Dream Theater — Images and Words

intothewellsabyss
Jul 7, 2023
6 min read

𝐅𝐑𝐎𝐌 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐂𝐑𝐘𝐏𝐓𝐒 - 𝐂𝐄𝐋𝐄𝐁𝐑𝐀𝐓𝐈𝐍𝐆 𝐏𝐀𝐒𝐓 𝐀𝐋𝐁𝐔𝐌 𝐑𝐄𝐋𝐄𝐀𝐒𝐄𝐒 𝐢𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐇𝐈𝐒𝐓𝐎𝐑𝐘 𝐨𝐟 𝐇𝐀𝐑𝐃 𝐑𝐎𝐂𝐊 & 𝐇𝐄𝐀𝐕𝐘 𝐌𝐄𝐓𝐀𝐋…

31 years ago today, we “Wait(ed) for Sleep” “Under A Glass Moon”!

On this day (July 7) in 1992, Dream Theater released their second full-length studio album, “Images and Words” via Atco Records.

It is the first Dream Theater release to feature James Labrie on vocals.

Since its release, the album has maintained its position as the band's most commercially successful studio album, and the song "Pull Me Under" has the distinction of being the only Top 10 hit (radio or otherwise) the band has had to date. This particular song has also had more recent success as it appeared in the 2008 video game Guitar Hero World Tour.

Background:

After Charlie Dominici's departure from Dream Theater, the band auditioned nearly 200 individuals across the nation, until James LaBrie, who at that point was part of Canadian Glam Metal band Winter Rose, sent the band an audition tape. After a short jam session, he was named Dream Theater's new lead singer, and has remained with them ever since.

With LaBrie as the new vocalist, the band was signed to a seven-album contract by Atco Records, and shortly thereafter, they began recording their new album in late 1991.

The album's production was marred with tensions, as the band clashed with producer David Prater, including incidents where Prater would lock the band out of the studio while infamously forcing drummer Mike Portnoy to use triggered snare and bass drum samples, with the snare sample being the exact one used on FireHouse's 1992 album “Hold Your Fire”, another album Prater produced around the same time.

The lead single, "Pull Me Under", gained the band considerable commercial success with its airplay on MTV and radio, garnering them a top 10 hit on Billboard's Hot Mainstream Rock Tracks chart. When the album was released, it sold at a steady pace, helped by an extensive world tour.

Dream Theater originally intended to release a double album, but that plan was rejected by ATCO, causing several songs to be omitted from the album. One of these songs, "A Change of Seasons", would later be re-recorded by the band and released on an EP of the same name in 1995.

The song "Take the Time" (for which a single was also released) includes samples from Kurtis Blow's "Christmas Rappin'" ("Hold it now"), Frank Zappa's "Dancin' Fool" ("Wait a minute"), and Public Enemy's "Power to the People", ("Come on").

The song also features a quote from Giuseppe Tornatore's movie Cinema Paradiso: "Ora che ho perso la vista, ci vedo di più" ("Now that I have lost my sight, I see more"), sung and paraphrased by LaBrie shortly before in the song ("I see clearer now, I'm blind").

LaBrie had appeared as a guest vocalist on Fates Warning's 1991 album “Parallels”, for which the band was credited as "Dream Theatre" in the "special thanks" of the album's credits. Dream Theater responded by thanking "Fatez Warning" in the credits of “Images and Words”.

A single was also released for the song "Another Day".

While only a promotional version of "Metropolis" was issued:

“Images and Words” was played in its entirety on several occasions during the European leg of the 2007 "Chaos in Motion" tour, in celebration of its 15th anniversary.

On July 7, 2012, at a concert in Austin, Texas, the songs "Pull Me Under", "Another Day", and "Metropolis" were performed as an encore to celebrate the album's 20th anniversary; additionally, "Surrounded" was performed during the main set.

(Dream Theater during the performance of "Another Day" in Austin, TX, July 7, 2012)

In 2017, Dream Theater celebrated the 25th anniversary of the album on the "Images, Words & Beyond" tour in Europe, which started on January 30 at the Auditorium Parco Della Musica in Rome, Italy.

