Despite Grunge’s Peak, Dream Theater’s ‘Pull Me Under’ Still Reached #10 on Rock Radio

As Mike Portnoy once said, “the ‘90s started to go downhill once grunge came around.” Nonetheless, Dream Theater was on a good path and ‘Pull Me Under’ helped them become what they are today.

By gregprato1

April 16, 2026

In 1992, at the height of grunge’s cultural takeover, a technically dazzling progressive metal band from Long Island, New York, managed to crash the mainstream in the most unlikely way. Dream Theater’s ‘Pull Me Under’ wasn’t designed to be a radio hit – it had no traditional chorus and stretched past the usual single length.

Yet against all odds, it broke through on MTV and rock radio, introducing a wider audience to a band whose roots were far closer to Rush and Iron Maiden than Nirvana and Pearl Jam. And yet, it was seemingly the same rock fans who had recently warmed to the sounds of alt-rock and grunge who found room in their record collection for the album that spawned ‘Pull Me Under,’ titled Images And Words.

The success of the song and the album was anything but inevitable. The band had already endured line-up changes, label uncertainty, and the pressure of proving that progressive metal still had a place in a changing industry. That ‘Pull Me Under’ became a hit wasn’t just a fluke; it was the culmination of years of persistence, refinement, and a willingness to meet listeners halfway without compromising their identity.

The Grunge Era Dominated 1992, Leaving Little Room for Metal (Especially Prog Metal)

According to Rolling Stone in early 1993, “Among rock & roll’s hottest record sellers in 1992 were Pearl Jam’s Ten (3.6 million), Nirvana’s Nevermind (2.8 million) and the Red Hot Chili Peppers’ Blood Sugar Sex Magik (2.5 million), according to SoundScan, the company whose computerized sales-data system is used to put together Billboard’s weekly Top 200 chart.”

In other words, this was not the best time for a prog metal band to be issuing their all-important sophomore album (the debut was 1989’s When Dream And Day Unite), which was also to be its first for Atco. But that was the predicament Dream Theater found themselves in when Images And Words hit the record store racks on July 7, 1992.

However, Dream Theater drummer Mike Portnoy recalled in my 2015 book, Survival Of The Fittest: Heavy Metal In The 1990s, there was a hit album by another prog metal band that gave Portnoy and his bandmates (singer James LaBrie, guitarist John Petrucci, keyboardist Kevin Moore, and bassist John Myung) hope.

“The success of [Queensrÿche’s] Empire to us was a huge sign of hope, that there still was an audience for that kind of music. I remember seeing them on that tour, and they were doing arenas and selling a million albums and were on MTV all the time. So that was kind of the last glimmer of hope for us.”

But metal in general had hit a rough spot at the time, as Portnoy once admitted to the Chaos Zine site.

“The ‘90s started to go downhill once grunge came around. The ‘90s... really, the only thing going for metal, for me at least, in the ‘90s, was Pantera, Sepultura, and Machine Head. Those were the only new bands, really, doing metal. All of the other great metal bands from the ‘90s all came around in the ‘80s.”

The Breakthrough Moment That Altered Dream Theater’s Career

Somehow, someway, the music video for an edited version of ‘Pull Me Under’ (which was also the lead-off track off Images And Words) began enjoying some serious airings on MTV, which led to the tune becoming a surprise rock radio hit, peaking at #10 on Billboard’s Mainstream Rock Airplay Chart.

“When I heard ‘Pull Me Under’ on the radio in 1993, I thought that was so cool, because radio wasn’t playing metal in 1993, and here, there’s this progressive metal band with an amazing drummer coming out with this awesome song,” ex-Death drummer Richard Christy added in the aforementioned Survival In The Fittest book. “I can remember the exact moment I heard ‘Pull Me Under’ on the radio. We were driving to a gig in Oklahoma City, and we were just listening to regular rock radio in the van. ‘Pull Me Under’ comes on and we were totally blown away – we thought it was the coolest thing.”

With Images And Words eventually earning gold certification Stateside, it was not long before other bands merging prog with metal began appearing in the wake of the album’s success, and its successful follow-up in 1994, Awake (which spawned another popular MTV video/rock radio tune, ‘Lie’).

“After we had some success with Images And Words and Awake, I started to see all these younger other bands come around,” Portnoy added. “Especially, there was a whole scene in Europe and a label that was just starting at that point, called InsideOut, and they were signing Enchant, Vanden Plas, and Spock’s Beard was just coming out, and The Flower Kings – a whole wave of prog metal bands that came out in our wake. Also, not only the InsideOut label, but also Magna Carta Records, that had Shadow Gallery and a whole bunch of other bands.”

“Basically, the mid-to-late ‘90s, we saw this resurgence of progressive metal, and that kept growing and growing and growing. And then in the 2000’s is when it started to really blossom, and that’s when bands like Porcupine Tree and Pain Of Salvation – and even bands like Mastodon and Opeth – started to embrace progressive elements. It took a while, but what Dream Theater did, we kind of took the slow road of forging our own path, because it was never mainstream – it was never really played on Headbangers Ball or in Rip Magazine and things like that. We kind of had to do it on our own terms.”

In the end, Dream Theater didn’t just defy the odds – it proved that even at grunge’s peak, there was still room for ambition, virtuosity, and a band willing to play the long game on its own terms.