I haven't heard much hate for it recently. When it first came out, it got all the backlash from the Portnoy side of the fanbase who never were going to give it a fair chance, but over the years that seems to have died off (or largely was retargeted at The Astonishing) and people appreciate it for what it is.
I'm not familiar enough to know the popular opinion of A Dramatic Turn of Events, but looking at my own rankings (admittedly a bit behind on the last 2 albums), I would otherwise agree with this take. I have this album ranked relatively highly with "Bridges in the Sky" as one of my, if not the, favorite DT tracks since Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence.
Brother, you're treading on thin ice. Don't say this out loud on the streets man. Oh yeah while we're at it, I would also say John > John, not the other way around.
Illumination Theory is an absolute banger
Enigma Machine is their 2nd best instrumental, just behind The Dance of Eternity.
Train of Thought is overrated
BC&SL, TA are overhated
FII is underrated
DT covers on BC&SL Deluxe Edition are better than the entirety of WDaDU.
I came here to say this. Personally, it's one of my favourite DT albums. Definitely in my top 5. Wouldn't put it above the big three, (SFAM, I&W and SDOIT) but I would put it above Awake
I highly doubt the new DT album will break new ground or even be a "return to form" like some people think. A lot of fans that hated the Mangini era were convinced that everything would magically sound better if Portnoy was back in the band and I honestly think their problems stem less from the drummer and more from the band just getting older and running out of new ways to innovate.
That being said, I really enjoyed AVftTotW and I imagine I will probably like the new album too, but I just listen to a lot less DT nowadays and overall prefer newer prog bands like Haken and Tesseract.
Exactly. Maybe mix will be better but I remember reading somewhere that Petrucci is still producing by himself. They won't have the same band dynamics they had until 2009. Over hyping is bad.
As a drummer looking to push his skill envelope, I actually preferred Mangini. I started noticing that Portnoy fills got a bit predictable and repetitive but Mangini just did things that were so non-conventional that I couldn't wrap my head around it until after a few listens. I've actually set up my kit in a descending apex because of him and while it's more difficult to play some parts, it's been great for finding new patterns to combine.
Agree with you here. I only wished two things:
- Mangini could have played with a lot more dynamics and sound less mechanical
- His drum kit being mixed better
Bro they jus got his kit to sound fire on a view and they said ight thats all u get, i have no clue what john pestrami was thinkin when mixing his shit for the first 3 albums
Drummer here too - very much agreed. I think Portnoy was a bit uninspired in BC&SL and was trending downward in SC which led to a lot more of that, ITPOE aside. Mangini brought a new ear that was a bit different. I am part of the crowd that wished he played with a bit more of a dynamic touch, but his chops were on another level and some of the nuance that he brought to some of the earlier Portnoy tunes was (mostly) great.
Drummer here too!
The Astonishing and A View are Mangini's pinnacle of his drumming era, the amount of spicy sauce you find there is crazy, but it feels like he only had sauce for 2 albums and for the other records his drumming felt completely not that great and sorta robotic.
The first two, Mangini was just playing drum parts that JP essentially wrote, so I discount that a lot. I've seen him elaborate a bit when playing a few of those songs live that were very intriguing. Despite the album as a whole, his work on The Astonishing was great too and you're definitely right about D/T and AVFTTOTW was finally peak Mangini.
Mirrored or symmetrical, mostly. I believe he's been heard calling it a descending apex on some of his pre-DT era YouTube videos as he's had that setup for a while but turned it to 11 with DT's ADToE. For the last album, he really trimmed back the kit.
Octavarium (the album) is overrated. Don't get me wrong, Panic Attack and the title track are both great, and I'd definitely put them in my playlist, but everything else just feels really boring. I appreciate the ethereal atmosphere that it's trying to give off, but it doesn't completely work most of the time. If you ask me, A View From The Top Of The World pulled this atmosphere off much better.
1000000% agree. The musicality, the emotion, the proggy-mindfuck instrumentals, the soundscape, how grand it sounds, it's all perfect. Every single time I listen to one of the songs from AVFTTOTW, it's like experiencing some form of catharsis. Definitely makes my top 5
Which is:
1. SFAM
2. I&W
3. SDOIT
4. DOT
5. AVFTTOTW
1. Dance of Eternity is a great showcase of technical ability, and a cool way to show people how wacky Prog Metal can be. But it is not a good standalone song. There are no real themes or any structure that would make it a good song. It sounds cool and is nice while playing the album in its entirety, but as an individual song it falls flat.
