4 DEGREES OF RADIO EDITS

A short view of a great album - SIX DEGREES OF INNER TURBULENCE - . Some of this could insert in the album instead of the long versions... This is a mini album only for fans and without other interest - if you are an owner of the SDOIT album, of course -

I must say these edited songs are incredibly lame compared to the actual album version. I mean, what seriously is the point about cutting 6 minutes out of a great song like Blind Faith or Misunderstood? This EP/singles obviously did not succeed and I ABSOLUTELY WARN anyone from buying this terrible disc.

Use 15 more dollars and buy Six Degrees Of Inner Turbulence, unless you are a hardcore collecting fan like me.

A few hours before this review, I already expressed my great respect for "Six Degrees Of Inner Turbulence ". The full album.

On this EP there will two numbers from disc one : "Blind Faith" and "Misunderstood".

I have never been keen on "edits" but when I listen to this version of "Misunderstood", I have to say that it is much more superior to the full blown version. Why's that would you ask ? Well, very easily answered : this very good song was just screwed up by an awfull finale (amost two minutes). It is intelligently cut out here. I have never been able to understand how it was possible to ruin such a great song with such a poor closing part. So, well done here (even if this can easily be cut with an accurate audio software).

The other two songs come out their fabulous epic song "Six Degrees Of Inner Turbulence " made of eight movements. The two featured here were not the greatest. One is the poppiest one of the whole : "Solitary Shell" : truely "influenced with "Solsbury Hill" from Peter Gabriel.

"The Test..." was one of the two heaviest / metal part of this jewel. It is almost featured here as in the album version.

This is a non essential release of the band. The album is so good that you should not bother with this EP. Get the full six turbulences, not only (partial) four.

Two stars.

What really was the point of this? It takes some incredible songs from Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence, and just makes them in radio edits. While the music's great, the ruin it by cutting it, so it's just pointless to buy. Now you may be thinking 'you're a DT fan, but for people who aren't, they should start here'. Not really. For $15 dollars more you can buy the actual album, which you'll buy anyway after this. It contains two songs off of disc one and two setions of the epic Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence on disc two. The cuts are terrible on the first two tracks and completely ruin the songs, while taking the last two sections out of the context of their song ruins them too. Really, there's no reason to own this as a newbie or bias fan like me. We all know that single edits are never pretty, and this is no exception to the general rule.

'4 Degrees Of Radio Edits' - Dream Theater (Promotion)

One question comes to mind when I see a Dream Theater radio edit promo. What the hell were they thinking? Has anyone actually ever heard Dream Theater on the radio before? Maybe an occasional advert spot or concert listing, seeing now that they're signed with commercial darlings Roadrunner Records. But why bother butchering otherwise good music to fit into a radio-friendly time, if it's still not going to be played on the radio? They were damn lucky to get 'Pull Me Under' to work as a hit, but those were different times. Moreover, the edit for 'Pull Me Under' actually worked. Even if Dream Theater was the most commercialized radio-friendly band that had ever existed in this dimension, the edits themselves are terribly done! The edits from Disc One are simply bad and leaves the listener with a feeling of amputation and emptiness, and the Disc Two songs are part of an epic, which should be listened to as they were meant to be, as part of a very ambitious forty minute epic. 'The Test That Stumped Them All' is basically untouched, but 'Solitary Shell' seemed to suffer from the same problem that the problem the Disc One songs were inflicted with. As any real progressive fan would agree, radio edits are generally very stupid, and rob the music of a varying amount of it's majesty. I really loved 'Six Degrees Of Inner Turbulence' as it is, and this is but a butchering of otherwise good music.

If there was a negative star rating, I would certainly oblige it and make very good use of it for this. Someone should invent a time machine simply for the purpose of going back in time and stopping the band from ever releasing this. It's insulting to them, and honestly, sort of pathetic.

Not even worth one star. Completionists shouldn't even bother with this. Better to pretend something like this doesn't exist. Buy 'Six Degrees Of Inner Turbulence' and enjoy it for all of it's virtue.

This is a small footnote in Dream Theater's history better left forgotten.