The shift in DT's songwriting approach since MP left

[Dream Team]

So, this seems pretty clear-cut to me. Over the past 3 records DT has written 53 songs and only 1 is over 10 minutes. Yes I know TA was a special case, but still . . . even going back to ADTOE to include all Mangini albums, only 1 song more than 12.5 minutes. This brings to mind a couple topics:

1. likely MP was the man most responsible for the bloat in aughts DT. I say likely, I could be wrong.
2. Do you prefer DT to write that way, more concisely, or do you miss the more epic-length tracks? I like the concise approach but wouldn't mind 1 huge epic per album.
3. Also gone in the songwriting are obvious nods to other bands like Muse, U2, etc. Fine by me.
4. Also gone are lame attempts at harsh vocals and such. Again, this is a good thing considering their singer is 56 this year and has compromised vocal chords.

So my summary is that, regardless of how much I like the actual MM-era songs (and I like them a LOT), I very much enjoy this shift in songwriting style and hope they continue it.

[MirrorMask]

2. Do you prefer DT to write that way, more concisely, or do you miss the more epic-length tracks? I like the concise approach but wouldn't mind 1 huge epic per album.

Depends on the kind of song. Lenght itself is nothing, depends on how is applied.

Take for example Voices, one of my favorite DT songs, and The Dark Eternal Night, one of my least favorite songs; they're both roughly 10 minutes long, but one reaches 10 minutes by having different verses, ups and downs, changes in mood and atmosphere; the other instead has a standard verse / chorus, verse / chorus template and reaches the 10 minutes because of a long solo section that lasts the time it took them to write it, 5 minutes.

Then again one of the pinnacle of MP's contributions, at least lyrically, is A Change of Seasons, and those 23 minutes fly by and it never drags. So really, it's a case by case basis, I'd say have the song last as much as it has to last, but don't make it too long on purpouse.

[erciccio]

1. I think as a band they were a bit confused at the time on Dream Theater identity, and keeping the songs long was probably considered to be a "safe harbor" to preserve the identity..
2. I like the "concise" approach, I think Dream Theater best songs are around 8-9 minutes. I like "epics" but if they are musical journeys, like suits or similar...I really dislike simple songs stretched to become "fake epics" (e.g. The Glass Prison, A Nightmare to Remember..)
3. Fine for me as well. Octavarium sounds like a cover album, more than a real DT album. Glad they tried to go back to their identity
4. Fine for me as well. But I don't like the abuse of choruses and other effects of D/T

[bosk1]

1. likely MP was the man most responsible for the bloat in aughts DT. I say likely, I could be wrong.

He is responsible.  When anyone, anywhere, reaches out for bloat.  He wants his hand to be there.

  I wouldn't say he was "responsible," because JP likes to write that way as well.  But I would say he was a MAJOR contributor.

2. Do you prefer DT to write that way, more concisely, or do you miss the more epic-length tracks? I like the concise approach but wouldn't mind 1 huge epic per album.

It really depends.  As MirrorMask said, it's on a case-by-case basis.  I have enjoyed the Mangini-era output.  I do feel that some songs, especially on the last album, could be a bit longer and given a chance to breathe a bit more.  But at the same time, they didn't need to be any longer.  I like that on ADTOE, for example, you had plenty of songs that were a more "traditional" song length, or at least close to it.  But then you also had four songs that went over the 10 minute mark. 

3. Also gone in the songwriting are obvious nods to other bands like Muse, U2, etc. Fine by me.

Eh, not really.  The nods are just different, and are perhaps less-known bands.  There has been a TON of Rush influence--perhaps more than any other 4-album stretch.  And other bands as well, like Red, for example.

4. Also gone are lame attempts at harsh vocals and such. Again, this is a good thing considering their singer is 56 this year and has compromised vocal chords.

Well, I'm not sure what you mean about vocal "chords," since that is an impossibility.  A singer is only able to sing one note at a time, and cannot really sing chords, unless you are talking about layering multiple parts in the studio mix.