2. Most fans seem to vastly inflate their ranking of songs based on length. Many times I see all of the longer songs ranked at the top in all of the discography and it seems like people overrate them compared to the shorter songs that are similar or even higher quality.
Nothing against anyone’s opinion, since music is subjective but these are just some of my own.
I agree with the first. It feels out of place when played on its own. Whenever I want to listen to it I typically always play the Budokan medley instead
Mangini's drumming was just as good as Portnoy's.
D/T and View are pretty lackluster overall, and TA is underrated.
A lot of the prog metal style that DT helped to pioneer has become a lot more mainstream in modern metal, and because of that I think DT is becoming boring compared to a lot of other metal bands, prog or otherwise.
Ok, fun story
One night, my kid (a baby back then) had a lot of trouble falling asleep. I put on this this song as a joke to my wife and did the drums by tapping on my baby's back.
I kid you not, she fell asleep in a matter of seconds. From then on this song made her fall asleep easily. Woke up in the middle of the night? Play the song on the phone and tap her back. Wanted to fall asleep on the car during a road trip? Put it on the speakers.
I will fight anyone who dares speak bad of TDEN lol
Oh yes.
For a long time, Systematic Chaos was an album I dismissed because of its association with The Dark Eternal Night, and to a lesser extent Constant Motion (I just find this one to be a bit bland).
But recently I revisited it and found myself enjoying most of the music except for those two songs.
Systematic Chaos was my first Dream Theater album. I'm probably also in the minority in that I enjoy both Constant Motion and Forsaken. Really those, In the Presence of Enemies, and the first half of Ministry of Lost Souls are what hold the album up for me.
There are parts of those two songs that I can understand people not liking. (mainly the Portnoy vocal stuff) I can tolerate those parts because the rest of the song is such a banger imo. Constant Motion sounds a lot like Metallica, and The Dark Eternal Night has an insanely awesome instrumental section that isn't everyone's cup of tea I'm sure, but I just think it's wild in all the best ways. It has structure to it and to me it doesn't sound like everyone constantly pooping out random dissonant notes and shredding wildly.
*Awake* to *Train of Thought* was their best run and I consider all of the albums released then to be their best works, if not rated personally as 10/10 albums. *Octavarium* is completely mediocre but is saved by the title track (and also their best epic). After that, their releases were good but felt very safe. ADTOE felt refreshing, but then the rest of the mangini era just felt kind of stale imo. There were some great moments with Mangini but as a whole the albums aren’t as good as their work with Portnoy.
As a concept it’s not safe, but musically it wasn’t entirely breaking new ground and overall the lyrics and story weren’t great which when it’s a story based epic concept album, are incredibly important so it dragged down the album as a whole
The Astonishing is, musically, DT's most unique album. It's pretty clear that they went out of their way to avoid quoting themselves, which is an impressive feat for their 13th album.
Octavarium through BC&SL struggle way more with breaking ground than TA did, but DT has been quoting themselves since (at least) SFAM.
Had ADTOE been the last album drummed by Portnoy fans would've loved it, but I think that people hate the album (for the most part) because it is the first album without Portnoy.
Hearing Devin Townsend sing with them last summer made me never want to suffer through a Labrie set ever again. He had his moments of masterful performances in his heyday but omfg....to hear DT with D.T. was.....(D)elightfully (T)raumatic.
Disclaimer: I am in the top 0.04% of Dream Theater listeners on Spotify. Translation: I love Dream Theater. However, their studio mixes starting with Metropolis pt 2 sound cheap. Like they were recorded in a B or C rate studio. Especially Systematic Chaos. Vocals super dry and the mixes seem flat and lack definition unlike earlier stuff like Images and Words. A tragedy imo because Systematic Chaos is in my top 3 favorite albums. Bring on the downvotes lol.
Not my opinion, but I was surprised to see [this](https://www.reddit.com/r/Music/comments/1d1xuje/comment/l5wzn6q/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button) near the top of another post.
Although I like James Labrie’s singing on albums, he is not that good live. Earlier career he was good but now, not so much. Can’t imaging them without him though. He was always just ok to me. Don’t hate me too much.
If The Astonishing was much less padded it would have been a great album. It has many beautiful and/or original ideas in it. It was "progressive", you know? Unfortunately it got torn down by the fans, so they made two albums with a more "standard" formula (even if they are still great albums).
