Your Controversial Opinions on DT

[KevShmev]

ADTOE and DT12 are both very sharp, strong albums, and I'd probably rate DT12 as my fifth favourite of the band's career, behind Awake, Images and Words, Scenes From a Memory, and Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence, which are the four classics.

I think the band felt increasingly directionless and meandering with the later Portnoy albums, and the Mangini albums have seen an increased sense of focus. For many songs on Black Clouds, it feels like nobody is behind the wheel, whereas DT12 has clear drive. I don't get the hate.

It helps that LaBrie sounds fucking incredible on DT12., whereas he's underwhelming on Systematic Chaos and Black Clouds

While I like ADTOE more than DT12, I agree with much of this. 

There are definitely some moments on SC and BC&SL where I thought JLB could have given a much stronger performance.  His sounds like he barely even tried to sing the final section of ITPOE2 (the "I do not fiii-iight for you" line, for example, sounds so limp), and while I like The Best of Times quite a bit, a lot of his vocals in that song sound phoned in.

[Invisible]

I don't have a problem with the life/inspirational lyrics either, but I think they've done plenty enough of it recently. I'd like to have JR write some totally spaced-out lyrics, something in the vein of UAGM. He could do it.

I wouldn't hold my breath. 

Neither would I. I don't think JR has any desire to write lyrics for DT, and if he isn't inspired to, I wouldn't want him to do it.

But I would like the lyrical duties more evenly split between JP/JLB/JM. In the case of DT12, JLB had already contributed many lyrics to his solo album, which is why he didn't write any this time around, and JM has never written a lot of lyrics for the sake of it. He carefully crafts his lyrics when he's inspired to, plus his recent contributions have been aided by JP, so it still puts load on JP.

Which is why I'd be interested to hear some lyrics penned by JR, although I don't expect him to change his mind.
I don't know if MM has ever written lyrics, but that's something I'd be interested in too!

I actually would like James to write more, he seems a nice contrast with JP in terms of writing and adds variety. And if someone can write spaced-out UAGM type of lyrics, that's definetely JP, not JR. I loved when he used to just paint great pictures with words(Voices, Innocence Faded, Scarred, Lines in the Sand, Misunderstood).

[Tis BOOLsheet]

Well, i'm not a big fan of DT12 myself. I like the songs but they hyped it way too much for me ('strongest work to date, best album we did'). And i expected a little bit more from the so called 'big 20 minute epic' (and don't get me wrong please i really like Illumination Theory, but i expected something different).

To me the songs on A Dramatic Turn of Events are more exciting than any of the songs on DT12. Breaking All Illusions is one of my favorite Dream Theater pieces ever and i also love Beneath The Surface + the mixing was way better.

What i want is for Dream Theater to be happy with what they write and if they want to write shorter songs, that is fine with me (then i am happy). However, i think every fan wants them to progress like they did in the early years. Don't stay in the comfort zone. Do something we don't expect, do something experimental, don't give a shit about commercial success (you will get it anyway). Please create pieces that will make me leave the venue speechless. Please create mindblowing vocal melodies, epic choruses, climaxes, guitar solo's, awesome drum work that DT is known for.

I love when some fans say stuff like this. Shows you how completely out of touch some people are with the business and the fact that the members have staked their livelihoods and the fortunes of their families on this enterprise.

[red barchetta]

BC&SL is a beautiful album with metal and prog stuff.  And The best of times is a great song with maybe simple lyrics but true ones from Mike to his father.  I can't listen to that track without being moved by it.

[TheGreatPretender]

It's Dream Theater. Every album of theirs is beautiful in its own way.

[rumborak]

Controversial opinion time!

Soooo, I was actually debating whether to even bring this up, because for sure there will be strong emotions either side. But, here it goes...

What's everybody's interpretation of the DTF post stats? In case you've never seen them (and I hadn't until yesterday when someone pointed them out to me), they're here: https://www.dreamtheaterforums.org/boards/index.php?action=stats
Because I'm a geek and I needed a break at work, I also created a quick graph.

[?]

So the celeb crush thread is one of the top 10 topics with most views...

[bl5150]

I now understand better why Blob is a Blob. 

[JayOctavarium]

404 message on the graph

[rumborak]

Do you see this graph?

[TAC]

  And The best of times is a great song with maybe simple lyrics but true ones from Mike to his father.  I can't listen to that track without being moved by it.

I completely agree.

[JayOctavarium]

Do you see this graph?

Nope. Now I think it's my work's network blocking it. Weird because I've never gotten a 404 message from these filters. Oh well I'll see it at home.

[wasteland]

Rumbo, can you clarify what's on the y axis exactly? Also, before drawing any conclusion, what's the reduced chi square of the fit? How exactly did you choose the binning size and why? Wouldn't decreasing it imcrease the information without losing statistics too much?

[rumborak]

The y axis is posts per month. And I didn't choose binning, the bin is called "month".
I really just copy-pasted the data from the DTF stats section over into a text file, and plotted it.
So, you can see the big bump for ADTOE, and the (surprisingly) small one for DT12. Well, and that pretty steady decline overall which I thought everybody was going to immediately jump on, but apparently not.

[TAC]

  Well, and that pretty steady decline overall which I thought everybody was going to immediately jump on, but apparently not.

I saw and understood that. I just wasn't sure where to go with it.

