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''Awake'' is the third studio album by American progressive metal/rock band Dream Theater, released on October 4, 1994 through East West Records. It was the last Dream Theater album to feature keyboardist Kevin Moore, who announced his decision to leave the band during the recording of the album. Much of the material for ''Awake'' was written in writing sessions between February and April 1994, during which Dream Theater were under pressure from their record label to produce an album as successful as ''Images and Words'' (1992) with a single similar to "Pull Me Under". The label wanted the band to produce a more metal-oriented album, hoping it would be easier to market. John Purdell and Duane Baron produced, engineered and mixed the album. The album's cover, designed by the band, features numerous references to the album's lyrics. Dream Theater auditioned for keyboardists to replace Moore for the upcoming world tour and eventually hired Derek Sherinian. He had just two weeks to learn two hours of complex music before the tour started. Sherinian initially took up the position on a trial basis and was asked to become a full member during the tour. After the first leg of the tour, vocalist James LaBrie suffered a violent case of food poisoning, severely damaging his vocal cords. His singing became unpredictable, leading LaBrie to become depressed for much of the tour. His voice only started recovering on the tour for ''Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence'' in 2002. The Great Hanshin earthquake hit while the band was touring in Japan. Released at the height of the popularity of grunge music, ''Awake'' initially received mixed reviews; more recent reviews regard the album as one of the band's finest. The album peaked at 32 on the US ''Billboard'' 200, the highest position a Dream Theater album would reach on that chart until 2007's ''Systematic Chaos'', which peaked at 19.〔 "Lie", "Caught in a Web" and "The Silent Man" were released as singles but failed to be as successful as "Pull Me Under" had been. The band's record label considered the album a commercial failure, which would lead to the band being pressured to write more radio-friendly songs on their subsequent studio album. There is no title track on the album, but the lyric ''awake'' appears in the songs "Innocence Faded" and "The Silent Man". ==Background== After a month-long break, Dream Theater started working on their third studio album in February 1994. The band's two-month writing sessions were located at Prince Studios, New York City. The lack of a leader within the band increased tensions in what were already tense sessions. Keyboardist Kevin Moore noted at the time that "there are arguments that last forever because there's nobody to come in and draw the line". "When it came to the music, you had () John Petrucci and I playing the roles we still kind of play, and Kevin was also a forceful element," drummer Mike Portnoy said. "In those days, () John Myung was a little bit more out of his shell, so the bass was a bit more predominant in the band. The fighting never came to blows, but there was a lot of bickering over every single element, like the fine details of what the third note on the sixty-fourth bar should be." The success of Dream Theater's previous album, ''Images and Words'', particularly the single "Pull Me Under", put pressure on the band to produce a similarly successful follow-up album. "Somebody once said that you have your whole life to prepare for your first album and have about two months to prepare the follow-up, and that was very much the situation we faced in early 1994," Portnoy noted.〔 The popularity of alternative metal and groove metal meant that the band's record label, East West, were keen for the band to create a heavier, darker album.〔 ''Awake'' saw Petrucci use a seven-string guitar for the first time, establishing a more riff-based writing style. "This style would further cement the fusion of metal and progressive music, which is what Dream Theater are known for," Petrucci said. "I think it paved the way for many of our strongest and heaviest later songs like 'A Change of Seasons', 'The Glass Prison' and 'The Dark Eternal Night'." Vocalist James LaBrie described his vocals on ''Awake'' as "more varied and a lot more aggressive" than on ''Images and Words'' to the extent that people may think the band had a new singer for the album.〔 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Awake (Dream Theater album)」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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