As far as "harsh" vocals, do you mean just by James, or do you mean the stuff that Mike was layering in?  As for the latter, that is gone for the obvious reason that we don't have anyone left in the band who (1) is a big fan of grittier vocals and actively wants them in DT songs, and (2) can actually pull them off.  As far as James singing grittier, well, that's just age.  And the fact that he knows he cannot sing that way without destroying himself.  But that's fine.  I mean, listen to his live vocals from the first two tours after he had joined.  That was perhaps the grittiest he has ever sung.  And while it could sound cool, it could also sound really bad at times too.  But his injury caused him to have to move away from that, at least in a live setting.  Yeah, in studio, they found ways to mimic that.  But he stopped doing it live a LONG time ago.

[Lonk]

He is responsible.  When anyone, anywhere, reaches out for bloat.  He wants his hand to be there.

Well, I'm not sure what you mean about vocal "chords," since that is an impossibility.  A singer is only able to sing one note at a time, and cannot really sing chords, unless you are talking about layering multiple parts in the studio mix.

1) 

2) I think he meant Vocal Cords, not chords.

But in response to the OP.

1) I'm sure he was a big part of it, but as Bosk mentioned, he is not the only one who likes the epic/longer songs.
2) As long as it's good music, I don't care how long it is. I tend to gravitate towards the 12-15 min pieces, but I still enjoy the shorter songs as long as they are good.
3) I don't think that's true. DT still references other bands' work.
4) I can see your point. I'm sure part of it is because MP used to do the background/layered aggressive vocals.

[evilasiojr]

I suffered with the concise and short songs thing much more in DT12 and TA than in d/t. I was actually pretty surprised that the shorter songs on the last album were some of the best to me, cause I had this idea that DT wasn't the same writing shorter songs. But thankfully they proved me wrong 

But still, I miss the longer songs, like how FiTL deserved a singing part over that guitar melody in the middle section, and that maybe PBD could have a couple of minutes more. At the same time, I don't dig IT from DT12 at all and feel like that was an exaggeration, only to have a "20 min epic".

[KevShmev]

While many of their best songs are the long ones, I do think that many of the longer songs later in the Portnoy era felt a bit too bloated (A Nightmare to Remember, The Ministry of Lost Souls, The Shattered Fortress, etc.), and it is clear they have attempted to be more concise with the songwriting since Mangini joined.

To me, good music is good music, and I am fine with the song lengths so long as they are good.  A great long song is super satisfying though, and while it might not reach the heights of A Change of Seasons or Octavarium, Illumination Theory is still pretty damn good.

Lastly, getting back to JLB doing ALL lead vocals is definitely a good thing.

[TheGreatPretender]

The harsh vocals were mostly done by Mike Portnoy, and it does seem like it was mostly his idea. Honestly, that aspect of their sound, more than anything else about the band, is what made me say "good riddance" when Portnoy left. I didn't mind some of his vocal contributions, and I'm probably one of the only people who enjoyed his vocals (the back and forth with LaBrie) in Constant Motion, but some of the other stuff borderline ruined some of the songs for me, namely A Rite of Passage and The Count of Tuscany. So yeah, I'm glad that the vocals are back to being more melody driven, and JP has actually been crafting some really good vocal melodies in the past few years.

[the_silent_man]

I've gotta say I've generally preferred the longer songs - that is what they're known for and that's what they're best at. 8-12 mins is a perfect DT song length to me.

ADTOE has almost the perfect DT formula for me, it just needed 1 less ballad and 1 more short, heavy track. All the long songs are the perfect length for what they are and the instrumental sections on that album are the best they've done in years.
I was disappointed at the song lengths on the s/t. Many of the songs felt limited and a bit uninspired/safe. TA was a different beast so it made sense there - half the tracks are not even proper 'songs' anyway.
On D/T, however, because of the nature of the riffs/groove and the fact it stays (mostly) heavy, it does work most of the time. Take for example, Room 137. Really short song buy their standards, but it works because of its punchiness. That song would NOT benefit from being extended. Same with Paralyzed, Viper King, S2N.
Where D/T 'suffers' slightly, IMO, is where it does try to be epic. Pale Blue Dot feels like it has a lot more to give, same with Fall Into The Light. To a lesser extent, At Wits End too.
In particular, PBD and FiTL feel like they could have done much more with their lyrics - the lyrics are such a small part of the songs they almost seem unfinished. Another verse in both would have benefited greatly.

