Here's why I disliked Portnoy's affiliation with Avenged. I feel like other fans may feel the same way, so maybe I'll be speaking for others as well. Note, I don't dislike A7X more than I did before this. I've never really liked them in the first place, but that doesn't mean that I don't respect Mike for helping them out. Especially under the conditions.
Alright, here goes:
To me, prog has always been a gateway for bands to rise above the rest in their genre. I originally appreciated Rush for this. They took a genre that I honestly thought was mostly bland (rock) and made art with it. To me, rock was pretty much generic. I might have enjoyed it a little, and certainly some more than others, but I always thought rock in it's purest form was pretty bland and devoid of any true emotion. Rush showed me that no matter what instruments you use and no matter what genre you are or what your influences are, you can make ART. Dream Theater accomplished this for me as well. Dream Theater took a genre that I had previously avoided and showed me the same thing. You can make art from anything. To me, Avenged Sevenfold is the "Rock" of metal. The have accessible writing that allows for anyone to be a fan and focused on just being loud. With Dream Theater and Rush, every song was full of emotion, and what's more, it was puzzle. It made you think. I loved listening to a song and then finding myself being confused as to what was going on. When I had to rewind a few seconds back and really pay attention, it almost felt like an accomplishment to be able to tell you what time signature they were in. Avenged Sevenfold for me, lacks this. While they DO expand their genre into other areas of music that I would usually appreciate (organs, classical instruments, etc.) they go about it all wrong. This is the second reason why I found this somewhat sacrilegious. Dream Theater was like the Sistine chapel of metal to me. They were intelligent in design and filled you with emotion. Avenged Sevenfold's theme is death. Now for the people who I know who really aren't familiar with metal music, if you ask them what metal is about, they will probably tell you something with the following keywords: loud, heavy, fast, hell, death, killing, screaming, etc. Now, I can understand this. If you don't really know a lot about metal, and you look at what you do know about metal, you could pretty safely say that all metal uses death as a primary theme. This is pretty irrefutable. Now, the reason why people think this, is because, well, many metal bands DO use death as a theme. The fact that Avenged does as well doesn't really separate them creatively from the rest of the bunch (especially with newer metal bands) and to me, this was one of my main draws to Dream Theater. They were about the music, not looking as morbid as possible.
Think I'm generalizing? Compare these two websites.
Avenged Sevenfold's website is absolutely loaded with death references, while Dream Theater's has none. In fact, Dream Theater's seems to promote creativity with images like the Mason logo and the general abstractness of their banner. Now I wanna say this first, every band has a right to choose their own theme. I'm not insinuating that EVERY band should follow in DT's footsteps, I just mean to show how they contrast and why the fans were most likely disappointed or confused that Mike Portnoy would ally himself with such polar opposites. I basically got into DT because they WEREN'T Avenged Sevenfold and other bands like them. Now again, I must reiterate, if I was Mike, I would have done exactly what he did in his position. I mean, how could you turn something like that down? It was a man's dying wish, I wouldn't be able to live with myself if I had turned it down. But all of this is beside the point. I'm only posting this to show why DT fans may dislike A7X and why they may feel uncomfortable with this move.
Tl;dr:
Spoiler:Here's why I disliked Portnoy's affiliation with Avenged. I feel like other fans may feel the same way, so maybe I'll be speaking for others as well. Note, I don't dislike A7X more than I did before this. I've never really liked them in the first place, but that doesn't mean that I don't respect Mike for helping them out. Especially under the conditions.
