Welcome to Club Farken Crazy 425
, I seriously want you to justify some of these though
ARE YOU JUSTIFIED
Look .............I don't take any offence at any of this really but , having been a long time member/moderator of many music forums , I don't dig the whole idea of newbs and/or those with a very different opinion needing to justify it to those who make up the consensus to get any sort of respect. To paraphrase Voltaire (Hall actually) with some editing " "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it ...........and to do so without justification"
My favourite couple of bands ever are Van Halen and Dream Theater , closely followed by a whole load of others including Queensryche , Conception, Symphony X , Talisman , Ozzy, Trail of Murder, Crimson glory and plenty more AOR/ melodic rock/metal type stuff. I've been a long time member of various VH and melodic rock/metal forums - all of which I recently gave up on due to them fading away and/or having speed/navigation issues.
Some of the VH forums had similar type stuff...........Diver Down is the WDADU of the classic VH catalogue and if someone came on and said that was their fave VH album then they could expect a pasting . I would then have to get in amongst it and defend them (as a moderator) even though I would strongly disagree myself. That's my view anyway - opinions need no more justification that you liking a particular style of car , girl/boy , food.........whatever and are no less valid than the consensus.
Having said all that I'll try and see if I can fathom why my opinions are so different to most here - I haven't come here to stir up any shit and at least I was observant enough during my lurking to pick up on the fact that my opinions belonged in the controversial opinion thread
Having said that there were a couple of members in the "back to back" thread who rated I&W/Awake and ADTOE/DT12 as clearly their best so I don't feel totally alone on this.
If I look at my CD collection I'd class 85% of it as melodic rock/melodic metal and the rest a mix of blues/classic rock and so on......... that which would be classed as prog metal is all very melodic metal too.........once we get into prog for progs sake I switch off. So I love prog metal but only within a very narrow range of material. I&W is my top metal album of any kind but it has the ultimate formula for my very specific taste - it's progressive with great musicianship and song writing but also extremely melodic /catchy. ...it never loses my attention. I'll go as heavy as you like but if I stop tapping my foot/banging my head then I lose interest.
The real clue perhaps is the total absence of prog rock in my collection and I think perhaps that's the difference - I played guitar for 20 years in rock/metal bands (even a DT tribute) and studied theory formally etc..........even did Joe Satriani for my high school grad year exam performance at age 17.......but I generally find I have zero attraction to bands like Spocks beard, Marillion etc...........or extremely talented guitarists whose ability I totally respect but I struggle with when it comes to their songwriting (Guthrie etc...) .
So Dream Theater grabbed my undivided attention on WDADU, I&W, Awake, and less so FII, BC&SL and struggled to elsewhere until the last two albums. And quite seriously.....................it really bugs me that a band that I worship has produced a reasonable amount of material I actually dislike but there's not much I can do about it. Van Halen never did that until the late 80's but it still happened. And Queensryche (my 3rd fave ever) produced ever smellier piles of crap from Promised Land onwards (IMHO of course
).................again it really saddened me but hey!
Anyhow..........don't know if there's anything in that but that's my impression.
I seriously would much rather listen to Afterlife , A Fortune In Lies or The Killing Hand than 90% of stuff off SDOIT Disc One, Octavarium, ToT, SC ......... I don't get your opinion either but it doesn't bother me to the point of needing you to justify it to me or call you fucking crazy .
Like I said............I've seen this all before elsewhere and it's water off a duck's back ........and I'll leave it at that .I've done my best to explain where I'm coming from in my Intro post and here and if that's insufficient then I can live with that .
Cheers
Brent