that happened.
Well, as someone who was 12-years old when PMU debuted, and was a HUGE fan of QR's Empire, Metallica's entire catalog, and listened to 2Pac & Dre with regularity, my group of friends can be the exception to that thought. I remember seeing the PMU video and thinking "this band is incredible... I want more of this". PMU got just as much air-guitar from me as Silent Lucidity, Jet City Woman, and Sad But True, just had to move the fingers faster.
Grunge happened that's true, with some truly standout bands like STP, Pearl Jam, Alice in Chains, etc; for me and the majority of my friends, we just incorporated Grunge into our tastes. I clearly remember getting ready for AAU B-ball games and listening to Ozzy Live & Loud, Dre's Chronic, Alice in Chains Dirt, as well as PMU. PMU really was lightning in a bottle for that time period and honestly still is... I mean, I turned my girlfriend (who is now my wife and attends DT shows with me) into a DT fan in 2004 when we saw the TOT show in DC. And we rode home listening to DT, Train, and Creed.
I was blessed to have friends that expanded my musical tastes growing up and I know that I may be the exception to the rule, but PMU will still turn people on to DT, even today. I think that's why they are including it.
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Why PMU ???
This has had me perplexed for years. We all know that Pull Me Under is a great song and that it really put Dream Theater on the map.
DT now has 15 strong studio albums with many outstanding tracks. Many of these songs are just as good and some are superior to PMU as far as I'm concerned. How is it that not even one DT song since then has gotten the same type of recognition? They have been one of the hardest working bands in the business and they deserve to have more than one big hit.
I know they got a grammy for The Alien, but it never received mainstream recognition outside of DT's hard-core fan base like PMU did.
Has it been bad promoters, lack of press, or lame record companies and radio stations turning their back on the band??
Out of DT's immense and impressive catalog, why PMU? :-\
I remember when that album came out. Pull Me Under was getting a fair of play on MTV, college radio and what few hard rock/metal radio stations were around at the time. I agree with you that it's a good song, but may not be the best song off of Images and Words let alone their entire catalogue. I love them, but they had/have a few things working against them in terms of having hits. First, the music landscape changed drastically in the 1990s with emergence of grunge. Now, rock music in general, at least in the U.S., has become far less popular that hip-hop. Second, they don't write too many radio-friendly songs. Even their shorter songs tend to be longer and are progressive. When rock radio was more of a thing, most songs on the air were probably under five minutes long.
I guess it's fair to say that the things that make Dream Theater's music so popular with its fans, work against it having mass appeal. I'm glad they had the integrity to continue to make the kind of music that they and we love rather than chase more commercial success.
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Has anyone mentioned that the video is a heavily edited version of the song? There's no way Pull Me Under would have been a hit at full length, but cut out some of the repeats and get us to that juicy chorus a bit faster, and I can understand mainstream actually liking it.
The video, and that version of the song, is what became a hit.
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Has anyone mentioned that the video is a heavily edited version of the song? There's no way Pull Me Under would have been a hit at full length, but cut out some of the repeats and get us to that juicy chorus a bit faster, and I can understand mainstream actually liking it.
The video, and that version of the song, is what became a hit.
That's very true, but no, I don't think anyone has mentioned it.
After it started blowing up, my local rock station started playing the album version, as well as other album tracks like Take the Time and Under a Glass Moon.
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Take the Time I can understand, but Under a Glass Moon must've blown some minds.
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Has anyone mentioned that the video is a heavily edited version of the song? There's no way Pull Me Under would have been a hit at full length, but cut out some of the repeats and get us to that juicy chorus a bit faster, and I can understand mainstream actually liking it.
The video, and that version of the song, is what became a hit.
Being that I was too young to experience this in real time, I did not take that into consideration but that makes a lot of sense.
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So, I have to be honest. I don't ever remember it being...a hit. I mean, I know they did a video for it, and I saw it on Headbanger's Ball, not that I was watching a lot of that during this time, but I can't say I ever heard it on the radio. Our local radio station in Providence even had a a DJ, Dr. Metal (who died in the Station Nightclub fire..), in the liner notes for I&W. And even still, I never heard it.