[TheGreatPretender]

The y axis is posts per month. And I didn't choose binning, the bin is called "month".
I really just copy-pasted the data from the DTF stats section over into a text file, and plotted it.
So, you can see the big bump for ADTOE, and the (surprisingly) small one for DT12. Well, and that pretty steady decline overall which I thought everybody was going to immediately jump on, but apparently not.

Well, I feel like the bump for each album release is at a pretty consistent ratio with the amount around it. So if you got rid of them, the overall post counts are declining, right? So let's say when ADTOE came out, there was 200% more posts that month, than the months around it, I would say it's about the same ratio with DT12. So it's not the album itself that drew less attention on these forums, it's DT overall.

[Zook]

I guess it means DT12 really is shit and we should shut the forum down.


Oh wait, there are still people here who despise DT and are just here for the community. Hey, maybe we could create a new forum and those who aren't DT fans can still shoot the shit, and the remaining fans can have the old forum to themselves. I don't think this has happened before. I'm a genius.

[TheGreatPretender]

I guess it means DT12 really is shit and we should shut the forum down.


Oh wait, there are still people here who despise DT and are just here for the community. Hey, maybe we could create a new forum and those who aren't DT fans can still shoot the shit, and the remaining fans can have the old forum to themselves. I don't think this has happened before. I'm a genius.

Yeah, but those people who aren't here for DT wouldn't really contribute to the post spikes around the times of DT's albums coming out, right?

[King Postwhore]

There was a big spike during ADTOE because of MP's departure and MM joining.

[TAC]

There was a big spike during ADTOE because of MP's departure and MM joining.

And 6 months after DT12's release, the post count has been basically cut in half compared to 6 months after BC&SL.

[Implode]

Saw this posted somewhere else, but Google trend of "Dream Theater" searches. Looks familiar.



Also lol Indonesia.

[Zook]

I guess it means DT12 really is shit and we should shut the forum down.


Oh wait, there are still people here who despise DT and are just here for the community. Hey, maybe we could create a new forum and those who aren't DT fans can still shoot the shit, and the remaining fans can have the old forum to themselves. I don't think this has happened before. I'm a genius.

Yeah, but those people who aren't here for DT wouldn't really contribute to the post spikes around the times of DT's albums coming out, right?

I think so. DT is still talked about on 5/8 during album release. Not saying it's good talk...

[TheGreatPretender]

So are we to assume that DT is declining in popularity?

[Implode]

It seems that way. It doesn't affect me, though. I still think they are a fine band regardless of their popularity.

[Zook]

If only they took that break...

[Rodni Demental]

Media frenzy explains the 2011 spike. I think some of these stats can represent some of their public attention and activity, it's also possible, dare I say it that there might have been a gradual drop of some fans that had immense loyalty to MP. But I don't know if we can correlate this to popularity. Because being on the radar, and being known, aren't really the same thing. And I think it would seem, that DT are more known than they ever have been, and that their fanbase is also as big as it's ever been. I don't know how we could determine that with certainty though so consider this view unfounded. 

[TheGreatPretender]

Media frenzy explains the 2011 spike. I think some of these stats can represent some of their public attention and activity, it's also possible, dare I say it that there might have been a gradual drop of some fans that had immense loyalty to MP. But I don't know if we can correlate this to popularity. Because being on the radar, and being known, aren't really the same thing. And I think it would seem, that DT are more known than they ever have been, and that their fanbase is also as big as it's ever been. I don't know how we could determine that with certainty though so consider this view unfounded. 

See, I agree with that, which is why the chart is so confusing to me. They seem like more of a household name than they've been circa 2003 - 2007 era.

[kneepel]

Alright, in before I get lynched lol:

Illumination Theory is their weakest epic and weakest song on DT12 before AFTR.

[Lucien]

Weakest epic? I don't agree, but I can see why someone would say that.

Weakest on DT12? Now that's pretty controversial.

[rumborak]

Media frenzy explains the 2011 spike. I think some of these stats can represent some of their public attention and activity, it's also possible, dare I say it that there might have been a gradual drop of some fans that had immense loyalty to MP. But I don't know if we can correlate this to popularity. Because being on the radar, and being known, aren't really the same thing. And I think it would seem, that DT are more known than they ever have been, and that their fanbase is also as big as it's ever been. I don't know how we could determine that with certainty though so consider this view unfounded. 

I think that's the interesting dichotomy. I would agree that DT are more known than ever, but the fact that interest seems to be waning (and I can certainly say that of my circle of DT friends, I'm the last man standing) may mean that they penetrated their market completely. That is, everybody knows them, but that still doesn't mean everybody likes them. And in fact, fewer people like them over time.

[Implode]

Almost every person I've turned onto DT became a huge fan for some time. Eventually that interest died out. I think that's what happens with most of DT's fans. There are tons of lifelong fans here, but in the general populace, there seems to be a shelf life to their interest.

[rumborak]

Ticket prices have also gone down. In 2012 I saw them for $85, whereas the super-special Boston show recently went for $56.

[Infinite Cactus]

I definitely get the bit about the shelf life. My group of friends loved DT and got me into them almost ten years ago. Me and one other guy in that group of say 12 people are the only ones who have kept up after Systematic Chaos.

[Implode]

I guess I should also qualify that this is a common phenomenon with anything at all really.

[rumborak]

My friends stopped being interested about after ToT, and I gotta be honest, that's where the "long stretch" started for me too. Albums went from "mostly awesome" to "a few good songs", and that's kinda where it's at for me these days. Hadn't it been for the DTF community I probably would have stopped listening altogether quite a while ago.