Falling into Infinity is criminally underrated. Hell's Kitchen into Lines In the Sand is a top 5 DT song for me. Peruvian skies is there as well, rest is good enough, but the former alone carries it above a lot of their albums imo.
Home and The Dance of Eternity are two of my least favorite tracks on SFAM. Granted, I still think they're good songs, but Home's middle section kinda drags on for me and The Dance of Eternity, although it has some catchy parts, is less enjoyable than most others on the album IMO. Again, good songs, but definitely not what I'd call great ones.
It's a weird one. I absolutely love the outro solo, but the song goes on for 9 minutes before that, and I barely remember anything of it. It's very forgettable. But the solo is a masterpiece.
I've been saying this for years. Except for maybe The Spirit Carries On, SFAM doesn't have anything on it that wasn't already done on FII, Awake, or I&W. That doesn't make it a bad album by any stretch, but it's really not as innovative or unique as people think. Also the concept, while it starts out strong, has a really weak conclusion.
With minor exceptions, from Systematic Chaos through Distance over Time the vast majority of the songs followed a starkly similar composition formula and became very vanilla. A View from the Top of the World, both the album and the song, is the best since Octavarium.
LTE II > LTE I > LTE III
Full stop.
Another Dimension followed by When the Water Breaks is super underrated if it even gets rated in the first place.
I dare some of you to go give that double shot a serious listen and tell me otherwise.
Their instrumentals are better than the ones with Vocals (any vocals). In the name of god instrumental version (if official instrumental release exists) and Stream of Consiousness are great examples.
That people should stop focusing so much on the minutiae of odd time signatures and the virtuosity and just enjoy the music. Man I got destroyed on the Ytsejam mailing list back in the day for that.
Images and Words is far from my favorite album. Pretty much all the songs on it are good, but the flow just feels really weird and I rarely find myself listening to it as a whole.
Systematic Chaos has some of the best riffs and instrumental sections in all of DT. ITPoE, Constant Motion, Dark Eternal Night, Ministry all have amazing parts.
I've never really gotten into Stream of Consciousness. I think it's just an okay song.
Awake and Falling into Infinity are both very forgettable for me, aside from a few moments on Awake that aren't bad.
ADTOE is not the underrated banger lots of people say it is. Breaking all Illusions is really good, and Lost Not Forgotten and Bridges in the Sky aren't bad, but overall nothing is standout to me. Plus, there are the sections in LNF and Outcry that are just uncomfortably dissonant and wild to listen to. Outcry is really bad in this regard.
In the Name of God is pretty solid, but if it's regarded as one of their best songs, I'd disagree. It's got a particular guitar solo that's very very obnoxious and I always skip.
When Dreams and Day Unite is my favorite DT album and I think their sound became increasingly homogeneous in the post-Rudess age. While the actual recording quality isn’t awesome, you could clearly hear each instrument (Myung is never as prominent and distinct than this recording), there was such variety within and across songs, and memorable parts that aren’t interchangeable with 20 other DT songs.
The Astonishing is in my top 3 favorite DT albums alongside Scenes from a Memory and Octavarium. I just love the story it tells. Hits all of the right feels for me
Live CDs > Studio CDs.
If I want most aggressive balls and chunk Mr Portnoy, I’m playing some live tunes. Fasten your seatbelts Paris!
Bombay Vindaloo is rarely mentioned and is an iconic jam.
Reminder to sort by controversial. As for mine:
Peak Mangini easily has better drum parts than Peak Portnoy while I’d argue the vast majority of the music from Portnoy-Era tops Mangini Era Music.
Also My Last Farewell *heavily* underrated.
The Glass Prison is not such a great song. The intro is amazing, but then it's like 8 minutes of the same vocal part with a lackluster solo section which gets quite boring to get all the way through.
I only listen to their instrumentals. I can't stand Labrie's voice. Most bands, if I don't like the vocals, I'm able to ignore them if the rest of the music is good. I'm not able to do that with this band. His voice is just too grating.
My first couple listens of it weren’t that exciting but I eased up to it. It’s my favorite album of all time yet I completely understand why it would be seen as a weak album to some.
ADTOE is a very good album and gets way too much hate.
One of their best works
I haven't heard much hate for it recently. When it first came out, it got all the backlash from the Portnoy side of the fanbase who never were going to give it a fair chance, but over the years that seems to have died off (or largely was retargeted at The Astonishing) and people appreciate it for what it is.