[bosk1]

I'm probably one of the only people who enjoyed his vocals (the back and forth with LaBrie) in Constant Motion

No, I love that.  In fact, I'm a big fan of Mike's vocals.  He isn't the type of singer that could carry a band as the front man, and I think he would be the first to agree with that himself if asked.  But his vocals are simultaneously unique and also able to harmonize nicely with a lead singer, whether it be James, Neal Morse, or whatever.  His voice beings a lot of unique character and texture to the songs he sings on.

[pg1067]

Over the past 3 records DT has written 53 songs and only 1 is over 10 minutes. Yes I know TA was a special case, but still . . . even going back to ADTOE to include all Mangini albums, only 1 song more than 12.5 minutes.

I think you have to exclude TA (although one could reasonably speculate that TA never would have happened with MP in the band).  If you do that:

ADTOE, DT12 and DOT have a combined 5 songs over 10 minutes and one that's over 12.5 minutes (out of 27/28 total songs depending on whether you include VK).

By comparison, WDADU through FII had 4 songs over 10 minutes and 1 over 12.5 minutes (out of 38 total, or 5 and 2 out of 39 if you include ACOS).

On the other hand, SFAM through BC&SL had 21 songs over 10 minutes and 12 over 12.5 (out of 46 total) (this counts SDOIT and ITPOE as single songs).

1. likely MP was the man most responsible for the bloat in aughts DT. I say likely, I could be wrong.

Maybe, but if you're going to single out one person, I think it's more likely JR.  The numbers for the pre-JR era are pretty similar to the post-MP era, and the spike began as soon as JR joined the band.  My guess is that, starting with ADTOE, there was a conscious effort (probably primarily by JP) to write shorter songs and, without MP, JP found it easier to keep JR in check.  I'll give the same caveat you gave:  I'm just speculating and could well be wrong and the whole thing has probably been orchestrated entirely by JM since day 1 (in this way and pretty much no other, JM being very similar to Nikki Sixx).

2. Do you prefer DT to write that way, more concisely, or do you miss the more epic-length tracks? I like the concise approach but wouldn't mind 1 huge epic per album.

My take is similar.  When done well, the epics are...well...epic (ACOS, SDOIT, 8VA, Illumination Theory).  Some others don't work for me (ITPOE), and both SC and BC&SL are bottom 5 DT albums for me, whereas the other 4 "bloat era" albums are in my top 6.

3. Also gone in the songwriting are obvious nods to other bands like Muse, U2, etc. Fine by me.

This stuff has never been terribly meaningful to me.  I noticed the nods to Yes and Styx on SDOIT, to Maiden in Panic Attack, to Rush in The Looking Glass and to ELP/Keith Emerson in Along for the Ride, but generally didn't notice them otherwise and couldn't tell you if they are still happening with greater or less or the same frequency.

4. Also gone are lame attempts at harsh vocals and such. Again, this is a good thing considering their singer is 56 this year and has compromised vocal chords.

I never liked the "harsh vocals."

[Samsara]

So, this seems pretty clear-cut to me. Over the past 3 records DT has written 53 songs and only 1 is over 10 minutes. Yes I know TA was a special case, but still . . . even going back to ADTOE to include all Mangini albums, only 1 song more than 12.5 minutes. This brings to mind a couple topics:

1. likely MP was the man most responsible for the bloat in aughts DT. I say likely, I could be wrong.
2. Do you prefer DT to write that way, more concisely, or do you miss the more epic-length tracks? I like the concise approach but wouldn't mind 1 huge epic per album.
3. Also gone in the songwriting are obvious nods to other bands like Muse, U2, etc. Fine by me.
4. Also gone are lame attempts at harsh vocals and such. Again, this is a good thing considering their singer is 56 this year and has compromised vocal chords.

