First of all, let me tell you in advance that this is not meant to start a war or anything. I happen to love both Dan (and his projects/bands) and Opeth. Also I'm not one of the elitists that diss Opeth's Steve Wilson inspired stuff either. It's just that something caught my interest today when I was at a friend's place going through his collection and I was quite pleased to see he had each and every Opeth CD on his rack. He has the ltd. ed. of their last two albums and I have the regular issues, so I thought I'd take a look in the liner notes. Good booklet. Not different than mine. In the 'Thanks' section there's no mention of Dan. Then I thought "why not? I remember they always thanked Dan before". So I took out BWP and checked it out. Again no mention of Dan. I was like "WTF?". I took out Still Life and that's the last album where Mike thanks him. On the first two albums, however, there's a lot more said about Dan. They call Dan their "guide" and put his name right in the beginning of the thanks list. Also they say: "Recorded under the watching eye of Dan Swano". Obviously they're proud about Dan. Well, of course they would be, since Dan did those two records as far as recording goes. Then as they get the big guy Fredrik to do their stuff, thing begin to change. And with BWP, all of a sudden Steven Wilson is their new favourite 'guide'. How come?
There was this thread once that asked if Dan and Mike were still friends. And I just scoffed when I saw it. Why wouldn't they be I thought? They've done a lot together, when Dan did Morningrise, Mike later sang on Crimson. But that was years and years ago - in 1996. It's okay Opeth changed their sound (and I *love* Wilson's work) but I think it's sort of bad that they forgot to at least thank Dan for the sake of the good old days. What do you think? And just don't say "it's just a thanks list, what if he excluded Dan?". Then I say "You don't forget your "guide"s name when you've finished a new album. You don't forget the guy who has been a big part of your musical vision and helped you to look at music from various angles. It's like the second Mike decides to go for new direction, he breaks all ties with his past. The 2 Martin's in the band kick ass. But the former drummer and bassist were cool too. Mike doesn't even like answering questions about those guys. Or the way he disses Morningrise saying "It's understandable if some people like Morningrise best, I personally never listen to it anymore cause I don't like it". Oh well.
There was this thread once that asked if Dan and Mike were still friends. And I just scoffed when I saw it. Why wouldn't they be I thought? They've done a lot together, when Dan did Morningrise, Mike later sang on Crimson. But that was years and years ago - in 1996. It's okay Opeth changed their sound (and I *love* Wilson's work) but I think it's sort of bad that they forgot to at least thank Dan for the sake of the good old days. What do you think? And just don't say "it's just a thanks list, what if he excluded Dan?". Then I say "You don't forget your "guide"s name when you've finished a new album. You don't forget the guy who has been a big part of your musical vision and helped you to look at music from various angles. It's like the second Mike decides to go for new direction, he breaks all ties with his past. The 2 Martin's in the band kick ass. But the former drummer and bassist were cool too. Mike doesn't even like answering questions about those guys. Or the way he disses Morningrise saying "It's understandable if some people like Morningrise best, I personally never listen to it anymore cause I don't like it". Oh well.
