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As far as the juiciness of the groove is concerned, ZZ Top beats AC/DC for me any time of the day. That's just something that goes down like a tasty burger.

Also, Back in Black - although it is the best they could manage with Johnson - is overrated, I don't see anyone losing sleep over missing Shake a Leg or Have a Drink on Me.

And third of all, the number of juicy, absolutely memorable riffs by both DT and Opeth exceeds AC/DC, even. The riffs are just more complex, that is, more "Iommiesque" (usually - I below use a more simplistic one). AC/DC go more in the way of, e.g., Thin Lizzy's three notes of Jailbreak.


mckindog said:
How are you defining hooks?

I'm looking at it as memorable rhythms and melodies that grab people's attention and stick. Everything in music is very much taste-based, but you can partially quantify hooks by gauging a band's popularity, just like you can partially measure technique by degree of difficulty or complexity.

I respect the hell out of Dream Theatre and I respect and like Opeth, but under the above premise, I don't think it's any more of a stretch to say Back in Black has more/stronger hooks than Still Life than it is to say Train of Thought has better musicianship than Highway to Hell.
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Hey, sorry, but I don't get this at all. DT are almost hideous in their attempt at catchines, both choruses-wise and riff-wise.

Just take, e.g. This Dying Soul.

The main riff is very memorable (although a bit nu-metalish, I admit that TOT isn't maybe the best-aged album of them all)


In fact it was one of the first things that caught my attention with DT (along with Spirit Carries On)

To the chorus


(including the wonderful guitar harmony there in the end - how can you dismiss that)


This part, with "hear me"/"prison wall" etc. - just listen to the groovy riff underneath the vocals (again, a bit nu-metalish, but so juicy)


It has so much vigor, such momentum, such groove it's really thrilling to listen to.


And even the very end, after the build-up and the solos ... you get the last, hyper-fast minute. Okay, people complain about that, as an exercise in self-indulgence, but listen to the bass playing there.


So jazzy, so catchy, so groovy - you might hate the "tickling section" Trucci and Rudess do up there in the higher registers, but the rhythm section kills it.


And yes, for a prog band, DT are hugely popular. Because they're unafraid to use even almost a boy-bandish amount of catchiness, in their choruses and elsewhere.

The band that got my wife into metal. Because the sweet melodies.
 
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mckindog said:
How are you defining hooks?

I'm looking at it as memorable rhythms and melodies that grab people's attention and stick. Everything in music is very much taste-based, but you can partially quantify hooks by gauging a band's popularity, just like you can partially measure technique by degree of difficulty or complexity.

I respect the hell out of Dream Theatre and I respect and like Opeth, but under the above premise, I don't think it's any more of a stretch to say Back in Black has more/stronger hooks than Still Life than it is to say Train of Thought has better musicianship than Highway to Hell.
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I am defining hooks the same way as you and I generally agree with hooks related to a band’s popularity, but I would also argue that these things function differently depending on the genre of music. In pop music (which I am using as a large umbrella that includes AC/DC for this purpose), a song typically has one or two hooks that are repeated throughout the song as a way of making the song catchy. In progressive rock/metal (and even just regular forms of extreme metal), the hooks can be shorter, less repetitive, and greater in quantity. In Opeth, there are many hooks in a single song, but they often don’t last as long. There’s so much going on that, although the rhythms and melodies are memorable, there’s so much information that a single listen isn’t going to allow much to stick. But I would argue that both bands have pretty memorable rhythmic and melodic moments in their songs, it’s just that you might only hear those moments a couple times within a song.

With Dream Theater, the same is true but DT often takes the approach of taking a couple melodic ideas and developing them over a long song form.

Some examples for both:
Opeth - Godhead’s Lament
3:10 - 3:40: This is probably the catchiest part of the song and would qualify as a hook by any definition IMO, but it takes 3 minutes to get there and doesn’t last very long. I don’t have time to comb the whole song, but I’m pretty sure we don’t get there again until the very end. Meanwhile, there are a lot of other “hook-y” riffs and melodies that are less prominent.

