Jon Oliva's Pain - Adding the Cost - Jon's finest moment?

IMO, you'd be hard pressed to find a better song written by Jon than this one.The heaviness, the lyrics are truth and quite original. And of course a blistering solo by Matt.

I usually get laughed at when I say anything JOP is better than anything Savatage, but what do you guys think?

Real good song, I love the vocals and lyric. I don't know if that's Jon's high point though. Might be going a bit far.

Some cool stuff on that record. "Stories" is my favourite and the definitive high point of the album to me.


Also great lyrics,

Global Warning could be Jon's finest moment?

While I like this album I prefer Tage Mahal and Festival for the non Sava stuff.

While there are no songs on the JOP albums better than Savatage, there are surely many that rivals them.

Dark Horseman wrote:

While I like this album I prefer Tage Mahal and Festival for the non Sava stuff.

While I love them all dearly, this is the exact opposite for me.

I would rank them:

1. Global Warning
2. Maniacal Rendering
3 Festival
4 Tage Mahal

That's cool, they're all good.

Dark Horseman wrote:

That's cool, they're all good.

Agreed. 

I think I'd go with Richie's ranking if I had to put the JOP albums in order. Maybe, MAYBE, Maniacal Renderings beats Global Warning, but they are both great. Festival is real good, but not perfect. 'Tage Mahal is just 'nice'. I like it, but maybe just too many oddball tracks.

Oddball? Creativity you mean?

Dark Horseman wrote:

Oddball? Creativity you mean?

Yes. Those songs aren't bad, just different. Shows a lot of Jon's influences and where his music came from. However, my personal tastes for classic rock don't necessarily always meet with his.

There's enough to keep me interested and it's also a very fascinating album, every time I listen to it.

However, it was Maniacal Renderings when Jon got back to recording an album full of heavy metal the way I like it. That's a great CD right there, in my opinion. Old school Savatage mixed with a bit of that personal Jon Oliva touch we saw with 'Tage Mahal.

LaPorte was a great, great guitarist. I do hope the band continues, but he will be missed no matter what happens.

For some reason while I love Savatage with Jon at helm, his solo work doesn't move me in any way. Like it, but feel no urge to come back to it. I'll keep pretending its 1989 and all I have is Gutter Ballet.

BearOnUnicycle wrote:

For some reason while I love Savatage with Jon at helm, his solo work doesn't move me in any way. Like it, but feel no urge to come back to it. I'll keep pretending its 1989 and all I have is Gutter Ballet.

Bummer. I couldn't be any different. I think Jon's lyrics greatly improved as he aged. Not that there is anything wrong with the lyrics on Savatage records.