I Am Listening To Every Queensryche Album In Chronological Order

[norminal]

@la szum When you get to “The Thin Line” on Empire, make sure to really, really pay close attention the excessive amount of keyboard “strikes,” especially in the outro. Like really focus on them. You’re welcome.

Edit: Re: Outro guitars. Did Queensrÿche invent djent?

 

[la szum]

Will do.

Taking the weekend off. I think I was over-Proging my ears.

 

[State of Epicicity]

@la szum When you get to “The Thin Line” on Empire, make sure to really, really pay close attention the excessive amount of keyboard “strikes,” especially in the outro. Like really focus on them. You’re welcome.

Edit: Re: Outro guitars. Did Queensrÿche invent djent?

This songs rocks...musically.

I love Geoff Tate up to Promised Land, but Man, in this song he's just too damn creepy. Like, I could take the lyrics better if they were delivered like someone who doesn't eat human flesh as a hobby, or, if you're going to sing a song like the most disturbing stalker ever, you've got to balance it with lyrics about world peace and sunshine or something. But singing like that, about kinky sex? That just means he needs to have an FBI file on him. I keep hearing Wayne's World, where Wayne and Garth find the condom and go "Ewwwwww..." But yeah, totally rocks!

 

[DrewJD82]

Yeah, Stone is back in the band but someone sat him down and said “Dude, you gotta learn the solos” and he’s been respectful of that from all I’ve seen. Such a weird thing when both him and Kelly Gray jumped in and just did their own thing, but a lot of that was detailed on a now defunct Ryche forum by Jason Slater, who was producing all the TateRyche stuff. Tate was the arbiter of what music would get worked on and after a while the band members just stopped caring because no matter what they contributed, it’d be tossed aside for being “too heavy”. The court documents detail all of that stuff as well, an interesting read for a Ryche fan.

Portnoy hasn’t been too shy about his thoughts on Ryche ever since that tour. He mentioned the “As I Am” lyrics on more than one occasion on his forum and gave a fairly detailed account of the night in Brazil where the band fired Tate’s wife/daughter and Tate was spitting on Scott during the set. I can’t remember who Portnoy was playing with, Fates Warning maybe? But they were getting off the stage right as that sh*t was erupting backstage and Portnoy saw it all. His reaction was pretty much “This is nooooooo surprise after touring with those guys back in ‘03”

Hahaha and even before that, I guess Ryche pulled out of a tour with Maiden and DT at the last minute and put DT in a really sh*tty spot, Portnoy went out and said something along the lines of “since we’d be playing after them they realized their fans would hear how much they suck now” And Mike was right, there was a straight decade where Ryche sucked, live and in the studio. That was a few years before the f*cking cabaret tour.

 

[la szum]

@la szum When you get to “The Thin Line” on Empire, make sure to really, really pay close attention the excessive amount of keyboard “strikes,” especially in the outro. Like really focus on them. You’re welcome.

Edit: Re: Outro guitars. Did Queensrÿche invent djent?

I just did. Yeah, there are a few stabs I think they borrowed from a Peter Gabriel song.

The guitars and bass on that outro are though.

 

[la szum]

Never noticed that Jet City Woman and Another Rainy Night are nearly identical until today. Specifically,
the pre-chorus and chorus. Wow!

 

[DrewJD82]

Never noticed that Jet City Woman and Another Rainy Night are nearly identical until today. Specifically,
the pre-chorus and chorus. Wow!

Hahahaha when I was trying to remember “The Thin Line” earlier I kept mixing it up with both those songs.

A tune on Empire I always thought was underrated was ”Della Brown” The lyrical content never did much for me, but that bass line and the chorus with the backwards reverbs and sh*t….well, hahaha that whole album is a celebration of reverse reverbs, but that chorus in particular is

 

[la szum]

The production on Empire is so crisp and tight. Realizing how much I like Delta Brown. Kind of insane
to think this was a Top 10 Album with a Top 10 single (Silent Lucidity). The 90's were so rad. You had
this at the same time as the world was just hearing Alice In Chains. Grunge was about to breakthrough.
Then you would have Billboard No. 1 Albums from Pantera, Nirvana, Metallica, Guns N Roses, and
Megadeath within the span of a few years. It's nuts to think that actually happened given the climate of
guitar-driven music right now. Now our gunslinging saviour is Machine Gun Kelly. Apparently.

 

[la szum]

Hahahaha when I was trying to remember “The Thin Line” earlier I kept mixing it up with both those songs.

A tune on Empire I always thought was underrated was ”Della Brown” The lyrical content never did much for me, but that bass line and the chorus with the backwards reverbs and sh*t….well, hahaha that whole album is a celebration of reverse reverbs, but that chorus in particular is

I was writing something similar within seconds of you. Apparently.

