| Octavarium is the eighth full-length Dream Theater studio album, released on June 7, 2005
It holds the distinction of being the last album ever recorded at The Hit Factory in New York City. According to the DVD Documentary in Score, John Petrucci considered this album to be the band's best work to that point.
Songs
Octavarium follows a pattern started in Dream Theater's sixth studio album, Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence, which had six songs (and also the word "six" in the title). The next album, Train of Thought, was the band's seventh studio album and contained 7 tracks. Octavarium, the band's eighth studio album, has eight songs (and a title related to the number eight). The pattern was discontinued with the band's ninth studio album, Systematic Chaos, which has only eight tracks (two of which are separate parts to the same song, "In the Presence of Enemies").
Every song of the album is in a different minor key, starting with F, then G, A, B, C, D, E, and returning to F. This is evident by the treble clef staves in the liner notes. Also, between some pairs of songs, a transition, represented in the CD as negative time preceding the second song of the pair, is made in the corresponding accidental key related to the pair in question. For instance, the synth solo following "Panic Attack" (in the key of C minor) is placed as negative time preceding "Never Enough" (in the key of D minor) and is in the key of C# minor.
"Panic Attack" will be featured as a playable song in the upcoming release of Rock Band 2 in September 2008.
Golden Ratio
The album contains a number of references and allusions to the golden ratio and Fibonacci sequence, in particular the use of the numbers 5 and 8 in both the album art and the songs themselves. For example, the name Octavarium itself has 5 syllables but alludes to the number 8. The use of 5s and 8s in a musical context is fairly natural since an octave on a piano keyboard contains eight white keys (the natural notes) and five black keys (the sharps/flats). Unrelated to the album is the fact that Dream Theater is a five-member band which has had eight total members since changing its name from Majesty.
Other uses of 5s and 8s in connection with the album are as follows:
Octavarium is Dream Theater's 8th studio album.
When folded out, the front and back covers of the album booklet depict a Newton's Cradle with eight pendulums, and five birds in between them. The birds are arranged between the pendulums in the same pattern as the five black keys in an octave of piano keys are arranged between the white keys (although this pendulum-bird octave arrangement runs from F to F, rather than the more common C to C pattern).
On the back of the CD case, there are piano keys in an octave.
On page 5 of the booklet (behind the lyrics to "The Answer Lies Within"), there are two dominoes summing up to 5 and 8, with three black birds also shown.
On page 7 of the booklet (opposite the lyrics to "These Walls"), there is a spider (8-legged creature) trapped inside an octagon-shaped maze. The maze is made of five layers and has eight doorways amongst the layers, and eight walls that form "dead ends."
On page 11 of the booklet (opposite the lyrics to "Never Enough" and "Sacrificed Sons"), there is an octopus (which has eight legs), five fish and an octagonal sign (similar to "STOP" sign) with the Majesty symbol.
On page 13 of the booklet (opposite the lyrics to the first two movements of the title track), there is a plan in which a five-pointed star was drawn inside an octagon. The scale of the plan is stated to be 5:8.
On the insides of the front and back covers of the booklet, there are two pictures of the same boy holding two ends of a can telephone. The first picture is accompanied by 8 lines of capitalized text (track titles).The second picture is accompanied by 5 lines (band members' names). The boy has 5 fingers showing in one picture, and the other picture only has 3 fingers showing. This adds up to eight.
On the inlay (beneath where the CD sits) is a billiards eight-ball.
The title track (Octavarium) contains five movements and is the eighth track on the album.
Printed on the CD itself is a star inside of an octagon (similar to the one shown in the schematic in the booklet). Also, the star in the octagon has musical keys written around it that go in a circle of fifths.
The song "Panic Attack" - Track 5 - lasts 8:13.
While the album features 8 actual songs, if the five movements of "Octavarium" and the two parts of "The Root Of All Evil" are considered separately, the total is 13 (i.e., the sum of 5 and 8).
The songs are in a rithmic pattern, "The Root of All Evil" is 1/8, "The Answer Lies Within" is on 2/8 and so on.
The entire album lasts 80:08 minutes.
The golden ratio references have an antecedent in the album Six Degrees Of Inner Turbulence, where the first CD has 5 songs, and the second one contains the entire title-track, split into 8 movements.