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So, I have to be honest. I don't ever remember it being...a hit. I mean, I know they did a video for it, and I saw it on Headbanger's Ball, not that I was watching a lot of that during this time, but I can't say I ever heard it on the radio. Our local radio station in Providence even had a a DJ, Dr. Metal (who died in the Station Nightclub fire..), in the liner notes for I&W. And even still, I never heard it.
"Hit" is definitely a loose interpretation. I don't think it charted on the Billboard Top 100, or anything.
But it definitely got plenty of play on MTV and lots of rock stations around the country. It's the closest thing to a "hit" that DT ever had.
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So, I have to be honest. I don't ever remember it being...a hit. I mean, I know they did a video for it, and I saw it on Headbanger's Ball, not that I was watching a lot of that during this time, but I can't say I ever heard it on the radio. Our local radio station in Providence even had a a DJ, Dr. Metal (who died in the Station Nightclub fire..), in the liner notes for I&W. And even still, I never heard it.
"Hit" is definitely a loose interpretation. I don't think it charted on the Billboard Top 100, or anything.
But it definitely got plenty of play on MTV and lots of rock stations around the country. It's the closest thing to a "hit" that DT ever had.
I get that, but other than making a video, it still never even blipped that I can remember.
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PMU was a "hit" only in that it was fairly successful for a prog metal song.
PMU peaked at #10 on the U.S. Billboard Hot Mainstream Rock Tracks chart. This is not the same thing as the Billboard Hot 100.
It was never certified Gold or Platinum by the RIAA (and did not receive any similar certification in any other country). That hardly surprising because fans of this sort of music didn't buy singles; they bought albums. I&W did achieve Gold certification, but not until February 1995.
PMU was played on the same sorts of rock stations that played Queensryche, which were dwindling by the time PMU was released. The station I listened to played the full version of the song. I can barely remember seeing it on MTV, but I do recall the edited version being very jarring. I don't recall ever hearing the edited version on the radio. Frankly, once I heard it a few times on the radio, I went out and bought the album and listened to the album.
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There's another angle that I haven't seen mentioned here. Pull Me Under isn't really exemplary of the band or the album. I suspect there were plenty of people who heard it on the radio, thought "wow, that's great," obtained the album, heard Metropolis, and that was the end of it. It's not that I&W is a bad album, but as Orbert pointed out, the radio edit of PMU is remarkably accessible which is something that can't be said about pretty much everything after it. PMU grabbed people's attention, and the musicians and music snobs latched onto them. Everybody else moved on to things easier to get into. Even when it was new that was the knock against them down here. From there they kind of latched onto being a "musician's band" and pressed ever onward in that niche. I've accused them of picking bad songs for singles in the past, but in the end it doesn't really matter. DT seems content to be a band that a few people like and the masses ignore. Producing a single that will give them a second greatest hit will score them some short term cred, but it won't change what they are.
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There's another angle that I haven't seen mentioned here. Pull Me Under isn't really exemplary of the band or the album. I suspect there were plenty of people who heard it on the radio, thought "wow, that's great," obtained the album, heard Metropolis, and that was the end of it. It's not that I&W is a bad album, but as Orbert pointed out, the radio edit of PMU is remarkably accessible which is something that can't be said about pretty much everything after it. PMU grabbed people's attention, and the musicians and music snobs latched onto them. Everybody else moved on to things easier to get into. Even when it was new that was the knock against them down here. From there they kind of latched onto being a "musician's band" and pressed ever onward in that niche. I've accused them of picking bad songs for singles in the past, but in the end it doesn't really matter. DT seems content to be a band that a few people like and the masses ignore. Producing a single that will give them a second greatest hit will score them some short term cred, but it won't change what they are.
I remember a few guys I worked with around the time the three I&W singles were getting played all the time on the radio here in STL. They all thought Pull Me Under was great, but thought Take the Time wasn't very good. I was the lone supporter in that small circle at work of that song, and at the time I was bit shocked that they weren't loving it since it seemed as catchy as Pull Me Under, but in retrospect, I sort of get it, as, like has been said, Pull Me Under was a bit of lightning in a bottle as far as appealing to the (hard rock/metal) masses.