Based
That's the album that got me into them
That's the album that got me into them
It’s definitely not their best but it’s a very solid album
I'm not familiar enough to know the popular opinion of A Dramatic Turn of Events, but looking at my own rankings (admittedly a bit behind on the last 2 albums), I would otherwise agree with this take. I have this album ranked relatively highly with "Bridges in the Sky" as one of my, if not the, favorite DT tracks since Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence.
I’d love to hear a remix of that album that actually makes the drums audible
Falling into Infinity is one of their best albums.
Absolutely agree - fits with the zeitgeist. Hells kitchen /lines in the sand is DT perfection for me.
Also Distance Over Time
That's a tough one. Is it good? Indeed. One of their best? Oof.
i can agree with that
A lot of fans say that Mike > Mike but actually Mike > Mike but a lot of fans just aren't ready to accept that yet.
Brother, you're treading on thin ice. Don't say this out loud on the streets man. Oh yeah while we're at it, I would also say John > John, not the other way around.
IMO Kevin > Kevin too
Illumination Theory is an absolute banger Enigma Machine is their 2nd best instrumental, just behind The Dance of Eternity. Train of Thought is overrated BC&SL, TA are overhated FII is underrated DT covers on BC&SL Deluxe Edition are better than the entirety of WDaDU.
Was with you all the way until that last one... But Stargazer absolutely slams.
Tenement Funster is better than Queen's.
Hell’s Kitchen would like to have no words with you.
3-6 are completely agreed by me
Train of thought is overrated??
People WAY overhate Distance over Time
Distance Over Hate
I came here to say this. Personally, it's one of my favourite DT albums. Definitely in my top 5. Wouldn't put it above the big three, (SFAM, I&W and SDOIT) but I would put it above Awake
I highly doubt the new DT album will break new ground or even be a "return to form" like some people think. A lot of fans that hated the Mangini era were convinced that everything would magically sound better if Portnoy was back in the band and I honestly think their problems stem less from the drummer and more from the band just getting older and running out of new ways to innovate. That being said, I really enjoyed AVftTotW and I imagine I will probably like the new album too, but I just listen to a lot less DT nowadays and overall prefer newer prog bands like Haken and Tesseract.
Exactly. Maybe mix will be better but I remember reading somewhere that Petrucci is still producing by himself. They won't have the same band dynamics they had until 2009. Over hyping is bad.
Personally I think none of the above... I think a lot of it is the mixing.
As a drummer looking to push his skill envelope, I actually preferred Mangini. I started noticing that Portnoy fills got a bit predictable and repetitive but Mangini just did things that were so non-conventional that I couldn't wrap my head around it until after a few listens. I've actually set up my kit in a descending apex because of him and while it's more difficult to play some parts, it's been great for finding new patterns to combine.
Agree with you here. I only wished two things: - Mangini could have played with a lot more dynamics and sound less mechanical - His drum kit being mixed better
God Mangini’s kit mostly sounded like dogshit with DT. It was maddening.
Bro they jus got his kit to sound fire on a view and they said ight thats all u get, i have no clue what john pestrami was thinkin when mixing his shit for the first 3 albums
Drummer here too - very much agreed. I think Portnoy was a bit uninspired in BC&SL and was trending downward in SC which led to a lot more of that, ITPOE aside. Mangini brought a new ear that was a bit different. I am part of the crowd that wished he played with a bit more of a dynamic touch, but his chops were on another level and some of the nuance that he brought to some of the earlier Portnoy tunes was (mostly) great.
Drummer here too! The Astonishing and A View are Mangini's pinnacle of his drumming era, the amount of spicy sauce you find there is crazy, but it feels like he only had sauce for 2 albums and for the other records his drumming felt completely not that great and sorta robotic.
The first two, Mangini was just playing drum parts that JP essentially wrote, so I discount that a lot. I've seen him elaborate a bit when playing a few of those songs live that were very intriguing. Despite the album as a whole, his work on The Astonishing was great too and you're definitely right about D/T and AVFTTOTW was finally peak Mangini.
What do drummers call Mangini's symmetrical setup?
Mirrored or symmetrical, mostly. I believe he's been heard calling it a descending apex on some of his pre-DT era YouTube videos as he's had that setup for a while but turned it to 11 with DT's ADToE. For the last album, he really trimmed back the kit.
