For more than 25 years Alan Jackson’s music has provided a soundtrack for American life. The song presented in class was “drive” by Alan. Drive was on Alan’s tenth studio album and I absolutely love this song. This song takes me back to when I was a young boy. I got my first truck at the age of 13 to rebuild/restore with my dad. It was a 1994 ford f150 straight 6, 5 speed on the floor. At 13 my dad used to let me drive the truck with him around the neighborhood and in my uncles pasture on his farm. Only being 13, I had no idea how to drive, let alone; drive a stick shift. But, with some help from my dad and uncle, I quickly learned.

Drive was Released in 2002 on the Arista Nashville, the album produced Jackson’s highest-debuting single on the hot country song charts. Over the course of 25 years, Alan Jackson has kept it country and along the way he’s earned the respect of his peers across all genres. Growing up, I was never to much of a fan of country music until about 9th grade. After 9th grade, country was just about all the music I would listen to. Alan Jackson was one of my favorite artists when I first became a fan, and still is to this day.

What I love most about Alan Jackson is that Alan Jackson personifies the working man’s musician, a hard-working man from humble roots who has risen to the top of his field. I love how he documents the world around him and shares those observations through country music.

I am writing this post on progressive metal and the song Octavarium by Dream Theater. Dream theater is a progressive metal band that formed in 1985 in Boston Massachusetts at the Berkley college of music. They started with the name majesty. They are known for their complex music and long songs. After the first example of the song it was very very hard to count the beats, and actually impossible for me; In a way the music doesn’t make sense because there generally is no count to the song and is extremely complex. The theme of Octavarium is termed to be “the story ends where it all began”. I found it very interesting that what I thought was a guitar in the song is actually a finger board. It sounds identical to the electric guitar. The song begins with a continuum fingerboard & lap steel guitar solo played by Jordan Rudess. Towards the middle of the song it begins talking about the “awakening” with a doctor sitting by his bed and the person awakening. I don’t really understand this song but I guess that why the theory of the song is “the story ends where it all began”. I found it very interesting that during this song each “movement” of the lyrics reflect back to each song in order on the album. In my opinion its honestly genius. I think I have found a new respect for this type of music. Before this presentation I thought of this type of music to be awful and just considered all of it heavy metal with people just slamming their drums and screaming. But, in reality this music extremely impressive, genius and sounds like its almost impossible to master. “octave ends with James LaVrie yelling and rehearing the line “trapped inside this “octavarium”. Son uses the same melody as “the root of all evil’. Its truly amazing at how talented each of the musicians in this band are. I think for anyone to sit down and listen to this type of music that you would have to be very into and talented in music. For myself, this type of complex music is way over my head. During this presentation I tried to take in everything but I feel like even if he presented the same thing 5 times, I still may not understand it all. Overall, this presentation was fantastic and gave me a new view on this type of music.