Why "Crimson 2" and not "Unorthodox 2"

[batmura]

I guess it is common knowledge that Dan doesn't think Crimson is the best EOS album. He's mentioned this in numerous interviews as well as in several posts on this board. Once asked which of the two EOS cds he prefers (between Purgatory Afterglow and Crimson) he even said Unorthodox which was a big surprise to me as well as the majority of the board. He mentioned that while Crimson 1 happens to be the favourite EOS release by many fans, there was no teamwork involved in it when writing and recording the album. He wrote the entire song in less than 24 hours as you all might know. He then got Mike from Opeth to sing some of it and they recorded the album. He considers Unorthodox the best EOS release because the whole band was into it when they were writing and recording the CD.

So, what's been boggling my mind the past few days is, if Dan liked the Unorthodox release the most why did he name his new album "Crimson 2"? Why not "Unorthodox part 2" or an entirely new album? Could it be because the majority of the EOS fans are mostly familiar with the band's two albums Purgatory and Crimson 1 and the latter being a one-track over 40 minutes makes almost anyone curious--cause they all wanna know what a 40+ minute song would sound like. So was the intention to get those 'ready' fans to pick up Crimson 2 as Unorthodox 2 or another title would pique their interest? I'm just trying to analyse the business side of it. Was it the label's decision?

My girlfriend and I recently ordered and received C2 from The End, but as I am in a different city I haven't had the chance to check it out yet. I talked to her on the phone about the album and she said while C2 is an absolutely amazing album it is somewhat different than C1 in the way that it entails less acoustic passages and more keys than guitars as opposed to part 1. This brings to mind Dan has written and performed the REAL music he had on his mind and as there were no other Sanity guys around he had nothing putting pressure on him. Well that's great, but then I still wonder why they named it C2? Is it a real follow-up to the story on the original album or just an intention to draw more fans' intention offering them a somewhat different type of music than part 1? If it's musically really different how good a decision was it to call the album part 2?

Don't get me wrong. I love Dan's proggy stuff, and prefer Moontower to Crimson actually and I love the way he uses the keys. And from what my gf has been telling me I am pretty sure I will enjoy the album. It's that these things made me curious and I thought I'd share them with you guys and Dan the man himself. Any comments?

 

[commandante]

As you already know Unorthodox involved input by the other EoS guys, but Crimson didnt. If you look at the writing and recording process of this album, it is absolutely more similar to the one of Crimson. Dan wrote it, called some guest musicians in, recorded the album. Therefore I think it is appropriate to call it Crimson II.

 

[Nefilim]

Well, the story of Crimson II is a sequel to C1, and much of the music in C1 comes back in C2 to tie the two albums together in a very effective way. However, the new parts in C2 include a lot more keys and a different sound than C1, but that is just progression in my eyes. Every band has to move forward, otherwise it would be pointless to make music. If C2 sounded exactly like C1, what would the point be?

And I think (this is my very subjective thought though) that Dan chose to do C2 instead of Unorthodox 2 because C1 is much newer, meaning thar Dan was a lot younger when Unorthodox was recorded and perhaps he cannot quite relate to it today the way he can relate to C1 (since he wrote all of that album himself).
And there's the factor of selling albums too, of course. Otherwise, Dan would have released this album under a different name than Edge of Sanity altogether. By putting "EoS- C2" on the record, sales are bound to go up quite a bit compared to if it said "Dan's new project - the first album".

 

[L0bster]

" He wrote the entire song in less than 24 hours as you all might know. "

Not very correct? From what I know it was written mostly druing the days in the studio, and they where in the studio for a month or so.

Dan might be able to correct either you or me.

 

[batmura]

" He wrote the entire song in less than 24 hours as you all might know. "

Not very correct? From what I know it was written mostly druing the days in the studio, and they where in the studio for a month or so.

Dan might be able to correct either you or me.

I don't know. When Dan was the guest of Seismic Radio on the internet earlier this year in February, I asked him the question persoanally, whether it's true that he wrote the album in 24 hours and he corrected me saying "I wrote it less in than 24 hours actually".

 

[Dan Swanö]

Hi. I might have had a moment of megalomania, but as far as I can remember I never said "I wrote Crimson"

This was the only time all of us was gathered in the same room for writing. I wrote one little piece on my guitar (Nightingale tuning) and Sami, Dread, Anders and Benny created their parts to work around my stuff. Sometimes Dread or Sami wrote a riff and I added my riffing on top of theirs. I would say that The writing of Crimson is the most "band" moment EOS ever had. If I ever said "I Wrote it" I deeply appologize to the other guys because we all know it was a band effort beyond comparison. About why there was C2 instead Unorthodox was because I felt like writing a long piece again. The reason it was called Crimson II can be read elsewhere. If I'd chosen to divide it into parts, it would have sounded a lot less epic and been more like the full lenght version of "Until Eternity Ends", it could have been nice, but not where my heart was at the moment I decided to do it. I still believe "Unorthodox" is the best EOS album.

Dan

 

[Shadowfire]

Unorthodox also has great cover art

 

[Tranquillian]

Imho it doesn't. It is ugly. The only good artwork is for Crimson 2, and perhaps The spectral sorrows.