Your Controversial Opinions on DT

[bosk1]

I have no idea.  He was a mod here for a bit.  But after I told him to mellow out when he was being a bit too heard on forum members, he got mad and left.  I saw him posting on Grateful Dreams for awhile after that, but lost track of him.

[cramx3]

Do we know if any other DT member, past or present, also joined the forum?

MP joined under the name chaossystem 

But in all seriousness, MP does have an account & made a few posts in here a long while ago: https://www.dreamtheaterforums.org/boards/index.php?action=profile;u=6436

Wow! Can't believe Mike actually posted here, since he pretty much hates DTF

There would be no DTF without MP.  The original forum would still be on DT.net.

I don't have the backstory to that, and I'm not trying to imply MP isn't important to DTF or anything, but we all know he hates this place, he's said that mutiple times, even to Bosk's face, and all his posts here were post split, anyway.

Yup, also told me he last September he didn't like this place and needed people to have his back here.  I certainly got his attention by saying DTF  but now that I see people were feeding him info, maybe that makes sense for him to feel that way about here. 

[TAC]

BTW, I remember Borlag here in the early days.  Whatever happened to him?

Who. Fucking. Cares.

[Setlist Scotty]

I have no idea.  He was a mod here for a bit.  But after I told him to mellow out when he was being a bit too heard on forum members, he got mad and left.  I saw him posting on Grateful Dreams for awhile after that, but lost track of him.

He disappeared from GDT a long time ago, too. IIRC, he gave away his whole bootleg collection, or at least most of it and stopped collecting boots. Not sure what led to it, but I think he might have recently become a father and family life was taking a priority for him, altho I'm pretty sure there were other underlying things that were also involved in his disappearance.
 
 

BTW, I remember Borlag here in the early days.  Whatever happened to him?

Who. Fucking. Cares.

Just a hunch, but I'm gonna guess Dublagent66 does.   

[Lethean]

Wow.  I had no idea that any of that went down. I always lurked on the MP forum because when I was a new fan, other fans told me his forum was really more like the band's forum and I'd get the latest news there and posts from him.  So I never went to the official DT forum and when I started checking this one out I was surprised it was "unofficial."


I also had no idea that the 5/8 forum had anything to do with this place.  No disrespect meant to anyone who frequents that forum - I don't know enough about it at all to characterize the whole forum.  But what I did see makes me really glad that you felt the way you did Bosk, about having a place that DT would be comfortable with.  I thought it was just a random music forum that had members who really don't like DT!  I saw some pretty horrible personal comments about MP on that forum.  I thought it was really disturbing (and I'm someone who doesn't really care for how MP went about things after he left).

[Dublagent66]

BTW, I remember Borlag here in the early days.  Whatever happened to him?

Who. Fucking. Cares.

Tim, I'm shocked. I take it Borlag wasn't one of your favorite guys. 

I have no idea.  He was a mod here for a bit.  But after I told him to mellow out when he was being a bit too heard on forum members, he got mad and left.  I saw him posting on Grateful Dreams for awhile after that, but lost track of him.

Check this out.  A little bit of irony that might amuse you.  Not sure if you remember, but I was banned for a week by Borlag for getting out of hand when I was arguing with you about something. 

[nattmorker]

All righty, here's one. I'm not sure how controversial this is, but usually I don't hear people talking about this at all, and when they do, they don't seem to complain.
I really dislike pretty much every song transition on Octavarium. The songs themselves, as compositions, for the most part I love. Even the Answer Lies Within, which doesn't seem to get a lot of love, is one of my favorite of their piano-driven ballads.
But this thing they did where the songs transition into each other feels to me like a waste of time to me at best, and an annoyance at the worst. I know, the whole album is filled with all sorts of nuggets, and that those transitions are supposed to represent the black keys on the piano or whatever, but my appreciation for nuggets doesn't supersede my desire to listen to music without long, boring intros and outros, especially ones that bleed right into the musical parts of the songs, such as the intro to I Walk Beside You. And don't even get me started on the intro to Sacrificed Sons.

So yeah, after ripping the CD, I edited the whole thing down to simply be a collection of songs that start and end concisely, without any overlong intros and outros.
The "Greatest Hit" versions of I Walk Beside You, Sacrificed Songs, and The Answer Lies Within were a godsend, since they omitted the chirping birds and ticking clock that overlaps with the introductions of the songs. And that's pretty much exclusively the way I listen to this album these days.

Some of these bother me, some don't, but the worst imo is the outro to Panic Attack and how it drags for a whole minute before NE starts

I agree, that transition is too long. I also edited the transitions, especially that one, it is too long of a wait to start the next song, either NE or whatever other song when I'm listening in shuffle.