So my summary is that, regardless of how much I like the actual MM-era songs (and I like them a LOT), I very much enjoy this shift in songwriting style and hope they continue it.

re: concise vs. epic-length - the issue I have always had with DT writing lengthy pieces, mostly after Scenes, is that I felt a lot of emotion was lost. They went on, what many get offended at seeing posted, wank-fests, where they got really technical and just destroyed (for me) the emotion of a song by using what I call the "Metropolis Template" for many of their songs. What was great about Metropolis pt. 1, was that it was sorta an oddity for awhile with DT. It had this crazy instrumental section that was somewhat unique in their catalog. But following Scenes, they seemed to use it more and more, and that got me less and less interested, particularly as it really ruined songs (for me). One in particular is Endless Sacrifice. Without that ridiculous five-minute solo, and instead maybe a 90-second one wrapped around the melody of the song with some flourishes, it would have been incredible. That's one example of many.

re: nods to other bands - they are there, but nowhere near as blatant, and I am INCREDIBLY THANKFUL for that. It got RIDICULOUS. Truly ridiculous. And thank God Petrucci ended the blatant ripping off of other bands as nods to them. I get a little respect. And I get a little bit of a band having an influence. But DT was way over the top from Scenes and forward.

re: vocals - I don't have any knowledge of the inner workings of DT, but it seems to me, that once MP left, JP pretty much said to JLB - hey, you are the singer of this band. I'll have suggestions, but you have to own the song vocally, so do what makes you comfortable. And that is EXACTLY what the band should have done, IMO. You can push JLB to perform and get the most out of himself. Any good producer does that. But at some point, the singer needs to dictate how he or she sings.

So, while I am not nearly as big a fan of ADToE, DT13 and TA as many are, I do think the songwriting approach on all of them, and the absolutely stellar Distance Over Time, is leaps and bounds better than the approach used from say ToT-BC&SL.

[Indiscipline]

1. I don't know who's mainly responsible. Mike used to report us the band's choices, but it doesn't mean they were all his decisions, or at least immune to negotiation. The tales of Portnoy's "merits" and "faults" have bloated and possibly radicalised with the years, just think about how many times, speaking of his role in the studio, we erroneously use the term "arrangement" rather than "editing".

2. There's long and long. I like the "spontaneous songwriting and letting the song take you where it wants" kind , not so much the "we need a long ass song right here for reasons" one. We have witnessed 9 minutes tunes as epic and dense as you can get as well as 16 minutes less efficient songs.

3. There is no DT without nods and reference, mate. They're a band of fans. Sure, when they reference their heroes it's all fine and dandy whilst when they used to wink to the flavour of the month it could sound like a desperate call to chart relevancy.

4. Yeah, that was just plain silly to me.


Personally, I feel aughts DT's songwriting was kinda hampered a bit from some rigid pre-planning driven by the urge to check every box in a grandiose rock music agenda, sometimes sacrificing chunks of identity and spontaneity. Again, I can't comfortably say it's been all Mike's work.   

[Ninjabait]

1. Ehhh, idk about that. While there hasn't been as extremely bloated as say...A Nightmare to Remember, there has been a bit of bloat in some of the shorter songs of this era. Enigma Machine, Illumination Theory, and Pale Blue Dot are the three that immediately come to mind. The bloat in this era imo comes from trying to do too much with a song rather than things going on for waaaaay too long
2. I don't care so much about the track lengths as I do how good the melody is (in that regard they've improved by huge amounts on for these last two albums imo) and how well the song flows. A good epic like Octavarium is great, but I don't want them to try to force an epic to just have an epic. That's how you get things like The Divine Wings of Tragedy and Tales from Topographic Oceans. imo they've really succeeded in these last two albums at writing shorter songs and if they're in a groove with writing them then I'm all for it.
3. I don't mind the U2/Muse nods tbh, but there have been plenty of little nods to other bands in this era. A Life Left Behind has that opening that sounds like it came straight from a Yes album. d/t is OOZING with Rush influence, The Astonishing as a whole has a lot of nods to things like Les Mis, and Illumination Theory's primary theme is also a gigantic nod to Tchaikovsky's First Piano Concerto.
4. Ok yeah I think everyone agrees that they won't miss the harsh vocals on Systematic Chaos and BC&SL.

He is responsible.  When anyone, anywhere, reaches out for bloat.  He wants his hand to be there.

Ugh.

That was such a good joke and I hate it

Well, I'm not sure what you mean about vocal "chords," since that is an impossibility.  A singer is only able to sing one note at a time, and cannot really sing chords, unless you are talking about layering multiple parts in the studio mix.

Believe it or not, you actually CAN sing multiple notes at once. It's wicked cool.

