Originally published in Billboard magazine · July 1993
Images and Words chart position article
Article1 min read
Dream Theater “Images & Words”(EastWest/AG). Entered Heatseekers at No. 38 on 11/14/92. Impact was 1/30/93, when it jumped from 118 to 82 on The Billboard 200.
First Rumblings: “I had been in touch with a lot of tastemakers and music journalist friends, and they were all raving about the record in the fanzines magazines,” says Derek Oliver, senior director of A&R. “Specialist college metal shows were banging the hell out of it.”
Breakthrough: Album rock radio “sort of discovered how great a reaction track ‘Pull Me Under’ was, despite it’s outrageous length. Secondly, we decided very early on that Dream Theater would tour like crazy. No huge advances, fancy tour buses or money-mad stage shows. The band really put their heart into it, and they won a huge fan base immediately.”