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There's another angle that I haven't seen mentioned here. Pull Me Under isn't really exemplary of the band or the album. I suspect there were plenty of people who heard it on the radio, thought "wow, that's great," obtained the album, heard Metropolis, and that was the end of it. It's not that I&W is a bad album, but as Orbert pointed out, the radio edit of PMU is remarkably accessible which is something that can't be said about pretty much everything after it. PMU grabbed people's attention, and the musicians and music snobs latched onto them. Everybody else moved on to things easier to get into. Even when it was new that was the knock against them down here. From there they kind of latched onto being a "musician's band" and pressed ever onward in that niche. I've accused them of picking bad songs for singles in the past, but in the end it doesn't really matter. DT seems content to be a band that a few people like and the masses ignore. Producing a single that will give them a second greatest hit will score them some short term cred, but it won't change what they are.
Good point, EB.
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There's another angle that I haven't seen mentioned here. Pull Me Under isn't really exemplary of the band or the album. I suspect there were plenty of people who heard it on the radio, thought "wow, that's great," obtained the album, heard Metropolis, and that was the end of it. It's not that I&W is a bad album, but as Orbert pointed out, the radio edit of PMU is remarkably accessible which is something that can't be said about pretty much everything after it. PMU grabbed people's attention, and the musicians and music snobs latched onto them. Everybody else moved on to things easier to get into. Even when it was new that was the knock against them down here. From there they kind of latched onto being a "musician's band" and pressed ever onward in that niche. I've accused them of picking bad songs for singles in the past, but in the end it doesn't really matter. DT seems content to be a band that a few people like and the masses ignore. Producing a single that will give them a second greatest hit will score them some short term cred, but it won't change what they are.
Good point, EB.
I don't disagree with the overall point, but am a bit confused by the "heard Metropolis and that was the end of it" comment. Keep in mind that although I got Images & Words in '92/'93 after hearing PMU on radio, but I didn't buy a second album until SFAM and didn't really get into the band until that time. I like the album, and would go through periods of intense listening, and then would shelve it for awhile, then repeat. To me, the album was PMU and those other two songs that sounded similarly heavy and complex: Take the Time and Metropolis. ...and then there was a bunch of other weird stuff. Didn't like Another Day. Surrounded and UAGM were strange (I wasn't into the prog scene, so those didn't make sense to me), and I somehow didn't notice/get Learning To Live (although Wait for Sleep was a nice little interlude). I don't know how others viewed it, because I didn't know anyone else back then who was into them. But again, to me, there was this album that had 3 heavy songs that sounded like the band I liked, plus a short ballad, and then a bunch of weird stuff. And coming out of the '80s, an album with 3 good hard songs and a good ballad, and then a bunch of filler, wasn't a bad album.
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I agree with Bart's general premise, but I feel like I'm the only one who had a radio station not play the "radio edit" of the song (thankfully). But yeah...I think there were probably a fair number of people who got into the band because of the radio edit of PMU and heard stuff like Met1 and LTL and said, nah.
However, again, the notion of PMU being a "hit" is a bit of a fallacy.
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I agree with Bart's general premise, but I feel like I'm the only one who had a radio station not play the "radio edit" of the song (thankfully). But yeah...I think there were probably a fair number of people who got into the band because of the radio edit of PMU and heard stuff like Met1 and LTL and said, nah.
I think this goes for a lot of bands. People like the single, listen more and don't like the rest of the band's music. It should be no shock that people who liked PMU from hearing it on the radio may not care for the rest of I&W.
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That's all as it should be, IMO. The lead single is chosen because it's the most accessible, the most likely to be a hit or at least get people to hear it and maybe buy the album. Or today, when the general masses don't really buy albums anymore, they'd just check out some more songs by the band. Pull Me Under did its job. It got some exposure for the band, and a bunch of people bought the album. Of those, sure, not everyone liked it. But a sale was made and the band was exposed to some new ears.
Years ago, when Queensr˙che had "Silent Lucidity" out, my wife was asking me about it. She was looking for it on our hard drive so she could put it on her iPod, but was confused because she finally found Queensr˙che under Prog Metal. First, she'd never heard of Prog Metal, but she wasn't shocked that I had such a category. But mostly she wondered why I had them filed that way when obviously "Silent Lucidity" was neither Prog nor Metal as far as she could tell. I'm sure a lot of people picked up Empire and were a bit stunned by the rest of the album. Maybe not "Jet City Woman" which was also pretty accessible. My wife likes that one, too.