[krands85]

The longer songs have generally been my favourites over the years, I love it when tracks have a chance to meander, develop and include lots of different sections, crazy instrumentals and solos etc. But I wouldn't want it all to be like that all the time, there still has to be a balance and it has to be 'organic' for want of a better word. They shouldn't feel like they need to make a 20 minute song just for the sake of it.

I've mentioned several times on the forum that when someone like me feels certain songs are longer than they needed to be, then there's probably a good chance that it's true, seeing as I generally love the longer songs so much  That's how I felt at times about Systematic Chaos and Black Clouds. I felt like they made a nice course correction with ADTOE and struck a much better balance. Since then though, I've been a little bummed out because I feel like they've gone a little bit too far in the other direction and haven't given some tracks enough room to breathe, with Illumination Theory being the only song over 10 minutes (well 9 really, if you discount all the silence in At Wits End). It made sense with The Astonishing of course, but I probably would have liked DT12 and D/T a bit more with some longer tracks.

That's not to say longer automatically = better, there are plenty >10 minute tracks that I'm not very keen on (eg. The Best of Times, Repentance, even 6DOIT). I just feel like the longer songs have a better chance of being great than shorter ones. I should also say, Images and Words is my favourite album and it's not exactly full of really long songs and is quite a short album by DT's standards. So ultimately, the quality of the songs is the most important thing, but I normally just find the longer ones more exciting and interesting.

I totally understand why they've decided to favour the more concise approach recently and why lots of fans are really digging it, we had years and years of the previous style, so it's all good!

As for the other points, sometimes I miss MPs backing vocals, but he was starting to go a bit too far at times I think. I'm not too bothered by nods to other bands, unless they're making a conscious effort to shoehorn it in there.

[Setlist Scotty]

1. likely MP was the man most responsible for the bloat in aughts DT. I say likely, I could be wrong.

As others have said, MP was certainly a big part of that, but he wasn't the only one.
 
 

2. Do you prefer DT to write that way, more concisely, or do you miss the more epic-length tracks? I like the concise approach but wouldn't mind 1 huge epic per album.

I like the band to do what fits the particular song, whether long, short or somewhere in-between. That said, I prefer a mix of shorter 5-ish minute songs, with some longer songs of various lengths (anywhere from 8-12) with perhaps one or two songs that are a bit longer. I don't think I'd want 1 epic per album, but one ever so often (every 3 or 4 albums) would be welcome. And even for the shorter songs, I'd like to see them come up with more original song structures.
 
 

3. Also gone in the songwriting are obvious nods to other bands like Muse, U2, etc. Fine by me.

I beg to differ about them being gone. They may not be quite as blatant as they have been in the past, and there may not be as many of them, but they are there. The Rush in The Looking Glass, the Megadeth in the opening riff of Fall Into the Light, the Metallica in the mellow instrumental break of Untethered Angel. And there's even more - I know when listening to d/t for the first time, my ears perked up several times and I thought "wow that really sounds like ______" - I can't think of those references at the moment, and some might be unintentional (such as one spot that really reminds me of Tim Donahue album that JL was the featured vocalist on, and the Symphony X in Pale Blue Dot), but they definitely are there.

In any case, I don't mind them completely, but I do prefer that they come up with something more "DT" than something resembling another band/artist.
 
 

4. Also gone are lame attempts at harsh vocals and such. Again, this is a good thing considering their singer is 56 this year and has compromised vocal chords.

I definitely don't miss the harsh vocals. That said, I wouldn't necessarily say all of MP's vocals are harsh per se. The only vocals of MP's that I really didn't like are those during *that* section of A Nightmare to Remember and the distorted vocals (which actually might be JL's, if I'm not mistaken) on The Dark Eternal Night. However, had MP continued in the band, I'm sure there would've been plenty more of those vocals in subsequent albums.

[Jay T]

There was definitely a shift, for the better.

[Trav86]

  Overall, yes.  And it's been a return to form in a lot of ways since MP left.  I will say this, as far as the  bloated songwriting style...it really started when Jordan came in.  It became kinda stale and predictable after a few albums. And that drove me away in the last few years of of the Portnoy-era.  As much as I would like to, I can't put all of the blame on him. I think they became comfortable, and Mike was right when he said they needed a change. Just not in the way he envisioned. 
 
