I gave four listens apiece to these albums to commemorate a twentieth anniversary, just like I did with Back In Black:
A Momentary Lapse Of Reason: Well, "Learning To Fly" and "On The Turning Away" are the only two good songs and I'm not terribly attached to either--in fact I now like "On The Turning Away" a bit less since in 2002 it'd be a good decade before I'd actually pick up and listen to The Final Cut (a record I really like, but was warned away from by the prog-rock snobs I talked to on ICQ and message boards at the time) and realize that OTTA retreads not The Wall but more specifically stuff like "Your Possible Pasts." The rest I remember almost uniformly hating when I was 20 and it honestly hasn't gotten a hell of a lot better. I remembered the rainy synth mood of "Signs Of Life" being sort of cool, and relistening to it, it does start out kinda cool...then Dave comes in with his guitar part and just turns it into f***ing "Shine On You Crazy Diamond", natch. But the early synth parts are cool! "One Slip" seems to inject a bit of energy into things, but it doesn't really have a great memory. Then there's the flops--I guess I don't specifically REVILE them, but I know I have little desire to ever hear "Sorrow" (endless boring guitar soloing), "The Dogs Of War" (boring death march), "Yet Another Movie" (boring dreariness) or either "A New Machine" bit (boring vocoders) again. That's a lot of weak tracks--and then there's one I REALLY forgot, "Terminal Frost" which sounds like David Gilmour wanted to do his own take on...on...the Top Gun theme or something? Really? That's hilarious--a creative force from the 60s like David Gilmour regurgitating the adult contemporary/movie-soundtrack slop he inadvertantly inspired with all that soaring. I suppose it could have been worse, but it's notable that the two songs I liked are the only really "positive" songs on the whole album. The rest is boring, aging darkness. (7/15)
The Division Bell: I've thought of AMLOR as a bad/weak disc for many years, and thought of this as a mediocre, slightly better one, but relistening to it I've come to the conclusion that it's actually even worse!! It SHOULD be better--it was released in the 90s instead of the 80s and it seemed more diverse and better produced--but there's so few good songs! At least I like to listen to "Learning To Fly" and "On The Turning Away" all the way through as songs, whereas here I only liked parts of songs at best! "Poles Apart" has a nice pastoral intro but that's the best part of it, and "What Do You Want From Me," the other song I recalled liking, is both lyrically weak (take THAT, Roger...uh, you listening?) and only notable for the rising "ahhh ahhh ahh" backing vocals in its chorus! "High Hopes" has a passable opening piano line, but Beavis and Butt-Head called the rest of it "wuss music" and they're right! Upon third or fourth listen I started to like "Wearing The Inside Out" a bit for some reason, its mildly dreamy melody sort of reminding me of the mood of Slowdive's "Blue Skies An' Clear." And that's a total of what, 13 minutes of music out of a 66 minute borefest? The lowlights aren't really as many as AMLOR--"Take It Back" is probably the worst offender, not just a U2 ripoff but Dave trying to disguise a U2 ripoff by ripping off not one of U2's hits, but the lesser known album track "One Tree Hill"--but the rest of the album bores me so badly I can't even single out individual tracks as bad. "Marooned" and "Cluster One" are pretty boring, I guess (is the title of the latter meant to make you think of Cluster & Eno? Because the music is very much second rate Eno) and I can't even remember which of the rest of these is which....just very, very boring, forgettable second-rate AOR stadium rock crossed with third rate art rock and sung by a fourth rate, bored Gilmour. I don't like any of it and I'm going to actually retain even less of it than last time! The liner notes are cool, though. (6/15)
Dream Theater, Six Degrees Of Inner Turbulence: Oh, yeah, YEAH. I know everyone in the world has been waiting for me to bring up new thoughts on THIS one 20 years later!! If you don't remember, I adored the first disc and hated the second one and marked it as the end of my general interest in the band, and have only listened to any album they put out since then two or three times apiece before dismissing them with Ken. The first disc has the three best songs--the ballad-epics "Blind Faith," "Disappear" and "Misunderstood," and I still like those, believe it or not. The album's best *moment* is the galloping tempo shift in the first few minutes of "The Glass Prison," but the song is 14 minutes long and after the fourth good minute or so, Jordan Rudess and James Labrie begin slaughtering the song with cheesy singing and those bad keyboard tones that Rudess loves so much. Believe it or not, the much-mocked 14 minute stem-cell research epic "The Great Debate" actually makes better use of its length!! As for the second disc, it's basically a mess, but the poppy songs "Goodnight Kiss," "About To Crash" and "Solitary Shell" are a little better than I remember (and I cannot BELIEVE I'm saying that about ANY DT music) and it's really the opening and closing tracks, and the terrible shred song "Test That Stumped Them All" as the turds. Still, this whole thing is way too long and would get a mediocre rating at best, and I can't even remember what I would have given it in 2002. (9/15)