Same thing with "More Than Words" by Extreme. MTV views were logged, album sales were made, but I'll betcha the rest of the album caught a lot of people by surprise. But again, some people probably latched onto it and became Extreme fans when they otherwise wouldn't have.
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I remember hearing Take the Time on the radio back then and liking it even more than PMU.
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Same thing with "More Than Words" by Extreme. MTV views were logged, album sales were made, but I'll betcha the rest of the album caught a lot of people by surprise. But again, some people probably latched onto it and became Extreme fans when they otherwise wouldn't have.
I've never heard the rest of the album, but your implication seems to be that it's heavier/less cheesy, etc. In that regard, I think it works both ways. Because of More Than Words, I assumed Extreme was just another (shitty, IMO) pop "metal" band that wasn't worth my time (and I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one). If I'm not mistaken, I think I've read things to the effect that the success of that song ultimately came back to bite the band in the ass.
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There's another angle that I haven't seen mentioned here. Pull Me Under isn't really exemplary of the band or the album. I suspect there were plenty of people who heard it on the radio, thought "wow, that's great," obtained the album, heard Metropolis, and that was the end of it. It's not that I&W is a bad album, but as Orbert pointed out, the radio edit of PMU is remarkably accessible which is something that can't be said about pretty much everything after it. PMU grabbed people's attention, and the musicians and music snobs latched onto them. Everybody else moved on to things easier to get into. Even when it was new that was the knock against them down here. From there they kind of latched onto being a "musician's band" and pressed ever onward in that niche. I've accused them of picking bad songs for singles in the past, but in the end it doesn't really matter. DT seems content to be a band that a few people like and the masses ignore. Producing a single that will give them a second greatest hit will score them some short term cred, but it won't change what they are.
Good point, EB.
I don't disagree with the overall point, but am a bit confused by the "heard Metropolis and that was the end of it" comment. Keep in mind that although I got Images & Words in '92/'93 after hearing PMU on radio, but I didn't buy a second album until SFAM and didn't really get into the band until that time. I like the album, and would go through periods of intense listening, and then would shelve it for awhile, then repeat. To me, the album was PMU and those other two songs that sounded similarly heavy and complex: Take the Time and Metropolis. ...and then there was a bunch of other weird stuff. Didn't like Another Day. Surrounded and UAGM were strange (I wasn't into the prog scene, so those didn't make sense to me), and I somehow didn't notice/get Learning To Live (although Wait for Sleep was a nice little interlude). I don't know how others viewed it, because I didn't know anyone else back then who was into them. But again, to me, there was this album that had 3 heavy songs that sounded like the band I liked, plus a short ballad, and then a bunch of weird stuff. And coming out of the '80s, an album with 3 good hard songs and a good ballad, and then a bunch of filler, wasn't a bad album.
This is actually pretty close to my experience. It was ACoS that put them back onto my radar, but that was right around the time when SFaM came out, and it was the LSfNY DVD that really roped me in. In any case, you kind of summed up my point. PMU got us both to check them out, and I&W didn't really work very well for us. I think that was the case for a whole lot of people. And while it might not have been Metropolis specifically, the underlying point of the single not reflecting the album remains. Metropolis was just what I associated with the real DT, and wasn't what I was really interested in (still not, honestly).
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Same thing with "More Than Words" by Extreme. MTV views were logged, album sales were made, but I'll betcha the rest of the album caught a lot of people by surprise. But again, some people probably latched onto it and became Extreme fans when they otherwise wouldn't have.
I've never heard the rest of the album, but your implication seems to be that it's heavier/less cheesy, etc. In that regard, I think it works both ways. Because of More Than Words, I assumed Extreme was just another (shitty, IMO) pop "metal" band that wasn't worth my time (and I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one). If I'm not mistaken, I think I've read things to the effect that the success of that song ultimately came back to bite the band in the ass.
I was familiar with Extreme before, so I just found it all amusing. IMO they try to be Prog Metal, but fall on the Pop side of things overall. They do have some proggy moments, though. I have some of their albums; they're alright.
It's not insignificant that the opening moments of the video for "More Than Words" shows them switching off their amps. The song is a departure for them. But I don't know if I'd say the strategy bit them in the ass. They were exposed to new ears. That's what bands do. If people got pissed because they felt "fooled" by the song they heard on the radio or saw the video for, they need to open their minds a bit. Also, the band's name is Extreme. That could even have been a clue.