 

[DrewJD82]

I was writing something similar within seconds of you. Apparently.

I’m flooding my brain with all these nootropics, I think we’ll achieve singularity soon.

 

[Desertdweller]

I see a QR thread, I have to discuss, though I didn’t read all of the preceding 5 pages.

For me it’s Operation Mindcrime, Empire, and Promised Land. I’m not into a lot of the big hair 80s stuff and mid 80s production generally makes my skin crawl. Those three albums though are amazing. I had the live OM VHS / CD combo back in the day, and I got into music just a couple years too late to see them play with bands like Metallica and Type O Negative, so I’ve never actually seen QR live.

Promised Land was an interesting departure, but still had great production, and it has “Bridge.” Yeah, that song hits home. Fucking nails it actually.

After that they’ve been a mess. The mid-90s grunge/alternative rock and shunning of anything 80s really did a number on them. I still remember the owner of the local record store saved me a couple of their display posters for Vai and Queensryche as I was their token metal guy that came in to buy that stuff, no one else was buying metal back then apparently, not that I consider Vai or QR really metal, but I digress.

Great band, lightning in a bottle as one of the greatest bands in music history for 2-3 albums IMO, I just wish their history over the last 30 years was more congruent and satisfying.

 

[la szum]

I'd dive into the last 2 or 3 Albums @Desertdweller . You may be pleasantly surprised. They are kind
of heavier than they have ever been. To my ears anyways.

 

[la szum]

Ok, I never liked Promised Land and still don't. Has none of the melodicism which QR is known
for. To my ears.

I barely made it through that Album after listening to that and Empire today. Not. One. Memorable. Moment.

 

[TSJMajesty]

none of the melodicism which QR is known for

Maybe Chris DeGarmo had already checked out...?

 

[State of Epicicity]

Ok, I never liked Promised Land and still don't. Has none of the melodicism which QR is known
for. To my ears.

I barely made it through that Album after listening to that and Empire today. Not. One. Memorable. Moment.

That's an interesting analysis. I feel they're just being very prog on that album, in that they're fearlessly expanding their boundaries. I actually love everything from that album except Disconnected, which I've always thought was just trash. Even the song Real World, from The Last Action hero soundtrack, which sounds like it came from those sessions, and the full band version of Someone Else, I think are amazing. I mean, I remember being 18 years old and the song Promised Land was my favorite song at that time. It's like Tate is singing to you from a faceless void, and when he just screams "Why am I?" I just lose it, every time. It's just so powerful to me.

But I don't fault anyone for rejected the album either; it's basically a different band there. To me, it's like a different version of the way Yes changed from the 70s to the 80s. Both to me are very cool, except I basically love all the 80s Yes stuff, and after Promised Land I hated everything, until the first LaTorre album.

I mean, you've also got Lady Jane, their best Beatles impression. That sound is so amazing to me, so cool in every way. Tate is again too creepy in his performance, but I just love every bit of it. I Am I is something I've always taken as a general rage at that moment in society; at least it mirrored my own rage at the death of thrash, so I could project that on to it. It just so perfectly expresses utter disdain for your own world, and inability to reconcile your place in it. I could go on with the whole thing. Someone Else?, especially the full band version, is just a full on epic to me, just soul searching in the most bottom scraping way, much the same as the song Promised Land.

 

[shaharbar]

Every time I hear “Sign of the Times” it gives me goosebumps. The slide tone is fucking divine, the acoustic guitars, the chorus is insane, lyrics, the rhythm guitars are phenomenal (Bogner, I believe), a motherfucking Cello. Just a perfect song.

EDIT: I love this forum, fucking gets bleeped, but motherfucking passes by just fine. Is it on a Samuel Jackson mode?

 

[DrewJD82]

Someone Else?, especially the full band version, is just a full on epic to me, just soul searching in the most bottom scraping way, much the same as the song Promised Land.

So much this.

”Someone Else?” was hitting me like that when I was 13, so it’s of zero surprise how much that album hit me in my late 20’s….and again in my 30’s…..and again as I hit 40. Specifically those two songs.

“Promised Land”, the song itself…..holy sh*t, man. Between Floyd’s “Time” with the “no one told you when to run, you missed the starting gun” and Ryche’s ”standing neck-deep in life, my ring of brass lay rusting on the floor, is this all? Because it’s not what I expected” you really cap both ends of not knowing when you’re entering the rat race and learning that joining the rat race doesn’t always have a reward.

The line “Life’s been like dragging feet through sand and never finding Promised Land”…..that’s it right there for me. So many failed attempts at starting a new career, picking up and moving 1400 miles away to start over, then my divorce where I lost everything I spent years building after firmly believing I was living in the Promised Land, that song will always hold a very, very special spot for me. And fortunately, I learned where to seek Promised Land in other areas that aren’t effected by my surroundings.