IMO the best thing about Opeth is the catchy riffs. They are a little more complicated than what you get with AC/DC, but they are nonetheless hook-y.

Dream Theater - Stream of Consciousness
I want to use this example because the song is an instrumental, but it is based around a fairly simple rhythmic/melodic motif. Definitely a hook imo. It’s catchy, memorable, and so pervasive in the song that you would probably be able to hum it after hearing the song. Unlike Opeth, which throws a bunch of ideas at you in a 10 minute space, Dream Theater takes a few ideas and manipulates them as much as possible in a ten minute space.

Meanwhile, the rest of the album is pretty hook based in structure. The songs are long, but they all follow a pretty standard Verse - Chorus - Verse - Chorus - Instrumental - Verse - Chorus form. It’s just that they stretch all those things out pretty dramatically. But each song has a memorable riff or vocal line that is supposed to stick.

I am not trying to convert anyone to progressive music here. If it’s not your thing then no amount of shouting is going to make it your thing. But I am not a fan of the cliche that prog music is all about style without substance. There are prog bands that do not have hooks or interesting melodies and those bands are far less popular than Dream Theater or Opeth for a reason. They are trying to achieve different things than AC/DC, but they are no less valid.
 
Mosh said:
Dream Theater - Stream of Consciousness
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Since you mentioned this one - I love how the main theme returns first with just background keyboard chords, that still sound vaguely church-like and give it a very nice accompaniment and tasteful coloring


And then in the end Rudess blows up into this Jon-Lordy, baroque embellishments that just take me home completely


Seriously, I get that some people search for different things, but how does this not work on someone at all? How is that possible, geez?
 
* also, for some of the more Iommiesque riffs I mentioned but did not provide, see In the Name of God


Or even The Glass Prison


Or seriously one of the best riffs ever I ever heard in Godhead's Lament


Or freakin Face of Melinda



Again, I get that we like different things, but please don't tell me you don't get the appeal or the catchiness of these at all.
 
I also have to say: I love Train of Thought, Highway to Hell, Still Life, and Back in Black.

Train of Thought to me in particular is probably the last exceptional Dream Theater album. They’ve done a lot of good work since then, but I think ToT is the unsung hero of their discography and stacks up against any of their other work. I love how focused they were on making a heavy riff driven album, Petrucci’s shredding is face melting, and some of the songwriting is really top notch. It’s true that the instrumental sections get a little over the top at times, but I actually dig a lot of what they’re doing. Some of it is also very Maiden-ish. This was the band really hitting their stride during the Rudess era.

Still Life is Opeth’s most challenging album, so much so that they don’t even like to play it live. So many riffs, so many weird tempo/time signature changes, so many dynamic shifts. The album is so all over the place and yet it flows so well. I don’t hold it in as high a regard as other Opeth fans, but it is a pretty remarkable piece of work and shows the band starting to really develop a signature sound. Mikael’s clean singing really starts to develop around here as well.

Highway to Hell and Back in Black: talk about an amazing 1 - 2 punch. If AC/DC had called it quits after Bon Scott died, we would be talking about Highway to Hell as the ultimate swan song and I think the band as a whole would be taken a little bit more seriously by critics and the rock community. It’s AC/DC at their hardest, their most focused, and everything comes together the way it should. It’s like each album leading up to this moment was a practice run, and that’s not to take anything away from the long string of classic albums they had with Bon.

And yet, somehow they did the impossible. They were able to replace Bon Scott with someone just as competent and memorable and made an album that was somehow even more refined and improved after reaching a zenith with Highway to Hell. On this album, AC/DC took everything that made them a great rock band and put on a nice poppy polish that would set the template for a whole decade of cock rock to come.

It is unfortunate that only two of these albums are going to progress.
 
Mosh said:
IMO the best thing about Opeth is the catchy riffs. They are a little more complicated than what you get with AC/DC, but they are nonetheless hook-y.
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In general I agree but I miss them on Still (at times) a snoozefest life (and on the last few albums which -I reckon- are thankfully not in the game).

That Lament riff is good. But it is a small quantity of the whole song, featuring long-winded (not catchy) stuff for the most part .