I don't remember where I saw it, but I seem to remember a behind-the-scenes video of Dream Theater and they were talking about doing a certain song or a certain kind of song, and Petrucci said something like they really couldn't do that kind of song now. The implication was that fans wouldn't accept it. So they're gatekeeping themselves. I think a band should be able to release any kind of song they want. They only thing I care about is whether it's a good song. But I guess I can understand other people not feeling the same way. They put on Dream Theater because they want that awesome Prog Metal experience. Get the fuck out of here with that saxophone.
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Same thing with "More Than Words" by Extreme. MTV views were logged, album sales were made, but I'll betcha the rest of the album caught a lot of people by surprise. But again, some people probably latched onto it and became Extreme fans when they otherwise wouldn't have.
I've never heard the rest of the album, but your implication seems to be that it's heavier/less cheesy, etc. In that regard, I think it works both ways. Because of More Than Words, I assumed Extreme was just another (shitty, IMO) pop "metal" band that wasn't worth my time (and I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one). If I'm not mistaken, I think I've read things to the effect that the success of that song ultimately came back to bite the band in the ass.
Fans were really surprise by the next Album, "III Sides to Every Story." It was a rock opera in the vein of Queen. Loved that album and tour.
As for PMU. It was the perfect gateway for my into the band. I heard it and ordered the CD from the local record store. I was looking for a Rush style band but heavier and BAM! There they were.
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I think Images and Words is quite accessible, in relative terms.
I mean, if you can digest Pull Me Under, you have three slow songs and a very catchy one (Take the Time), and still the rest has strong vocal melodies. Others have mentioned Silent Lucidity as an example of the oddball in the album, I don't think Pull Me Under is that "misleading", if you can get behind that, you can get behind pretty much the whole Images and Words album. It's not The Silent Man vs The Mirror, to make an extreme example with the next album.
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I've never heard the rest of the album, but your implication seems to be that it's heavier/less cheesy, etc. In that regard, I think it works both ways. Because of More Than Words, I assumed Extreme was just another (shitty, IMO) pop "metal" band that wasn't worth my time (and I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one). If I'm not mistaken, I think I've read things to the effect that the success of that song ultimately came back to bite the band in the ass.
I was familiar with Extreme before, so I just found it all amusing. IMO they try to be Prog Metal, but fall on the Pop side of things overall. They do have some proggy moments, though. I have some of their albums; they're alright.
It's not insignificant that the opening moments of the video for "More Than Words" shows them switching off their amps. The song is a departure for them. But I don't know if I'd say the strategy bit them in the ass. They were exposed to new ears. That's what bands do. If people got pissed because they felt "fooled" by the song they heard on the radio or saw the video for, they need to open their minds a bit. Also, the band's name is Extreme. That could even have been a clue.
If my memory serves, Extreme HAS talked about it over the years. How that song isn't really indicative of what they do and who they are. They've embraced it, to an extent - they've played it all three times I've seen them - but they also make sure they do the 8:00 prog section of their album-side suite from III Sides.
(By the way, and I only flash this because I learned it not that long ago, but "Extreme" is a play on "Ex Dream", as in "Gary Cherone and Paul Geary are formerly members of the band "Dream"".)
I don't remember where I saw it, but I seem to remember a behind-the-scenes video of Dream Theater and they were talking about doing a certain song or a certain kind of song, and Petrucci said something like they really couldn't do that kind of song now. The implication was that fans wouldn't accept it. So they're gatekeeping themselves. I think a band should be able to release any kind of song they want. They only thing I care about is whether it's a good song. But I guess I can understand other people not feeling the same way. They put on Dream Theater because they want that awesome Prog Metal experience. Get the fuck out of here with that saxophone.
This sort of thing bugs me. I get it, it's a business, and in my humble opinion, the fans are not at all supportive of really stretching out, but I miss the days when bands were a mix of their various influences. Nowadays, with all the side and special projects, you have a lot of siloing; "Oh, this is my PROG project" and "this is my METAL project" and "this is my improvisational JAZZ project". In my opinion, I got into Dream Theater because they were the perfect blend; Pretooch sounded like a heavier Alex Lifeson, Mike was a metal drummer par excellence, we had keyboards like the best of the moire traditional prog bands, and capped off with a singer that was basically Steve Perry Version 2.0. I liked that there didn't seem to be any gatekeeping. Maybe there was; I didn't know much about them then, but it didn't SEEM like it.
