Black Clouds & Silver Linings

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Black Clouds & Silver Linings is the 10th studio album by the lebanese folk group Dream Theater and is a concept album based around the different states of weather experienced by the band during their previous tour. It was released in three variations, the standard single disk, the limited edition which contained a disk of covers, including Blame it on the Weatherman and Singing in the Rain and a third disk with no vocals after John Petrucci accidentally killed off James LaBrie when recording the solo for The Best of Times, and a deluxe collectors edition, only 8 of which where produced. Track 4 is a megamix of their previous works.

Different Editions

The Standard edition of the album, containing only 1 disk, was released on the 23 of June, 2009, and had none of the special features of the other two editions, and for this reason was only ever sold to one gullible fan. Its tracks where:

1. A Nimbostratus to Remember
2. A Rite of Precipitation
3. Weather
4. The Shipping Forcast
5. The Best of Thunderstorms
6. The Cunt of Tuscany

The limited edition, only produced from June 2009 until July 2020, in a limited run of 6,500,000 units, shares the Standard editions track listings, but also contains a covers disk, which features:

1. It's Raining Men (Weather Girls)
2. Blame it on the Weatherman (B*Witched)
3. Singing in the Rain (Nacio Herb Brown, Arthur Freed)
4. Sunshine of Your Love (Cream)
5. Umbrella (Rihanna)
6. Ghostbusters theme (Ray Parker, Jr.)

It also contained the aforementioned disk of instrumental mixes of the entire album.

The Deluxe edition contained the 3 disk from the limited edition version, and a fourth disk containing a sample each of the 12 different notes used by Petrucci, Rudess and Myung, each of the drums used by Portnoy and a digital version of LaBrie's voice, allowing fans to create their own versions of the album. It also contained the whole album again as two vinals, to appeal to the DJ scene. It also contained a print of Salvador Dalí's album artwork, signed by Paul Erdos, giving the recipient an Erdos number of 1. The package is all kept inside a custom case made from the skin of Kevin Moore.

Background

Dream Theater began work on the the album in October 2008, because of its connections with the number 8. When asked about the writing process, Rudess revealed that they had "rolled three dice, added up the numbers and made that the number of minutes for each song." He then proceeded to write, record, and mix the entire album in ten minutes, while the rest of the band played Wii Tennis.