RockRoast

I stumbled across this video on Morow.com the other day. It’s an interview with Porcupine Tree frontman Steven Wilson, and near the end he gives an interesting answer to one particularly interesting question. The whole interview is pretty good, but if you’re not a Porcupine Tree fan, you might as well just skip to 6:48 for the best part.

The question was, “What is your strategy to struggle against music downloading?” And as far as I’m concerned, Steven hit the nail on the head.

His first point is that Porcupine Tree is not music for “fickle” people. It’s one of the things I love about prog fans. We tend to be completists. If we love the music, we want the whole discography and the whole experience. I suppose I could have pirated Fear of a Blank Planet if I’d wanted to, but, like Steven alluded to, it’s difficult to enjoy music quite as much as listening to an album for the first time with the liner notes in open in your lap.

Which brings us to Steven’s second point: packaging. Fancy boxes, bonus DVDs and riveting artwork all make a piece of music worth owning instead of just listening to. Just yesterday, I pulled out a CD I hadn’t heard all the way through in a while and I sat there listening to it while staring at the artwork in the liner notes and reviewing the lyrics. It’s a great experience, but you need to own the CD to do it. Steven Wilson is right: you can’t download that tactile experience.

At least, not yet. I really hope technology never goes so far as to allow us to do that.

Many people are worried about the death of the compact disc in a download-oriented culture, but I don’t really think it’s a possibility. I will always want a physical, non-digital version of the music I buy, and I know there are plenty of other people like me who will continue to buy CDs. Although I have to say that I would be very amused if, years down the road, progressive bands begin to top the sales charts–not because they’re more popular, but because their fans are the only ones still willing to shell out a couple of bucks for a CD.

I don’t expect that to happen. But it would be hilarious.

Fans of the neo-prog band Frost* probably already know that the band have reconvened and begun work on a second album. What they may not know is that writer/producer/keyboardist/frontman Jem Godfrey is doing his best to keep anxious fans from dying of boredom as they wait.

Godfrey has been uploading two or three youtube videos a month under the name “planetfrost.” These videos, called The Frost Reports, detail the daily activities of the band’s studio work, including the witty banter, the wacky antics, and the occasional recording and mixing.

The Frost Reports tend to offer the viewer brief, incomplete snippets of the new songs, and while it’s not much, it certainly shows a lot of promise. Fans thirsting for any glimpse at the anticipated followup to 2006’s Milliontown should be able to wet their whistles. But most of these videos involve the band members–mostly Jem Godfrey–simply goofing off. It’s entertaining, sometimes awkward, and frequently funny. Just wait for the part when Godfrey realizes that all keyboards have some little loose thing rattling around inside of them.

But you have to wonder if all the goofing off is what’s taking this album so long.

The important thing, however, is that in one of January’s reports, Godfrey briefly outlined the band’s schedule and said that he hopes to have the whole record ready by May. Frost* fans rejoice–your wait may soon be over.

For years, the members of progressive metal titans Dream Theater have joked that, if they ever had the opportunity to release a compilation CD, they’d call it “Dream Theater’s Greatest Hit.” Singular.

The joke is a reference to the closest thing the band ever had to mainstream success. In 1992, Dream Theater’s single “Pull Me Under” became a surprise hit, making a dent in the Mainstream Rock Tracks charts and getting considerable play on MTV. And though the band would put out seven more studio albums over the next fifteen years, they would never recapture the success of “Pull Me Under.” Instead, they built a more or less “underground” fanbase that, after twenty years of music, has earned them an opportunity to release a greatest hits collection.

Except they only have one hit.

So other than put out a CD with one song on it, Dream Theater have decided to add 21 other pretty cool songs. The compilation contains two discs. The first is the “dark side” of Dream Theater, including “Pull Me Under” and ten other heavy tracks. The second is the “light side,” which offers eleven softer ballads. Overall, Dream Theater’s Greatest Hit provides the listener with an accurate portrayal of the band at its loudest and its softest.

Many fans of the band are critical of the tracklisting, as they feel that many favorites and “signature songs” have been omitted. But I think the tracks are geared more toward casual listeners and should satisfy that group of people just fine. Even for the die-hard listener, however, there are plenty of favorites. I think the tracklisting has a pretty good “something for everyone” feel to it.

It’s also notable that producer Kevin Shirley has remixed three songs (Pull Me Under, Take the Time, and Another Day) for this compilation, and “Pull Me Under” in particular sounds great. You can stream ten of the twenty-two songs, including “Pull Me Under,” here.

Dream Theater’s Greatest Hit (…and 21 other pretty cool songs) is scheduled for release on April 1st from Rhino Records.