Even when I was listening to rock/metal bands in the late 70s and early 80s, as embarrassing as some of the disco-flavored stuff that Queen, Kiss and the Stones did, it seemed - ironically, given that they were responding to a trend - pure, at least in the sense that there didn't seem to be any boundaries.
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I agree. Right after Pull Me Under abruptly ends, you get a song with soprano saxophone. That right there tells you not to expect anything specific. This is a band willing to take chances. That's why it's so sad that the same band doesn't feel like they can do that anymore. They've pigeonholed themselves. If you want to do something different, do a solo album or side project and do whatever you want, but this band does this.
(By the way, and I only flash this because I learned it not that long ago, but "Extreme" is a play on "Ex Dream", as in "Gary Cherone and Paul Geary are formerly members of the band "Dream"".)
I didn't know that. Cool!
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I think Images and Words is quite accessible, in relative terms.
I mean...kinda, I guess. I would heavily qualify that with the "in relative terms" part of your quote. But for a band that leans heavily into prog, that's true. I mean, I wasn't even really familiar with prog at all, and I&W was the album that got me to start opening up to it (and, no, I don't count Queensryche as "prog metal"--they weren't, although I would agree that they had more progressive elements than more "traditional" metal bands). And I think that's the case for a lot of people. But there are also plenty that have heard and liked the odd DT song here and there, and many of those who bought I&W, who still don't really "get it" and don't like the band or the album overall and feel like what DT do is just "too much."
Others have mentioned Silent Lucidity as an example of the oddball in the album, I don't think Pull Me Under is that "misleading", if you can get behind that, you can get behind pretty much the whole Images and Words album. It's not The Silent Man vs The Mirror, to make an extreme example with the next album.
Yeah, that was kinda my point above. PMU, TTT, and Metropolis, to me, are very much the same overall "type" of song, and those comprise a significant chunk of the album. And, really, UAGM and LTL aren't too different from those three either. I don't think PMU is atypical of the album or DT's style at all. On the contrary, I think it is very representative, other than perhaps just being a bit more restrained and accessible than a lot of the catalog (and, of course, Derek Oliver's influence, including removing the instrumental section that would ultimately become Erotomania, helped in that regard).
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I agree. Right after Pull Me Under abruptly ends, you get a song with soprano saxophone. That right there tells you not to expect anything specific. This is a band willing to take chances. That's why it's so sad that the same band doesn't feel like they can do that anymore. They've pigeonholed themselves. If you want to do something different, do a solo album or side project and do whatever you want, but this band does this.
But they have been that way for a long time. I cannot recall if it was Rudess or Portnoy, but LTE2 came up in an interview (shortly after the release of Scenes, I think), and he (whichever one it was) referred to Liquid Dreams as a song Dream Theater could never do. That make me sad.
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Oh yeah, the quote was from many years ago. It has been that way for a long time, which is sad. But in a way, it reflects the way music is "consumed" these days. People expect a certain type of "product". Very few want to really explore music; they know what they like and that's what they want to hear.
In fact, memory being what it is (fallible, especially in my case), I might even be remembering the same quote you're referring to, but over the years it's changed to someone else saying it and the context being a little different, but it's the same idea. Bands aren't really free to push outside the established boundaries, even if they're boundaries they themselves have set.
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I think Images and Words is quite accessible, in relative terms.
I mean, if you can digest Pull Me Under, you have three slow songs and a very catchy one (Take the Time), and still the rest has strong vocal melodies. Others have mentioned Silent Lucidity as an example of the oddball in the album, I don't think Pull Me Under is that "misleading", if you can get behind that, you can get behind pretty much the whole Images and Words album. It's not The Silent Man vs The Mirror, to make an extreme example with the next album.
I think PMU was a song that could appeal a lot to people who didn't want to "digest" music. The rest of it seemed to take more concentration to really get into.
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I was 11 when Pull Me Under was a "big hit" but I don't remember hearing that song on the radio or seeing the video on MTV throughout the 90s. I first heard of Dream Theater in 2000 or 2001.
