This is interesting:

http://www.roadrunnerrecords.com/blabbermouth.net/news.aspx?mode=Article&newsitemID=167305

Quote:

"Until We Have Faces" was released this past February and was selected by DREAM THEATER guitarist John Petrucci as his favorite album of 2011. The musician, who is responsible for the bulk of the songwriting in DREAM THEATER, told the Roadrunner Records web site, "I just love everything about the RED album. The songwriting, playing and production are all stellar!" After a link to Petrucci's list of top albums of 2011 was posted on the official forum of former DREAM THEATER drummer Mike Portnoy, Portnoy took it upon himself to comment, "Check out the first song on [John Petrucci's] fave album of the year.... WOW, the arrangement and orchestration sounds awfully familiar!! Surely it must be an intentional 'nugget' for the fans... It couldn't possibly be blatant formula plagiarism, now could it...?? I just have to laugh..." Portnoy's post was met with a mixed bag of reactions from the fans on his forum, with some expressing their disappointment over the "classless" way he chose to bring up the topic and some suggesting that DREAM THEATER has always drawn "inspiration" from other bands, even while Mike was still a member of the group. This led to Portnoy's follow-up message in which he wrote, "Hey...I'm not trying to start a war.... and I am indeed totally in a happy place in my life and career... I'm just merely making an observation and posting openly on my own forum like I always have and always will... If anybody ELSE wants to blow this up, it's their choice and doing...not mine!" He added, "And PS - to defend music that I co-wrote/arranged (that were cited previously in this thread), there's a difference between 'inspiration corner'/'copping a certain vibe' and blatantly re-writing an existing song or formula section by section..." He continued, "Hey, I'm not mad...just merely sharing an observation as a listener...sorry, when I heard that RED song, it immediately jumped out at me and was pretty obvious."

Sounds like more nitpicking, you know, but upon listening to these tunes, I think Mike is dead on with his comments.





That's pretty blatant. The main riff, the arrangement, melodies, the mid-section, the outro, all pretty damn similar. And the Red album is Petrucci's favorite of the year.

Now, was it theft or inspiration? Who knows. I'd say it's one of them, though, because it definitely doesn't sound like coincidence.

Theft.

The DT song is FAR better anyway. At worst, I'd consider it an improvement over the original.

Too similiar to be a coincidence. I'd have to agree with ToB though. DT's sounds improved.

Much too similar.