After their worst album (A View From the Top of the World) I actually welcome Mike Portnoy back. Hopefully Mike keeps his garbage woke politics off of the next album though. Bring back the memorable melodies along with great instumentals. Nothing was memorable from the last album IMO. Can't believe it was well regarded. I am hoping for an album similar to Awake filled with memorable shorter songs (by Dream Theater standards)
There are a lot of words I can use to describe Mike and his point of view...some good, some bad. "Woke" isn't one of them.
Agreed. I've seen MP post a few things that were political on social media, but I don't think any of that ever appeared in the lyrics he wrote and those posts were few and far between. I'd say JL's lyrics were more political than MP's ever were. Nevermind that JP seems to go the other way, although I don't think that's really appeared in JP's lyrics either.
Regardless (and to keep this from turning political), MP has stated, even as far back as during the BCaSL tour cycle that he was pretty much done doing lyric writing. Had he never left the band, it's quite possible none of the albums since would have had any lyrics from him. Of course that could have changed since then, but from what I know about the myriad of bands/projects he's been in since leaving, he's only written lyrics to a few songs at most. So I don't think you have anything to worry about Mr. Gruber.
I really love Anna Lee (and most of FII) but I'd be utterly shocked to see it be brought back.
It is a gorgeous song however, and I'd love to have the chance to see it live.
I know music is subjective and all, and there are exceptionally few DT songs that I could actually say that I hate, but this is the worst. It sounds to me like sleepy old 70's radio pop. Like they were trying to be Elton John. Maybe that's what they were going for(?), but when I first heard it I was like, seriously, wtf? So when I read your post my gut reaction was nooooo, not that!
Falling Into Infinity is such a cool album in my opinion. You get to see the band explore a completely different side of themselves and I'm all there for it.
Ok, that's how I feel about TA, so that's fair I do love Hell's Kitchen, though.
As I understand it, that's EXACTY what they were going for. Derek often played Elton John songs as part of his solo and when the band would do covers, and I think I remember in one of the documentaries that that was his primary inspiration for the music for that track.
What's really interesting is that the original demo for AL on the FII demos official bootleg actually has more of a Beatles vibe to it, at least to my ears, whereas the studio version is definitely more of an Elton John vibe.
Anna Lee is a really nice song, lovely piano piece for sure. It's not my favorite DT ballad, and there are other songs from the FII sessions I might have even preferred for the final album, but I do like it. Very Elton John/Beatles-ish.
Ironically, I don't think Derek really likes the final version, which is why he re-did it as an instrumental for one of his solo albums.
I believe you are correct on that. Can't remember where I read it, but I saw comments he made that gave that general impression.