That Melinda bit is atonal, not very attractive, surely not catchy. The double vocal irritates.
 
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Forostar said:
That Lament riff is good. But it is a small quantity of the whole song, featuring long-winded (not catchy) stuff for the most part .
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I'd also expect especially you would appreciate the solo and the following guitar harmony there


(not trying to convert you or anything, just pinpointing stuff that I'd think you might appreciate. It felt like a rather Maidenesque moment to me).
 
mckindog said:
How are you defining hooks?

I'm looking at it as memorable rhythms and melodies that grab people's attention and stick. Everything in music is very much taste-based, but you can partially quantify hooks by gauging a band's popularity, just like you can partially measure technique by degree of difficulty or complexity.

I respect the hell out of Dream Theatre and I respect and like Opeth, but under the above premise, I don't think it's any more of a stretch to say Back in Black has more/stronger hooks than Still Life than it is to say Train of Thought has better musicianship than Highway to Hell.
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I define them the same way you do; a great riff or a catchy melody. Every song on Train of Thought has hooks (other than perhaps Vacant), and these often come in the musical variety. They may not be a riff as much as a brief section than gels really well. Still Life is the same, although Opeth move their songs forward quicker than other bands, so many times the hooks don't repeat. This is because these bands are writing for themselves (not the masses), and often writing to tell stories through not only lyrics, but also music.

To the average listener, yes - AC/DC would probably have more "hooks" than Dream Theater or Opeth. That's totally fine, because as I said, AC/DC is (to myself and to many others) great music to crank at parties or on the road. They know what they're doing and they have a style, and it's impossible not to have respect for them and what they've accomplished. But they have a set formula, and when I want a little more emotional weight and depth in a song, I'll turn to bands like Dream Theater and Opeth.

For me, about a minute (or less) into most AC/DC songs, you know what they're about. A cool riff here, a catchy melody there... and that's all fine and dandy. They're a very commercial band, so they're going to be more popular overall. But hooks come in so many shapes and sizes and flavors, and I don't care what the masses think. For example, U2 may have more "hooks" than Symphony X, but I know which band I'm picking 100% of the time.

Finally, Dream Theater have written some truly deep and emotional pieces of music. While their musical masturbation can be grating at times, they don't whip it out in every song. They are far more than "a collection of musicians looking to hone their chops," and the majority of their songwriting proves it. This is spread throughout their discography, but is more present in their '90s work.
 
I wrote my first post before reading what @Mosh and @JudasMyGuide wrote, but I pretty much agree with them on everything.

Mosh said:
Train of Thought to me in particular is probably the last exceptional Dream Theater album. They’ve done a lot of good work since then, but I think ToT is the unsung hero of their discography and stacks up against any of their other work. I love how focused they were on making a heavy riff driven album, Petrucci’s shredding is face melting, and some of the songwriting is really top notch. It’s true that the instrumental sections get a little over the top at times, but I actually dig a lot of what they’re doing. Some of it is also very Maiden-ish. This was the band really hitting their stride during the Rudess era.
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Six Degrees was the album that I discovered Dream Theater with, and while I loved the heavier stuff, most of the first disk, and their back catalog, the band didn't fully click with me until Train of Thought. The album blew me away, and the show I saw on that tour (on my 21st birthday, nonetheless) was one of the greatest shows I had ever seen. They opened the second set with The Glass Prison straight into This Dying Soul. I still can't comprehend how much stamina is needed to pull that off. I'd sleep for days afterward if I had to play 25 full minutes at that intensity.

That said, I have never been a fan of Jordan Rudess's playing. He was great on Scenes and Six Degrees, but this is the first record where he started inserting his random silly space monkey interludes into several songs on an album. In this case it's Endless Sacrifice, a song that was never my favorite but was made even weaker by this section. I actually made an edit where I removed a few minutes from the middle of the song and I think it flows a lot better. It goes straight from the chunky riffs to the fast harmonized interlude.