Speculation on the title
Due to its unusual name, many Dream Theater fans speculated on what they believe to be the meaning of the album's title.
At first the band was going to name the album just Octave. But when prog rock band Spock's Beard released their (also eighth) album Octane earlier in 2005, Dream Theater decided to differentiate its name a bit more from that.
Some thought that the title referred to "Octavarium Romanum", which was a book of Catholic liturgy referring to a period known as the Octave. There is also a similarity to the musical Octave: Root, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th, Octave - and the title of the first track is "The Root of All Evil". Others theorized that the title came from Latin words meaning "Various Eight", since it has eight tracks and the band has said that the eight songs on the record are all of different styles. However, this is incorrect Latin; the Latin word for eight is "octo," not "octa," and "varium" is singular when it would need to be plural. This theory may have come from the fact that Octavarium is the band's eighth album, since "octavus" is Latin for "eighth".
Yet another interpretation was that the "-arium" suffix is used to denote a place where something is held (i.e. planetarium, aquarium,, etc.), in this case musical octaves. This turns out to be the closest to the truth, when the lyrics from the title track ("Trapped inside this Octavarium") are considered, creating a portmanteau from the words octave and -arium.
Pre-release leaking
For approximately three months prior to Octavarium's release, James LaBrie's solo album Elements of Persuasion was distributed as Octavarium in many file-sharing circles. Because LaBrie's voice can be heard on both albums, many people were unable to tell that it was in fact a different band and it continued to be distributed as a genuine Dream Theater release until approximately a week before the official release date of the album. At that time a version of the actual album found its way onto the Internet, but it was slightly different from the final product released to stores; the ending to the track "Octavarium" was slightly modified from a lonely flute playing to the starting piano note. On an XM radio show interview with Eddie Trunk, Portnoy revealed that only approximately ten people were given a copy of that version of the album: the five band members, Portnoy's father Howard Portnoy, and a handful of people at Atlantic Records.
Track listing
1. "The Root of All Evil
VI. "Ready"
VII. "Remove"
Mike Portnoy Dream Theater 8:25
2. "The Answer Lies Within" John Petrucci Dream Theater 5:33
3. "These Walls" Petrucci Dream Theater 7:36
4. "I Walk Beside You" Petrucci Dream Theater 4:29
5. "Panic Attack" Petrucci Dream Theater 8:13
6. "Never Enough" Portnoy Dream Theater 6:46
7. "Sacrificed Sons" James LaBrie Dream Theater 10:42
8. "Octavarium"
I. "Someone Like Him"
II. "Medicate (Awakening)"
III. "Full Circle"
IV. "Intervals"
V. "Razor's Edge"
LaBrie, Petrucci, Portnoy
Petrucci
LaBrie
Portnoy
Portnoy
Petrucci
Dream Theater 24:00
Chart performance
Austria – 35
Canada – 15
China – 100
Czech Republic – 33
Denmark – 38
Finland – 2
France – 18
Germany – 15
Greece – 3
Hungary – 4
Italy – 2
Japan – 10
Korea - 3
Netherlands – 9
Norway – 9
Poland – 39
Spain – 31
Sweden – 4
Switzerland – 43
Slovenia – 2
UK – 72
USA – 36
Personnel
James LaBrie – Lead Vocals
John Myung – Bass
John Petrucci – Guitars and Backing Vocals
Mike Portnoy – Drums, Backing Vocals and Percussion
Jordan Rudess – Keyboards, Continuum and Lap steel guitar
Additional personnel
Orchestra on "Sacrificed Sons" and "Octavarium"
Concert Master
Elena Barere
Violins
Katharine Fong
Ann Lehmann
Katherine Livolsi-Stern
Laura McGinniss
Catherine Ro
Ricky Sortomme
Yuri Vodovoz
Violas
Vincent Lionti
Karen Dreyfus
Cellos
Richard Locker
Jeanne LeBlanc
Flutes
Pamela Sklar
French Horns
Joe Anderer
Stewart Rose
String Quartet on "The Answer Lies Within"
Violins
Elena Barere
Carol Webb
Violas
Vincent Lionti
Cello
Richard Locker
Others
Strings arranged and conducted by Jamshied Sharifi
Jill Dell'Abate - Orchestral Contractor
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