DREAM THEATER RE-MIX THEIR “GREATEST HIT” FOR GREATEST HITS COLLECTION; WHY?
Friday, March 21st, 2008 at 11:53am by Vince Neilstein
Dream Theater have a “best of” album of sorts coming out on April 1st entitled Greatest Hit and 21 Other Pretty Cool Songs. The title, of course, is a nod to the fact that the band really only ever had one song that could even loosely qualify as a hit, the classic “Pull Me Under” from 1992’s Images & Words. So it certainly comes as a surprise that the band went out of their way to re-mix perhaps the most important track of their entire career for inclusion with this two-disc set.
The remixed version of “Pull Me Under” basically amounts to a de-’80s-ification, but the end effect is that all of the life and character of the original mix have been sucked out. The first thing that jumps out at you is that the keyboards in the intro (and elsewhere) now sound completely lifeless and devoid of character. Worst of all, that trademark reverbed snare has been de-reverbed — or even sound-replaced, god forbid — robbing the recording of the life and character the original had. Petrucci’s guitars sound clearer and crisper and James LaBrie’s voice sounds better too, but it’s hard to care given this song basically sounds nothing like it once did.
What the fuck? Why mess with the original? I understand the band probably resented the ‘80s sound of the whole thing, but you can’t re-write history, and those dated old nuances are endearing to me. In short; this mix is fucked. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. And if you’re going out of your way to tout this song as your “Greatest Hit” sure as hell don’t go altering it, because this is not the song that was a hit in the first place.
Listen to the re-mixed version of “Pull Me Under” at the Rhino website, or listen below.
Dream Theater – “Pull me Under” (remix)
-VN
This was one of the best metal songs released in the 90’s and although the band have never been considered “cool” by the metal community, you cannot deny this track.
That said, I think this new re-tooled version is even better than the original.
They never wrote a song better than this.
This is worse than what George Lucas did to Star Wars.
They only released the greatest hit record because rhino had them on contract for another album, I’m pretty sure they just remixed the song so that there would be something new for the fans because Dream Theater aren’t exactly the kind of band that have greatest hits albums.
Agree with you Vince. It’s thin-sounding. I’m not sure the original sounded that “80s” to begin with.
Wait, you LIKED the triggered snare sound? If all they did was remove it from all of Images and Words and repackaged it as some whole-album 2008 mix half the fanbase would probably buy it.
But yeah, the guitar is especially underwhelming in the “watch the sparrow falling” section.
Oh and you’re aware that the cover, title and release date are quite likely a joke right? April 1st is April Fool’s and a Tuesday, and new releases happen on Thursdays… and the whole bird-shit thing is a bit much to take. I can’t say if the tracklist is a joke or not. It’s pretty bad – no 20 minute songs, and Disappear is their worst song – but it’s possible.
DT could crap on some plastic and shrink wrap it, I’d buy it. This is awesome, great way to introduce someone new to DT to all of their best tracks. Something for everyone on this release. Rare cuts, B sides, covers and remixes all together on 2 CDs. Only drawback is I’d rather have another new album by now, but I can wait.
First of all, Images and Words came out in 1992 and doesn’t sound very 80’s to me at all. I think of Tom Werman and Michael Wagener when I think of 80’s sounding records. That being said, the original snare sound was triggered and has zero dynamics to it whatsoever. If it has been sound replaced or if the original mic’ed track has been used it will be a huge plus, IMO. Programs like Drumagog make it extremely hard to tell when a drum has been replced because technology has improved 100fold since ‘92. The fact that you think the original snare had “life and character” is a little scary seeing as how it lacked any dynamics whatsoever.
This isn’t a joke, but DT didn’t want to release a greatest hits album in the first place. They were under contract to Rhino to release another album, so here it is.
I say this keeping in mind that this is compressed audio that we’re currently listening to, so hopefully it’ll sound better on the CD but the only gripes I have with the re-mix are that there’s no fat bottom end out of the snare, the guitars and the bass. Furthermore, some of the guitar layers sound too crispy in the midrange and need clamping down a little. LaBrie’s vocals are clean but too crispy sounding and need the top end limited as such. The keyboards definitely need to have more presence than they do. The snare, while lacking in bottom end, is definitely better to my ears than a triggered snare … maybe that’s my bias as a drummer but I prefer a snare drum with a fat bottom end but the snap of a piccolo … presence and chunk as it were.
Long and short of it, I prefer this re-mix to the original and while I understand the sentiment and agree with the writer about not changing what was the original greatest hit, this re-mix should be a bonus track rather than a replacement track to give us the option of what we’d rather hear.
Anyway, we’ve all got the original albums here, hopefully, so does it really matter what’s on the Greatest Hit album? I’m only buying it to keep my collection complete because I’m a DT nut. 3#-)
I think it sounds fine. I loved the orignal version when I heard it in 1992 and this sounds good too. Yes, it is a different mix, but it actually exposes some of the details hidden in original.
Oh yeah, for the person (richaod) that things that releases don’t happen on Tuesdays, but do on Thursdays — you are exactly wrong. New releases in the US come out on Tuesdays. Its been that way for a long time too.
Not only Pull Me Under, but Take the Time and Another Day has had the life sucked out of it. The keyboard parts in Take the Time (apart from the beginning) are pretty much devoid. There’s also over-compression on some of the parts; as a result the dynamics are inconsistant, volume fading in and out at random.
What a pile of crap. As much as I love DT, I wish I’d spent my money on a different album.