The sparseness on that album is perfect. It’s dark, questioning and cavernous which gets highlighted in the lyrical content. I think it also really highlights how that band worked as a unit up until after that album. Every album until HITNF is cohesive and has a feel to it that I can only imagine could only occur by everyone being in the same headspace and sharing the same goal.

I would have loved to have seen the tour for that, even though Tate‘s stage attire consisted of short shorts and a headset mic for most the set it still looked like a really killer show.

 

[DrewJD82]

If we’re onto HITNF next….here comes the sh*t years.

I listened to that album relentlessly and the first time I saw them was on that tour, so I at least got to see them with Chris. A lot of people say Chris had checked out at this point, but he wrote the majority of that album and it’s the only Ryche album to have him doing lead vocals on a song. There may have been something in the court documents about Tate taking on a more dictator role around this time and not wanting to do heavy music anymore but that’s a really weird album for them. I consider it their Load album in that I dig a lot of songs on it, but they’re not what I’d consider great Queensryche songs.

“The Voice Inside” and “Some People Fly” are great tunes. I love the rawness on the record while still sticking to their typical vocal production with the harmonies. The only song on that album that really sounds like a Ryche song to me is ”Spool”, which is a killer song.

There’s only one album left before I completely checked out until Todd came into the fold.

 

[la szum]

Sometimes resounding success is the worst thing that can happen to a band, and that is what I hear.
Them rebelling against who they had become---which I loved. Just didn't feel moved by their shift in the
same way as you and Drew.

That's an interesting analysis. I feel they're just being very prog on that album, in that they're fearlessly expanding their boundaries. I actually love everything from that album except Disconnected, which I've always thought was just trash. Even the song Real World, from The Last Action hero soundtrack, which sounds like it came from those sessions, and the full band version of Someone Else, I think are amazing. I mean, I remember being 18 years old and the song Promised Land was my favorite song at that time. It's like Tate is singing to you from a faceless void, and when he just screams "Why am I?" I just lose it, every time. It's just so powerful to me.

But I don't fault anyone for rejected the album either; it's basically a different band there. To me, it's like a different version of the way Yes changed from the 70s to the 80s. Both to me are very cool, except I basically love all the 80s Yes stuff, and after Promised Land I hated everything, until the first LaTorre album.

I mean, you've also got Lady Jane, their best Beatles impression. That sound is so amazing to me, so cool in every way. Tate is again too creepy in his performance, but I just love every bit of it. I Am I is something I've always taken as a general rage at that moment in society; at least it mirrored my own rage at the death of thrash, so I could project that on to it. It just so perfectly expresses utter disdain for your own world, and inability to reconcile your place in it. I could go on with the whole thing. Someone Else?, especially the full band version, is just a full on epic to me, just soul searching in the most bottom scraping way, much the same as the song Promised Land.

 

[la szum]

So much this.

”Someone Else?” was hitting me like that when I was 13, so it’s of zero surprise how much that album hit me in my late 20’s….and again in my 30’s…..and again as I hit 40. Specifically those two songs.

“Promised Land”, the song itself…..holy sh*t, man. Between Floyd’s “Time” with the “no one told you when to run, you missed the starting gun” and Ryche’s ”standing neck-deep in life, my ring of brass lay rusting on the floor, is this all? Because it’s not what I expected” you really cap both ends of not knowing when you’re entering the rat race and learning that joining the rat race doesn’t always have a reward.

The line “Life’s been like dragging feet through sand and never finding Promised Land”…..that’s it right there for me. So many failed attempts at starting a new career, picking up and moving 1400 miles away to start over, then my divorce where I lost everything I spent years building after firmly believing I was living in the Promised Land, that song will always hold a very, very special spot for me. And fortunately, I learned where to seek Promised Land in other areas that aren’t effected by my surroundings.

The sparseness on that album is perfect. It’s dark, questioning and cavernous which gets highlighted in the lyrical content. I think it also really highlights how that band worked as a unit up until after that album. Every album until HITNF is cohesive and has a feel to it that I can only imagine could only occur by everyone being in the same headspace and sharing the same goal.

I would have loved to have seen the tour for that, even though Tate‘s stage attire consisted of short shorts and a headset mic for most the set it still looked like a really killer show.

I just can't. I don't feel or hear the hooks. I have tried multiple times. Maybe I should have
sex with the Album playing in the background and can get some good vibes associated
with it.

Just not the memorable melodies and moments I have with other QR releases.

I was actually excited to listen to it again, because I assumed that some of my prior assumptions
would be challenged and I would find myself reconsidering how I felt about it.

Didn't happen.