This video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=condDYqAgZI (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=condDYqAgZI) plays a bunch of popular songs from that time and they're all recognizable to me even though I don't listen to all those bands or have the albums. If Pull Me Under was a big hit, it must've faded fast.
I remember WBAB (Herrick was hatched and still lives on the Schlong Island). What did this Fingers guy mean by "Top 10 single" at 1:16?
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It's a great song. Period.
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They have been one of the hardest working bands in the business
Seems like a weird line to single out in a thread that's about something else entirely, but seriously? Not doubting that DT is a hard-working band, but a statement like this when there's literally hundreds of hard-working bands out there doesn't make sense.
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They have been one of the hardest working bands in the business
Seems like a weird line to single out in a thread that's about something else entirely, but seriously? Not doubting that DT is a hard-working band, but a statement like this when there's literally hundreds of hard-working bands out there doesn't make sense.
I mean, look, they're not Boston or the Axl-era Guns'n'Roses, but Cheap Trick reads that and says "hold my beer, kiddos." Now THAT'S a hard working band.
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They have been one of the hardest working bands in the business
Seems like a weird line to single out in a thread that's about something else entirely, but seriously? Not doubting that DT is a hard-working band, but a statement like this when there's literally hundreds of hard-working bands out there doesn't make sense.
I mean, look, they're not Boston or the Axl-era Guns'n'Roses, but Cheap Trick reads that and says "hold my beer, kiddos." Now THAT'S a hard working band.
That, and Zander deserves mad props for that deal he made with the devil...I mean, how does he STILL sing like that at his age. Forever in awe I will be.
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They have been one of the hardest working bands in the business
Seems like a weird line to single out in a thread that's about something else entirely, but seriously? Not doubting that DT is a hard-working band, but a statement like this when there's literally hundreds of hard-working bands out there doesn't make sense.
I mean, look, they're not Boston or the Axl-era Guns'n'Roses, but Cheap Trick reads that and says "hold my beer, kiddos." Now THAT'S a hard working band.
That, and Zander deserves mad props for that deal he made with the devil...I mean, how does he STILL sing like that at his age. Forever in awe I will be.
The age, but also the number of shows, and under the conditions they did them in. I've seen them in arenas, clubs, at colleges... they literally play anywhere.
Setlist has them at about 4000 shows over the years (I know for a FACT that they are missing some; I saw them at Uconn back in the day and that's not on Setlist.fm.). Kiss, a peer, is at about 2800, and the Grateful Dead, probably the quintessential touring band, is at 2300. Bruce Springsteen, also a touring animal, is at around 2900. Dream Theater, for comparison (and I understand they have a decade less of touring behind them, at least) is about 1800 shows.
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They have been one of the hardest working bands in the business
Seems like a weird line to single out in a thread that's about something else entirely, but seriously? Not doubting that DT is a hard-working band, but a statement like this when there's literally hundreds of hard-working bands out there doesn't make sense.
I find it odd that you find this odd. DT writes incredibly complex and interesting music, and you have to be extremely proficient on your instruments to pull it off. All the practice to maintain that level of playing takes a lot of discipline and focus.
Plus they have fifteen studio albums and have consistently toured the world over time after time. So I'm sticking to my statement that you find strange. 😁
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Honestly, I always felt that the production and package of that album got dated pretty quickly. They also all looked like they belonged in a glam metal outfit, and the triggers on the drums made it sound like they were chasing 5150 and OU812 more than the Metallica/ Pantera sound that was prevalent at the time.
I wonder if that might be why their next album had a darker and simpler production. I also find Awake a superior album, but that is just me.
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Honestly, I always felt that the production and package of that album got dated pretty quickly. They also all looked like they belonged in a glam metal outfit, and the triggers on the drums made it sound like they were chasing 5150 and OU812 more than the Metallica/ Pantera sound that was prevalent at the time.
I wonder if that might be why their next album had a darker and simpler production. I also find Awake a superior album, but that is just me.
The picture of them on the back of the CD made me hesitant to buy it :lol I didn't know anything about them at the time. I only heard one song but by the time I bought Images and Words, I had completely forgotten what that song sounded like.