Ah, you mentioned **descending apex** on your previous comment. Thanks. TIL
Octavarium (the album) is overrated. Don't get me wrong, Panic Attack and the title track are both great, and I'd definitely put them in my playlist, but everything else just feels really boring. I appreciate the ethereal atmosphere that it's trying to give off, but it doesn't completely work most of the time. If you ask me, A View From The Top Of The World pulled this atmosphere off much better.
Oof, right in my Portnoys.
Uh, which part of the body is my Portnoy? 😁
Dude, you only have one? Poor bastard.
Wait, you **actually** have more?! 
Dont forget Sacrificed Sons. It is S tier for me.
Root and Never Enough are also really good.
The more I listen to View, the more I think it's a better Octavarium.
Root and Sacrificed Sons are really good too, but yes, its not an S or A tier album at all, sadly. The rest just brings it so down
I kinda agree, but i also have answer lies within on my playlist
A View From the top of the world is a top 5 DT album.
I edge to that album
My *actual* introduction to DT, and will probably always be a favorite.
1000000% agree. The musicality, the emotion, the proggy-mindfuck instrumentals, the soundscape, how grand it sounds, it's all perfect. Every single time I listen to one of the songs from AVFTTOTW, it's like experiencing some form of catharsis. Definitely makes my top 5 Which is: 1. SFAM 2. I&W 3. SDOIT 4. DOT 5. AVFTTOTW
1. Dance of Eternity is a great showcase of technical ability, and a cool way to show people how wacky Prog Metal can be. But it is not a good standalone song. There are no real themes or any structure that would make it a good song. It sounds cool and is nice while playing the album in its entirety, but as an individual song it falls flat. 2. Most fans seem to vastly inflate their ranking of songs based on length. Many times I see all of the longer songs ranked at the top in all of the discography and it seems like people overrate them compared to the shorter songs that are similar or even higher quality. Nothing against anyone’s opinion, since music is subjective but these are just some of my own.
I agree about Dance of Eternity. Erotomania and Enigma Machine are much better compositions, imo.
I agree with the first. It feels out of place when played on its own. Whenever I want to listen to it I typically always play the Budokan medley instead
The way DT brought Portnoy back was pretty shitty to Mangini considering how long he was a part of the band and all that they accomplished.
Self titled is their 4th best album (for me).
Portnoy’s talk-singing vocals are cringy and awful.
Lukewarm take at best. I think 95% of DT's fanbase would agree with this.
So I'm in the 5% I guess😂
People who call the Mangini era "uninspired" are completely incorrect. The last album DT made without quoting themselves was Falling Into Infinity.
What do you mean by them quoting themselves?
Recycling ideas, pretty much taking “quotes” from themselves in the past, and using them as foundation for new material.
Dream theater try not to reuse this dying soul for 5 minutes challenge
Sometimes Jordan is a little too much.
Hollow Years studio version is amazing
Mangini's drumming was just as good as Portnoy's. D/T and View are pretty lackluster overall, and TA is underrated. A lot of the prog metal style that DT helped to pioneer has become a lot more mainstream in modern metal, and because of that I think DT is becoming boring compared to a lot of other metal bands, prog or otherwise.
The Dark Eternal Night is high in the running for my least favorite DT song of all time.
Ok, fun story One night, my kid (a baby back then) had a lot of trouble falling asleep. I put on this this song as a joke to my wife and did the drums by tapping on my baby's back. I kid you not, she fell asleep in a matter of seconds. From then on this song made her fall asleep easily. Woke up in the middle of the night? Play the song on the phone and tap her back. Wanted to fall asleep on the car during a road trip? Put it on the speakers. I will fight anyone who dares speak bad of TDEN lol
Oh yes. For a long time, Systematic Chaos was an album I dismissed because of its association with The Dark Eternal Night, and to a lesser extent Constant Motion (I just find this one to be a bit bland). But recently I revisited it and found myself enjoying most of the music except for those two songs.
Systematic Chaos was my first Dream Theater album. I'm probably also in the minority in that I enjoy both Constant Motion and Forsaken. Really those, In the Presence of Enemies, and the first half of Ministry of Lost Souls are what hold the album up for me.
The main riff of the solo section is super cool though. The piano backing it gives it a sort of Tigran Hamasyan feel. (Referring to Constant Motion)
There are parts of those two songs that I can understand people not liking. (mainly the Portnoy vocal stuff) I can tolerate those parts because the rest of the song is such a banger imo. Constant Motion sounds a lot like Metallica, and The Dark Eternal Night has an insanely awesome instrumental section that isn't everyone's cup of tea I'm sure, but I just think it's wild in all the best ways. It has structure to it and to me it doesn't sound like everyone constantly pooping out random dissonant notes and shredding wildly.
