Well, no offense to Mike Portnoy, Eric Gillette, and any of the rest of the band members, but I wouldn't really change much of what I wrote.
1. First off, the review was incredibly complimentary. Having gone back through it again, I don't minimize or slag anything about the album or any of the band members. It is about as glowing a review as I could possibly write without just coming across as a completely biased shill for the band. My sincere apologies if I did not take the time to individually praise each individual member's contribution more than I did. But I am honestly not sure how I could have possibly been more positive.
2. In my defense (as if I need to defend the review), I do not know what the actual writing contribution of each individual members consists of, and I have no way of knowing. The band has not been explicit about that. Having followed Neal's career for quite some time now, I can say that although Neal has said that with this iteration of the band, writing is more of a "band effort" than it has been, we the fans have little idea what that actually looks like. Even having watched the "making of" video that came with Similitude for the prior album release cycle, it is clear that Neal is the driving creative force. And it is NOT clear just how much the others bring to the table in terms of writing. Neal is front and center in that video. That is pretty much how it has always been. And that is not a negative or a slight to anyone else. It just is what it is. So how are we the fans, including those relatively few of us who are privileged to review the material, supposed to intelligently comment in greater detail about each individual member's contribution when we have no idea what that is? Especially when this is a pre-release review and, as a result, the band and label have been pretty mum about everything about the album, and the details are scant.
3. Neal Morse's name is on the project. Rightly or wrongly, that gives a "solo artist" impression, whether writing is truly a "band effort" or not. Despite that fans (rightly) praise the individual performances of the other band members, I think there will always be a tendency to refer to the artist the project is named after in this type of situation. It is subconscious, and is inevitable. No matter how collaborative the band is, Neal will always receive the lion's share of the credit as long as his name is on the project. Same with Dio, James LaBrie, Ozzy, etc. Again, that isn't a slight to the other members. But it's the double edged sword of this project being called "The
Neal Morse Band."
So, again, I'm sorry that my focus was more on Neal, individually. I truly meant no offense and did not mean to marginalize the contributions of anyone else. I apologize if some of my wording may have been a bit careless in that regard. But there was nothing negative said in the review about anything, and I think it would have ultimately been more productive for each of the band members to focus on the glowing nature of the review and to be proud of what they brought to the table in eliciting such a response from a true fan of the band (the ENTIRE band) than to merely focus on any omission in shining the spotlight directly on them. That's my two cents.
EDIT:
In other words, let's hear it for all five members of the Neal Morse Band!! 
^This. 1,000 times, this.
EDIT2: I did, however, just submit a couple of small suggested revisions to make the intro more "band"-focused. The folks who run LotsOfMuzik will incorporate those if they see fit.
Topic: Official Neal Morse Appreciation Thread (Read 548737 times)
