How do ADOE' similarities to IAW impact your enjoyment of ADTOE?

[gm5k]

The only song I get bugged by a little is BAI.  Can't help but feel like I'm listening to LTL during the first verse, and it's hard to ignore it there.   After the first chorus I'm good though    I do still love the song.

LNF used to bug me but it's become it's own song in my head now.  I prefer listening to it over UAGM these days     Outside of those two I've never been bugged by any of the other similarities. 

[Lucidity]

The only part of ADToE that bugs me because of its similarity to IaW (without any analysis, ie very obvious to me) is the part in Lost Not Forgotten at 6:22. It sounds a lot like UaGM. A lot. That being said, I lvoe both parts in both songs. For me, every song on ADToE stands on its own as an original composition.

[RoeDent]

It doesn't affect my enjoyment one bit, and it shouldn't affect anyone's enjoyment of it. If something as simple as the similarities between ADTOE and arguably one of the greatest prog albums of all time detracts from your personal enjoyment of ADTOE, then frankly I feel sorry for you.

[gmillerdrake]

If by similarities you mean awesomness then it makes me happy! Recently I listened to SC, then BC&SL then ADTOE. I like all the albums...but for me ADTOE is a more complete album and it gives me everything I love about DT. SC and BC&SL were going off course for me...there were songs I liked and some good music but ADTOE was a breath of fresh air. I can't wait until the next...

[Cruithne]

I thought the similarities in structure between OTBOA and Pull Me Under were obvious from the first listen, but they're both great songs and different enough that it bothers me not.

As for the rest of the album the only other similarity I'm even vaguely aware of is the intro of Breaking All Illusions vs. that of Learning To Live.

Now, IIRC from certain interviews that occurred in the first year after MP quit, it sounded like the material written for WDADU and I&W was typically worked up by a combination of JP, KM and JM at leisure and only when they had at least an outline of a song was it introduced to MP+singer for their input. From Awake onwards much more of the writing was done in a rehearsal space with the whole band (or at least everyone bar the singer) present.

I wouldn't be surprised, therefore, if any similarities between I&W and ADTOE came about as a natural result of returning to how they used to write in the early days. Or maybe it's just that MP was the only one who was forever trying to avoid repeating themselves in terms of structures.

That said...

It really doesn't bother me at all. I assume you guys know those short making of-documentaries for SDOIT and SFAM recorded at BearTracks? In both of them Mike Portnoy shows a line of cd's he truthfully enough calls the inspiration corner. Dream Theater didn't copy Images & Words, but they might've used it in the same way that they used some of the cd's in the inspiration corner back then.

...whilst I'd like to believe inspiration corner has been done away with now MP is out of the band, I wouldn't be surprised if I&W was an album they all had a listen to around that time for one reason or another and it did indeed influence their songwriting choices.

[MoraWintersoul]

What (almost) everyone's been missing is that JP said he wrote OTBOA (well, the part of it which he wrote, JR at least probably had a hand in it as well from the start) first, with the intention of it being the album opener (I think it was in the Artisan News intie he did), so I think the decision to use a couple of formulas which are known to do the job in crucial points of the album (especially in the opening and the closing song) was definitely 100% conscious. They wanted to write a statement album and they used a couple of things from their other statement album. That is just fine and dandy. This post is just repeating what everyone else said, though

[GasparXR]

It's too bad they already wrote a song called "The Great Debate", because this would make a good lyric topic.

Also,

(I think it was in the Artisan News intie he did)

That is adorable. :3

[Zydar]

It's too bad they already wrote a song called "The Great Debate", because this would make a good lyric topic.

The Great Debate Pt. 2: Similarities From A Memory

[GasparXR]

It's too bad they already wrote a song called "The Great Debate", because this would make a good lyric topic.

The Great Debate Pt. 2: Similarities From A Memory

The Stem Cell Carries On

[MoraWintersoul]

It's too bad they already wrote a song called "The Great Debate", because this would make a good lyric topic.

The Great Debate Pt. 2: Similarities From A Memory

1. Progressing
2. Overture 1992
3. Strange Deja Vu
4. Through My Notes
5. Fatal Plagiarism Accusation
6. Beyond This Album
7. Through Mike's Eyes
8. Inspiration Corner
9. The Dance Of Repeated Structures
10. One More Time
11. The Shaman Carries On
12. Finally Free To Arrive Where I Began

[?]

Six Degrees of Self-Plagiarism:

1. The Musical Prison (of Lack of New Ideas)
2. Blind Fans
3. Misunderstood
4. The Great Debate
5. Originality Disappears
6. Six Degrees of Self-Plagiarism

[wasteland]

Six Degrees of Self-Plagiarism:

1. The Musical Prison (of Lack of New Ideas)
2. Blind Fans
3. Misunderstood
4. The Great Debate
5. Originality Disappears
6. Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence

x2

[GasparXR]

Train of Failing ADTOE/I&W Debates:

1) As I Post
2) This Dying Argument
3) Endless Debate
4) Honor Thy I&W
5) Vacant of Originality
6) Stream of Musically Regressive Consciousness
7) In the Name of JP

[duncan3dc]

I would have voted "The similarities increase my enjoyment".  I maintain that it was a truly progressive concept to use I&W as a backbone for writing a new album.

This

I think it's really interesting how so many of you don't think there are real similarities between the two.

And this

[The Stray Seed]

The album has its undeniable similarities with I&W but - to me - they just look like some sort of echoes. For my personal sense of music, Dream Theater still have to reposses that genius touch they've shown throughout the first part of the carrier. You can say OTBOA is reminescent of PMU, but still watches up to it from the bottom of the valley. I&W is art at its purest state. ADTOE is still a very good album, and I like it more than other recent works, so I'm very positive on DT future.