[bosk1]

I have no idea.  He was a mod here for a bit.  But after I told him to mellow out when he was being a bit too heard on forum members, he got mad and left.  I saw him posting on Grateful Dreams for awhile after that, but lost track of him.

Check this out.  A little bit of irony that might amuse you.  Not sure if you remember, but I was banned for a week by Borlag for getting out of hand when I was arguing with you about something. 

  I can't remember now, but I wonder if it was your specific case that I was telling him to chill out about.

[JayOctavarium]

Is 5/8 still a thing? I have an account over there, but have probably only browsed over there 2 or 3 times before saying screw it. I like it better here.

Also, when did Dreamtheater.net kill their "Official" forum?

[Dublagent66]

I have no idea.  He was a mod here for a bit.  But after I told him to mellow out when he was being a bit too heard on forum members, he got mad and left.  I saw him posting on Grateful Dreams for awhile after that, but lost track of him.

Check this out.  A little bit of irony that might amuse you.  Not sure if you remember, but I was banned for a week by Borlag for getting out of hand when I was arguing with you about something. 

  I can't remember now, but I wonder if it was your specific case that I was telling him to chill out about.

I suppose it could've been.  I was actually surprised that he banned me instead of you banning me.  Probably because you were/are more forgiving than he was.  Although, I probably still deserved it.  Kind of amusing now in hindsight. 

 

BTW, I remember Borlag here in the early days.  Whatever happened to him?

Who. Fucking. Cares.

Just a hunch, but I'm gonna guess Dublagent66 does.   

Actually I really don't, was just curious.

[DTA]

Is 5/8 still a thing? I have an account over there, but have probably only browsed over there 2 or 3 times before saying screw it. I like it better here.

5/8 is still a thing. I lurk there on occasion, but it's basically just a bunch of whiny dudes pretending like they hate Dream Theater yet commenting on any and everything related to Dream Theater.

[KevShmev]

I was a mod at dt.net for like 4-5 days shortly before the shutdown until Portnoy got wind of it and told the main guy to de-mod me because I was too big of a critic.  

To be fair, I was pretty critical of the band at the time, for a variety of reasons, so, yeah.

[TAC]

I have no idea.  He was a mod here for a bit.  But after I told him to mellow out when he was being a bit too heard on forum members, he got mad and left.  I saw him posting on Grateful Dreams for awhile after that, but lost track of him.

He disappeared from GDT a long time ago, too. IIRC, he gave away his whole bootleg collection, or at least most of it and stopped collecting boots. Not sure what led to it, but I think he might have recently become a father and family life was taking a priority for him, although I'm pretty sure there were other underlying things that were also involved in his disappearance.

That's funny. We had a blowout over just that. He was bragging about going to concerts and all this other stuff, and I made a comment about how do you find the time with a young child. I wasn't critiquing, just having a conversation, and he f'n flipped out on me. How dare I question his parenting and shit like that.

[Grizz]

Do we know if any other DT member, past or present, also joined the forum?

MP joined under the name chaossystem 

But in all seriousness, MP does have an account & made a few posts in here a long while ago: https://www.dreamtheaterforums.org/boards/index.php?action=profile;u=6436

Wow! Can't believe Mike actually posted here, since he pretty much hates DTF

There would be no DTF without MP.  The original forum would still be on DT.net.

I don't have the backstory to that, and I'm not trying to imply MP isn't important to DTF or anything, but we all know he hates this place, he's said that mutiple times, even to Bosk's face, and all his posts here were post split, anyway.

Yup, also told me he last September he didn't like this place and needed people to have his back here.  I certainly got his attention by saying DTF  but now that I see people were feeding him info, maybe that makes sense for him to feel that way about here.

I haven't been here regularly for a while but when I last was, there was a fair bit of MP hate as a consensus. I could totally see why he wouldn't love that. He strikes me as someone who craves acceptance, so that probably makes him more sensitive to criticism (I know it does for me!).

Then again, MrDT2 says that conservatives are being censored on here, so maybe things have just changed radically in the last couple years

[Max Kuehnau]

Back on topic: I've talked about my inabilty to understand pieces like Take The Time or MP's drumming, but I actually think that TTT may have worked rather well on FII (arguably even better than on I/W), seeing as quite a few aspects in it have that kind of looser, groove-driven basic idea. (which FII had too. I don't know how else to describe what I mean) I've decided to be neutral here (as I always do my best to be, although it doesn't always work) since there may be some of us here who like TTT.

[hefdaddy42]

Back on topic: I've talked about my inabilty to understand pieces like Take The Time or MP's drumming, but I actually think that TTT may have worked rather well on FII (arguably even better than on I/W), seeing as quite a few aspects in it have that kind of looser, groove-driven basic idea. (which FII had too. I don't know how else to describe what I mean) I've decided to be neutral here (as I always do my best to be, although it doesn't always work) since there may be some of us here who like TTT.

