Customer Reviews

You Not Me (Edit)

5 star:		(0)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I bought 'Falling Into Infinity' recently, being fully aware of how the album had notoriously been tainted by the pushiness of the record company. While the album was quite good, the effect of the record company pressure was quite evident, with this song showing the effects most clearly.

This track was originally entitled "You or Me" and was over 6-and-a-half minutes in length, but producer Kevin Shirley believed that the song needed re-working. As a result, professional songwriter Desmond Child was brought into the studio to help re-write the song. The track became "You Not Me", was altered both lyrically and musically, and was cut down to just under 5 minutes in length.

Now, I've heard the demo of this song (as "You or Me"), and it is quite different, and a LOT better than the final version. The demo sounds heavier, has a cool, building intro, has a different/longer guitar solo, and has what I consider to be a better vocal melody in the chorus. In "You Not Me", we get a softer, cleaner-sounding guitar, the intro is cut, the outtro is cut, the guitar solo is shortened and altered, and in exchange for what was a pretty cool chorus, we instead get a typical, mainstream rock chorus with a predictable vocal melody that practically screams generic.

It sounds like something which you'd hear in the charts; more like a Linkin Park song than a Dream Theater song. And this is no coincidence, either, as the song was released as a single; the record company obviously wanted a 'hit' out of Dream Theater, and decided that "You or Me" would have been the easiest song to transform into chart-worthy material.

Instead of what began as a cool and original piece of music, we've gotten a watered-down, boring, generic, soft rock song that is tedious to listen to and is only a shadow of what the demo was. And what for? So that the record company could squeeze a 'hit song' out of Dream Theater - a creative group of individuals whose music goes against EVERYTHING that mainstream chart music is.

So why have I given this track 3 stars instead of something lower? Well, luckily the track retains at least some of the aspects that the original track had going for it. And, in all honesty, it's still better than practically all mainstream rock songs. However, this song is still a mockery, and it exemplifies and epitomizes everything wrong about the record company's treatment of Dream Theater during the production of 'Falling into Infinity'.

So, overall:
"You Not Me" - 3 stars
"You or Me" - 5 stars