Mosh said:
Still Life is Opeth’s most challenging album, so much so that they don’t even like to play it live. So many riffs, so many weird tempo/time signature changes, so many dynamic shifts. The album is so all over the place and yet it flows so well. I don’t hold it in as high a regard as other Opeth fans, but it is a pretty remarkable piece of work and shows the band starting to really develop a signature sound. Mikael’s clean singing really starts to develop around here as well.
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I remember Mikael once said that Still Life is a "complicated fucking record," and I can only assume that's why they only tend to play the "simpler" songs (The Moor, Face of Melinda, White Cluster) live on a regular basis. I missed out on them playing Serenity Painted Death in 2008, and for some reason Mikael hates the way Moonlapse Vertigo sounds so they've only played it live a handful of times.

I wish this album got more respect, from both fans, newcomers, and the band themselves. Still Life defined the band's sound for what would be considered their strongest years by most.

Forostar said:
That Melinda bit is atonal, not very attractive, surely not catchy. The double vocal irritates.
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I mean, that's just Opeth. They don't often stick to soundscapes that "flow" well, and this is done for mood. I can think of one song in particular from Blackwater Park where an atonal section in 5/8 completely ambushes first-time listeners, bombarding them with two riffs a half-step apart played simultaneously. The band then settles into a slightly more pleasant Russian-sounding riff so you don't kill yourself. These rapid switches in dynamics and soundscapes are what make Opeth Opeth. Just a minute or so later in that very song, you'll hear their dynamic prowess at work. Here it is for your enjoyment...


Also, would you call Melinda unattractive to her face? How rude!

JudasMyGuide said:
I'd also expect especially you would appreciate the solo and the following guitar harmony there
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Akerfeldt is such a tasteful soloist. It's all about the melody, and he never cares about showing off. Those guitar harmonies that foreshadow the chorus melody are sublime.
 
As my nominee (and I think it's my last one), I feel kind of obliged to vote for Dream Theater's Train of Thought, but that is one strong contender. Also, I've said that I dislike when someone puts together AC/DC and metal (although I'm going to break my rule in the next pair). It was only last spring when I finally got into this album, although I heard some songs before. But every time before that I tried to listen to it, I just kept repeating to those first two songs. As I Am-This Dying Soul is one of the best 1-2 combo openers I heard and, in my opinion, definitely best in their discography. And this is actually the first time I've noticed somebody associating it with nu-metal (especially after The Glass Prison). While here, I am not afraid to say that I'm a bit jealous at Det B. for hearing The Glass Prison-This Dying Soul live.

I was guessing that Back in Black would come on eventually and I planned to vote against it. But against this Opeth album? I just can't. I've said it before, I'm of opinion that there are no perfect albums but AC/DC's Back in Black comes closest to it. Not only there are no weak songs on the album, but those highs are really high, man. Once I even led a discussion that Shoot to Thrill is the best second song ever. There is a reason why most of the time it was played second, I have a feeling if they opened the show with it, and I was in the audience - I would get pumped up so fast I'd probably faint. It just fits so nicely, probably even in others band discographies. Aces High? Shoot to Thrill. Running with the Devil? Shoot to Thrill. Breakfast at Tiffany's? Shoot to Thrill. I'll vote against it in the next league, I promise.

For third and fourth pair - Iced Earth and Slayer. Burnt Offerings isn't in my top 3 IE, but it's better than most of Diamond Head I've heard. Also, I think Hemispheres is a bit overrated, the only songs I come back to on this album is Villa Strangiato.
 
I'll be voting for AC/DC in both cases. While I can appreciate the clips previously posted, they don't speak to me. It's like "yes, I recognize those are interesting to some people, but they are not at all interesting to me."

Diamond Head is a really interesting entrant. It's a list entry, meaning three of the six lists picked it, and I think it represents "the road not travelled" on NWOBHM, whereas Iron Maiden and Def Leppard are the roads that were undertaken. It's a good record and I recommend listening to it, if only for the history. But that said, I still prefer the thrashier versions of Iced Earth to Diamond Head.

I'll toss Rush a pity vote even if I'm ready for them to be gone. Slayer's fine, I guess.
 
I will say that the people who feared that the final would be all Rush, all the time are now seeing a future where only one Rush album makes it to the Championship, let alone the Premiership. So those fears have not come to pass.
 
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