  As far as the harsh vocals, the answer is yes. The nods to other bands is something I mostly agree with.  I think JP went along with a lot of that, but Portnoy seemed to be the catalyst. I was talking to a friend recently, and this is something I brought up. They can have parts that sound like Rush sometimes, now, but it doesn't sound like they are trying to be Rush. Not an entire song in the style of another band. TOT through BCSL, and SDOIT a to a certain "degree", sound like they are constantly trying to  intentionally sound different with each album, or songs within each album.  The last four albums, while extremely diverse in their songwriting, all sound like the same band. It's like they were having an identity crisis.
 
  I hope that all makes sense.  Sorry for the long response.

[TheGreatPretender]

  Overall, yes.  And it's been a return to form in a lot of ways since MP left.  I will say this, as far as the  bloated songwriting style...it really started when Jordan came in.  It became kinda stale and predictable after a few albums. And that drove me away in the last few years of of the Portnoy-era.  As much as I would like to, I can't put all of the blame on him. I think they became comfortable, and Mike was right when he said they needed a change. Just not in the way he envisioned.

Yeah, I was thinking the same thing. I don't think it was anybody's fault, they just never had a consistent member line up for more than 2 albums, and they probably just fell into a routine, when it came to their ideas, so even though they made active decisions to make their music more heavy, or more pop, or this or that, ultimately, their approach to actually writing it seemed to be the same all around. With Portnoy leaving, it stirred things up, and since then, they pretty much wrote each of their albums with a completely different approach. It helped them change things up.

[IgnotusPerIgnotium]

For me DOT marks the true turning page of the band.. let's face it losing a core member is a huge blow for any band, because simply they're irreplaceable. 
This time JP gave the room for all members to contribute (particularly MM), it's something that happens in time and it's not easy considering the fan base of the band and the name that he has to defend.
I became fan of the band with MP JP and the rest of the gang. So I'm not going to lie, I miss MP very much..on the other hand the band had to move on..they made their choice, now it's time to truly see where they want to go with the music and what new musical territory they want to explore...
Again I miss MP influence in the band, and the long prog sections in their pieces.. but I hope they'll build upon this new start and offer us some of that in the future.

[lovethedrake]

The references will always be there but I hope they continue to stick to the references that made me fall in love with the band.

A combination of AOR/Prog/Art rock and 80's Metal with either 80's or 90's production.

Yes, Styx, Pink Floyd, Peter Gabriel, Genesis, Rush, Maiden, Marillion, Metallica etc.... all bands I hope they continue to emulate.

They started to lose me when they tried to sound like U2 and Muse.     

[Peter Mc]

The weird thing with the long songs is that I was always really excited when they were announced but I rarely loved the result. I’m a big fan, like most people, of A Change Of Seasons and am also a big fan, unlike a lot of you, of Illumination Theory. Not such a huge fan of the others apart from maybe Count Of Tuscany. I find large parts of Six Degrees, Octavarium and ITPOE quite dull. I was also not a fan of albums like Train Of Thought and Black Clouds where it was nearly all long songs. I felt that a lot of those songs did not need to be so long and there were some fairly uninspired repetitive riffing and wankery in there.

When done well, I love an epic song and would still be excited if they announced a 20 min epic on the next album if it was a great song full of magic moments.

[KevShmev]

The Count of Tuscany is a good example of an epic that flows well and doesn't sound nearly as long as it is; they did well with that one from a music standpoint.   The lyrics, on the other hand...

[RAIN]

..I really dislike simple songs stretched to become "fake epics" (e.g. The Glass Prison, A Nightmare to Remember..)

I'll respectfully disagree with A Nightmare to Remember...that has many different sections just like all the +20 minute epics, and it's over 16 minutes long.  It's a perfect song.
On the other hand, I totally agree and have always felt that Glass Prison and That Great Debate are fake epics...simple songs simply stretched out for too long.

[MirrorMask]

..I really dislike simple songs stretched to become "fake epics" (e.g. The Glass Prison, A Nightmare to Remember..)

I'll respectfully disagree with A Nightmare to Remember...that has many different sections just like all the +20 minute epics, and it's over 16 minutes long.  It's a perfect song.

Only until the end of the Beautiful Agony section, then it goes off the rails.