Alright, here goes:
To me, prog has always been a gateway for bands to rise above the rest in their genre. I originally appreciated Rush for this. They took a genre that I honestly thought was mostly bland (rock) and made art with it. To me, rock was pretty much generic. I might have enjoyed it a little, and certainly some more than others, but I always thought rock in it's purest form was pretty bland and devoid of any true emotion. Rush showed me that no matter what instruments you use and no matter what genre you are or what your influences are, you can make ART. Dream Theater accomplished this for me as well. Dream Theater took a genre that I had previously avoided and showed me the same thing. You can make art from anything. To me, Avenged Sevenfold is the "Rock" of metal. The have accessible writing that allows for anyone to be a fan and focused on just being loud. With Dream Theater and Rush, every song was full of emotion, and what's more, it was puzzle. It made you think. I loved listening to a song and then finding myself being confused as to what was going on. When I had to rewind a few seconds back and really pay attention, it almost felt like an accomplishment to be able to tell you what time signature they were in. Avenged Sevenfold for me, lacks this. While they DO expand their genre into other areas of music that I would usually appreciate (organs, classical instruments, etc.) they go about it all wrong. This is the second reason why I found this somewhat sacrilegious. Dream Theater was like the Sistine chapel of metal to me. They were intelligent in design and filled you with emotion. Avenged Sevenfold's theme is death. Now for the people who I know who really aren't familiar with metal music, if you ask them what metal is about, they will probably tell you something with the following keywords: loud, heavy, fast, hell, death, killing, screaming, etc. Now, I can understand this. If you don't really know a lot about metal, and you look at what you do know about metal, you could pretty safely say that all metal uses death as a primary theme. This is pretty irrefutable. Now, the reason why people think this, is because, well, many metal bands DO use death as a theme. The fact that Avenged does as well doesn't really separate them creatively from the rest of the bunch (especially with newer metal bands) and to me, this was one of my main draws to Dream Theater. They were about the music, not looking as morbid as possible.
Think I'm generalizing? Compare these two websites.
Avenged Sevenfold's website is absolutely loaded with death references, while Dream Theater's has none. In fact, Dream Theater's seems to promote creativity with images like the Mason logo and the general abstractness of their banner. Now I wanna say this first, every band has a right to choose their own theme. I'm not insinuating that EVERY band should follow in DT's footsteps, I just mean to show how they contrast and why the fans were most likely disappointed or confused that Mike Portnoy would ally himself with such polar opposites. I basically got into DT because they WEREN'T Avenged Sevenfold and other bands like them. Now again, I must reiterate, if I was Mike, I would have done exactly what he did in his position. I mean, how could you turn something like that down? It was a man's dying wish, I wouldn't be able to live with myself if I had turned it down. But all of this is beside the point. I'm only posting this to show why DT fans may dislike A7X and why they may feel uncomfortable with this move.
Again, this is all my opinion, though it may be applicable to others.
Last edited by aander91 on Thu Sep 09, 2010 9:20 pm, edited 1 time in total.
I personally love A7X and DT. Of course, my favorite A7X songs are their more melodic ones (A Little Piece Of Heaven FTW!). My musical preference as far as the Rock-Metal genres go are pretty wide. Some of my favorite bands are Rise Against, Atreyu, Dream Theater, Children Of Bodom ect... They stretch all the way across the board.
Dr Rockso wrote: I never even listened to Dream Theater.
tadracing99 wrote:Though I must say, I actually like Avenged Sevenfold, but I completely agree you aander.
I really dislike their vocalist. Sometimes their songwriting can be pretty good, but I really wasn't impressed with their new album. All I got from it was "We're badasses and we're showing it off by being loud and excessively vulgar to attract high schoolers."
tadracing99 wrote:Though I must say, I actually like Avenged Sevenfold, but I completely agree you aander.
I really dislike their vocalist. Sometimes their songwriting can be pretty good, but I really wasn't impressed with their new album. All I got from it was "We're badasses and we're showing it off by being loud and excessively vulgar to attract high schoolers."
I understand why it seems like that. If you haven't listened to the whole album yet, I would recommend "Victim", "So Far Away", and "Fiction." Those songs are my favorites off the album, they are actually really easy-going to listen to. They aren't really in the "loud and excessively vulgar to attract high school kids" category.
Victim is...weird. It really feels out of place. Still not big on the vocals, he's pretty nasally and I feel like it's on purpose. I really can't legitimately complain about this one though. It's not really my style and I don't really feel like the music is appropriate for the song subject (from what I gather it's about someone dying, probably Rev) but it's a step forward from what I was expecting I suppose.
So Far Away is...alright I guess, but again it still feels out of place. The songwriting here is more memorable though I think. Another one about rev though? Quite a few songs about mourning (that don't really feel all that sad though)...
Fiction is sorta cool. Almost sounds Muse influenced. Again, not really my style, but I can really respect this track. Has some really good moments.
I know I'm going to sound like a critic and that I'm impossible to please but I always thought their ballad type things felt corny and forced. Same goes for DT actually as well. This may seem contradictory but my favorite song by them has always been Critical Acclaim. I think that the song is powerful and the music supports the message. What's more impressive about this song is really the writing though. They transition pretty much seamlessly through a lot of contrasting sections. From what I've heard so far, this is their Magnum Opus in my opinion.
