Why PMU ???

[Architeuthis]

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?   

[MirrorMask]

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.

[Architeuthis]

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?

[MirrorMask]

What happened?

Grunge, I guess?

[WilliamMunny]

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.

[Stadler]

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. 

[Dublagent66]

Dude, PMU is the greatest hit.  Everyone knows that.  What's the big mystery? 

[Mladen]

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.

[Architeuthis]

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.   💫

[Adami]

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?

[Evai]

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.

[Metro]

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.

[pg1067]

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.

[jammindude]

I think it was because they all ran out and put on their best shirts.

[ZirconBlue]

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.

[Architeuthis]

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. 🤔

[Stadler]

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.

[WilliamMunny]

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.

[hefdaddy42]

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.

[Stadler]

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).

[pg1067]

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.

[Kram]

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.

[cramx3]

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).

[TheCountOfNYC]

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.

[jammindude]

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.

[crystalstars17]

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.

[Architeuthis]

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.

[Kyo]

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.

[MirrorMask]

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......

[crystalstars17]

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.

[vtgrad]

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.

[Bluefish]

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.

[Orbert]

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.

[hefdaddy42]

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.

[Orbert]

Take the Time I can understand, but Under a Glass Moon must've blown some minds.