Neutral isn't controversial. 

However, I would imagine that most people like Take The Time.  What don't you understand about it?

[Max Kuehnau]

Back on topic: I've talked about my inabilty to understand pieces like Take The Time or MP's drumming, but I actually think that TTT may have worked rather well on FII (arguably even better than on I/W), seeing as quite a few aspects in it have that kind of looser, groove-driven basic idea. (which FII had too. I don't know how else to describe what I mean) I've decided to be neutral here (as I always do my best to be, although it doesn't always work) since there may be some of us here who like TTT.

Neutral isn't controversial. 

However, I would imagine that most people like Take The Time.  What don't you understand about it?

you have to imagine the structure of the song for a second: The intro is logical to me, but then the verses and some sections of the pre-choruses are not. Completely nonsensical to me. I always ask myself: What the hell is that supposed to do here and why is it there? (and then there are a few more where that question comes up to me again, but what do I know.) That's the best answer I can give right now. There you go.

(add to that that I prefer MM for his logical approach to music, but that's an entirely different subject)

[hefdaddy42]

Back on topic: I've talked about my inabilty to understand pieces like Take The Time or MP's drumming, but I actually think that TTT may have worked rather well on FII (arguably even better than on I/W), seeing as quite a few aspects in it have that kind of looser, groove-driven basic idea. (which FII had too. I don't know how else to describe what I mean) I've decided to be neutral here (as I always do my best to be, although it doesn't always work) since there may be some of us here who like TTT.

Neutral isn't controversial. 

However, I would imagine that most people like Take The Time.  What don't you understand about it?

you have to imagine the structure of the song for a second: The intro is logical to me, but then the verses and some sections of the pre-choruses are not. Completely nonsensical to me. I always ask myself: What the hell is that supposed to do here and why is it there? (and then there are a few more where that question comes up to me again, but what do I know.) That's the best answer I can give right now. There you go.

I don't know that "logical" is the adjective I would use. 

But I guess I don't get what you don't get.  I mean, it has some funky time signatures, but for DT, the song is fairly straightforward.  It's an unconventional structure, but I don't see how it is that hard to follow, especially for a DT fan.

[Rob24]

Prophets of War is a masterpiece. A microcosm of a song that contains a lot of weird stylistic elements which shouldn't fit together but it works because of the emotional intensity and all around mastery.

[gzarruk]

Prophets of War is a masterpiece. A microcosm of a song that contains a lot of weird stylistic elements which shouldn't fit together but it works because of the emotional intensity and all around mastery.

THAT'S what I call controversial

[Trav]

Wither is a top 10 DT song for me.

[Ruba]

Viper King should have been the opening track and the lead single of DoT and UA the bonus track.

[Grizz]

Meh, imo LaBrie and Viper King don't mix. It makes sense as a bonus track.

[SystematicThought]

Meh, imo LaBrie and Viper King don't mix. It makes sense as a bonus track.

Yeah, I was so pumped for VK and then as soon as James comes in and sings in that higher register, it just crushed every ounce of excitement that I had. It didn't work for me.

Glad others enjoy it though!

[Lethean]

JLB is probably the reason I listen to Viper King at all. 

[Rattlehead]

It's grown on me, but it still doesn't really fit on the album - it makes perfect sense as a bonus track to me.

[DTA]

His voice in the first verse annoys me, but I still love the song. It's probably my favorite on the entire album.

[TAC]

It's a B side. And an excellent one at that. It's not part of the album proper, so just sit back and enjoy the little extra.

[IDontNotDoThings]

VK is one of the best songs on the album. As far as I'm concerned, it's earned its place on the album.

[gzarruk]

VK is one of the best songs on the album. As far as I'm concerned, it's earned its place on the album.

[cygnusx1jg]

They should have put Viper King as the second song on the record, just like the other song about a car (Red Barchetta on Moving Pictures) is the second song.

You know, the second best band ever giving a tribute to the best band ever. Oops, there I go being controversial!

[The Walrus]

FII is miles better than SFAM

[lovethedrake]

FII is miles better than SFAM

That is about as controversial as it gets!     I like FII but SFAM is my favorite DT album.

I can't get past Burning my soul, you not me, just let me breath, hollow years on FII.   

[ThatOneGuy2112]

Yeah definitely controversial.

Wouldn't put it as high as Scenes, but I'll say I prefer it over all their albums since SC.

[The Walrus]

Yeah I know. SFAM is a milestone album etc. but it's so dreadfully boring to me and the best moments are the ones like Through Her Eyes and The Spirit Carries On when they're a bit restrained.. FII at least has some groove even after all the label and producer tampering. Just can't handle all the shred noodling and I've never been huge on concept albums anyway.