"Images, Words & Beyond” European tour dates:

Jan. 30 – Rome, Italy – Auditorium Parco Della Musica

Feb. 01 – Padova, Italy – Gran Teatro Geox

Feb. 03 – Zurich, Switzerland – Samsung Hall

Feb. 04 – Milan, Italy – Mediolanum Forum

Feb. 06 – Prague, Czech Republic – Forum Karlin

Feb. 08 – Tilburg, Netherlands – 013

Feb. 10 – Ludwigsburg, Germany – MHP Arena

Feb. 11 – Dusseldorf, Germany – Mitsubishi Electric Halle

Feb. 12 – Paris, France – Zenith

Feb. 14 – Hamburg, Germany – Mehr

Feb. 16 – Malmö, Sweden – Malmö Arena

Feb. 17 – Partille, Sweden – Partille Arena

Feb. 18 – Stockholm, Sweden – Fryshuset Arenan

The tour also carried over into the US, Japan and Singapore.

In a 2019 interview with Greg Prato in SongFacts, LaBrie listed “Images and Words” as the Dream Theater album he is most proud of, because "that established what Dream Theater really is. I think it's a phenomenal album from beginning to end."

Promotional videos were filmed for “Pull Me Under”, “Take the Time” and “Another Day”.

(Clip from the "Pull Me Under" video)

The album was reissued in 2013 on vinyl as a limited edition 180 gr. double LP.

Critical Reception:

The album has received acclaim from music critics since its release. The German magazine Rock Hard elected “Images and Words” Album of the Month and lauded Dream Theater, using "the old [1970s] term 'supergroup'"; according to the reviewer, they set "standards and still perfect them, although they hardly appear to do so" and, even considering the many influences in their music, the "versatility, the linking of different grooves and melody elements within each songs" shows how Dream Theater are "style-transcending like no other band."

In another contemporary review, the U.K. magazine SELECT (Pop Babylon!) gave the album a lower rating, referring to the album as "elaborate, layered prog-metal" and stated that "if this was a book, it'd be for the coffee-table, glossy but not essential."

Phil Carter of AllMusic was taken by the band members' "impressive ability on their respective instruments" and by LaBrie's vocal range, writing also that the album is an "excellent mix of progressive metal stylings with heartfelt vocals and thought-provoking lyrics".

One Metal Storm reviewer calls “Images and Words” "a masterpiece and also a historical album", because it "brought something totally new to the scene, this famous Progressive Metal sound that would become Dream Theater's signature".

Canadian journalist Martin Popoff in his “Collector's Guide to Heavy Metal” praised the band's musicianship and "the tricky arrangements", but was not thrilled by the album, which he found "a bit too self-aware and calculated to be in the true spirit of progressive rock."

As previously noted, “Images and Words” was a moderate commercial hit, reaching No. 61 on the US Billboard 200 chart. It is also Dream Theater's only album to be certified gold by the The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), and remains their best-selling album to date, selling more than six hundred thousand copies.

Accolades:

On April 9, 2013, “Images and Words” won Loudwire's fan-voted March Metal Madness award for best metal album of all time.

The song "Under a Glass Moon" was awarded the 98th best guitar solo by About.com expert.

In October 2011, “Images and Words” was ranked number 7 on Guitar World magazine's top ten list of guitar albums of 1992.

In 2015, the album was ranked first on the website The Prog Report's list of the top 50 Progressive Rock albums of 1990–2015.

Four other Dream Theater albums made the list: “Metropolis Pt. 2: Scenes from a Memory” (third), “Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence” (14th), “Awake” (18th), and “Train of Thought” (38th).

In 2017, it was ranked 95th at Rolling Stone's "100 Greatest Metal Albums of All Time".

Links to Artists, Albums, and Music Videos:

Click this link to listen to “Images and Words” via Apple Music: https://music.apple.com/us/album/images-and-words/282703578

Click this link to listen to “Images and Words” via Spotify: Images and Words https://open.spotify.com/album/2QgGoL5VSQhPHudTObS7zK

Click this link to watch the official music video for “Pull Me Under”: https://youtu.be/mipc-JxrhRk

Click this link to watch the official music video for “Take the Time”: https://youtu.be/C5sg8heGdyk

Click this link to watch the official music video for “Another Day”: https://youtu.be/LYtiDCXLAcQ

Click this link to follow Dream Theater on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/dreamtheater

Note: The reviews shared here are for historical reference. The views and opinions expressed within are not always supported (in full or in part) by Into the Wells. — E.N. Wells

Dream Theater — Images and Words

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