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I bought a copy of the Images and Words book boxset, the one with the separate "Images" book. I loved their look up to about 2007 or so. I dug that they looked, I don't know, like eager young kids. Like they could actually live next door but oh-by-the-way, they can play their ass off their instruments. It patently WASN'T about image, even though they were in an industry that was pretty much predicated on image. Then the obligatory black pants, Doc Martens and black t-shirts came into play and it's been kind of stagnant ever since. IMO.
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Then the obligatory black pants, Doc Martens and black t-shirts came into play
You mean like these black pants and Docs (or the functional equivalent thereof...boots/Docs....)? Only 40% of them were wearing black t-shirts, but the other stuff was the functional equivalent back then (no excuse for the black overalls, though).
(https://i5.walmartimages.com/asr/16a1492d-6d0d-4cfc-9594-0cc4bb1b7a04.e54dc2a2a420cc35aa937037703682f5.jpeg)
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I bought a copy of the Images and Words book boxset, the one with the separate "Images" book.
Any chance you're selling it? :biggrin:
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I bought a copy of the Images and Words book boxset, the one with the separate "Images" book.
Any chance you're selling it? :biggrin:
Nope; it's been my holy grail for too long... :)
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I bought a copy of the Images and Words book boxset, the one with the separate "Images" book. I loved their look up to about 2007 or so. I dug that they looked, I don't know, like eager young kids. Like they could actually live next door but oh-by-the-way, they can play their ass off their instruments.
It patently WASN'T about image, even though they were in an industry that was pretty much predicated on image. Then the obligatory black pants, Doc Martens and black t-shirts came into play and it's been kind of stagnant ever since. IMO.
I feel you on this. I was watching the LA '06 show last night, and James in particular looked so regular. Clean shaven and...pre-...did he have a facelift as some point?
And I have to say that I hate JP's blatantly dyed black hair and beard. His hair was never black to begin with.
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But black is more rock 'n' roll.
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I bought a copy of the Images and Words book boxset, the one with the separate "Images" book. I loved their look up to about 2007 or so. I dug that they looked, I don't know, like eager young kids. Like they could actually live next door but oh-by-the-way, they can play their ass off their instruments.
It patently WASN'T about image, even though they were in an industry that was pretty much predicated on image. Then the obligatory black pants, Doc Martens and black t-shirts came into play and it's been kind of stagnant ever since. IMO.
I feel you on this. I was watching the LA '06 show last night, and James in particular looked so regular. Clean shaven and...pre-...did he have a facelift as some point?
And I have to say that I hate JP's blatantly dyed black hair and beard. His hair was never black to begin with.
The cosmetic decisions some of the band members have made is a bit strange especially for a band like this. "Cool" form-fitting clothes while packing some pounds & very dark or black hairdye isn't the way to go...it just makes them look older.
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What I like about Devin Townsend is that he's not in denial. He shaved his hair off years ago because he hated what his long thin hair looked like. He's not even trying have an image and doesn't take himself seriously. I think other bands should learn to relax like that.
I'm just as excited to see DT as I am DT... 😁
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The cosmetic decisions some of the band members have made is a bit strange especially for a band like this. "Cool" form-fitting clothes while packing some pounds & very dark or black hairdye isn't the way to go...it just makes them look older.
Black hair looks ok on some of them, but I'm so glad James went back to his natural dark red color.
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Why PMU ???
This has had me perplexed for years. We all know that Pull Me Under is a great song and that it really put Dream Theater on the map.
DT now has 15 strong studio albums with many outstanding tracks. Many of these songs are just as good and some are superior to PMU as far as I'm concerned. How is it that not even one DT song since then has gotten the same type of recognition? They have been one of the hardest working bands in the business and they deserve to have more than one big hit.
I know they got a grammy for The Alien, but it never received mainstream recognition outside of DT's hard-core fan base like PMU did.
Has it been bad promoters, lack of press, or lame record companies and radio stations turning their back on the band??
Out of DT's immense and impressive catalog, why PMU? :-\
If DT were a few years earlier in their development, I think they would have taken off more. They landed a bit late in pop culture. If PMU (and I&W as a whole) were at the height of 80's metal, man, it would have been something. But, who really knows. It's fun talking about it though.
-Tof
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The only one who looks cool is John Myung. And that's the truth!