Devil Music A-Z: Dream Theater

My journey with Dream Theater begins like most people with Images and Words. The song Pull Me Under was getting regular rotation on MTV and I thought it was pretty cool. But when I listened to the whole album I didn't quite get it. You might even say I didn't like it. Here were these guys going on these wild musical tangents with each song and it almost seemed like narcissism from each member on how good they were. Not to mention James Labrie's vocals took some getting used to. Was this a prog band? Power metal? What the hell was going on here?

After I actually listened I got it though. These guys were taking rock music to a new level for the time. So I came to like Images and Words and bought Awake. I couldn't get into Awake either the first time though. Too many changes. But repeated listens and I got it. Once I realized this wasn't fast food metal like so much other stuff I became more accepting of what they were doing. You can't just listen one time to appreciate it. I lost track of them for a long time though thanks to the dirty 90's but went back and actually had a better feel for what was going on and have enjoyed pretty much every release.

The future of Dream Theater is going to be interesting. Most people familiar with this band by now knows that founding member and overlord of DT, Mike Portnoy, is not there. I'm not going to get into the drama surrounding that but without his lyrics a la Neil Peart and musical vision and the rest of the guys calling the shots this time it will be intriguing to see what they do with it. We might even get an album this year and still no word on who the new drummer is. Stay Tuned. In the meantime here are some Dream Theater videos over the years.