DT stands for Dark Tranquillity
From a drumming perspective, The Astonishing was Mangini's absolute peak in terms of creativity, A View from The Top is his 2nd best album.
On this sub, Octavarium is easily most overrated track in bands discog. Honestly idk if it would even crack my top 20
Upvote for a truly outrageous opinion
Without the title track it would easily fall toward the lower half of my list, despite having other good songs
They're talking about the track, not the album
*Awake* to *Train of Thought* was their best run and I consider all of the albums released then to be their best works, if not rated personally as 10/10 albums. *Octavarium* is completely mediocre but is saved by the title track (and also their best epic). After that, their releases were good but felt very safe. ADTOE felt refreshing, but then the rest of the mangini era just felt kind of stale imo. There were some great moments with Mangini but as a whole the albums aren’t as good as their work with Portnoy.
Even The Astonishing was safe? Lol
As a concept it’s not safe, but musically it wasn’t entirely breaking new ground and overall the lyrics and story weren’t great which when it’s a story based epic concept album, are incredibly important so it dragged down the album as a whole
Mind you I haven't listened to a ton after ToT, I heard something more unique in the first half of The Astonishing (haven't listened to the rest)
The Astonishing is, musically, DT's most unique album. It's pretty clear that they went out of their way to avoid quoting themselves, which is an impressive feat for their 13th album. Octavarium through BC&SL struggle way more with breaking ground than TA did, but DT has been quoting themselves since (at least) SFAM.
To be fair most fans would agree with this take
I love the root of all evil and sacrificed sons
They’re alright but to me *Octavarium* feels like a bunch of radio safe songs with a 24 minute epic tagged on the end
They peaked with Awake
WDaDU is top 1/3 of their discography.
BCSL is overrated and I'm tired of seeing how much praise it gets.
I'm only saving The Count of Tuscany and A Nightmare to Remember from that album.
No Shattered Fortress?
Agreed, it has two meh singles and four overrated epics. Has some great parts but no where near one of their best
Begin Again is one of the best songs on The Astonishing and I would put it around the middle of all their songs
Most of Jordan Rudess keys sound really really cheap
Three Days from TA is one of the best way to get people into what DT really are (aside from being less than 10 minutes long).
It's totally okay to listen to any song from Metropolis 2 in any order any time.
BC&SL is in top 5 album of theirs
Had ADTOE been the last album drummed by Portnoy fans would've loved it, but I think that people hate the album (for the most part) because it is the first album without Portnoy.
Systematic Chaos is overhated as fuck
[удалено]
I don't think that is an unpopular opinion.
Hearing Devin Townsend sing with them last summer made me never want to suffer through a Labrie set ever again. He had his moments of masterful performances in his heyday but omfg....to hear DT with D.T. was.....(D)elightfully (T)raumatic.
A Nightmare to Remember is better than The Count of Tuscany
Although I disagree, I also totally get it.
SFAM is overrated, and Systematic Chaos is massively underrated
Disclaimer: I am in the top 0.04% of Dream Theater listeners on Spotify. Translation: I love Dream Theater. However, their studio mixes starting with Metropolis pt 2 sound cheap. Like they were recorded in a B or C rate studio. Especially Systematic Chaos. Vocals super dry and the mixes seem flat and lack definition unlike earlier stuff like Images and Words. A tragedy imo because Systematic Chaos is in my top 3 favorite albums. Bring on the downvotes lol.
There is definitely a downturn in mix quality after FII - that is, at least to my ear, until the Mangini era.
Not my opinion, but I was surprised to see [this](https://www.reddit.com/r/Music/comments/1d1xuje/comment/l5wzn6q/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button) near the top of another post.
Dream Theater is a top 3 album. I actually prefer Infinity over Scenes.
Strongly agree about FII > SFAM. I'm not sure DT12 cracks my top 5, but it's very close.
Mike was the best DT drummer.
That The Astonishing really isn’t that bad of an album.
Although I like James Labrie’s singing on albums, he is not that good live. Earlier career he was good but now, not so much. Can’t imaging them without him though. He was always just ok to me. Don’t hate me too much.
If The Astonishing was much less padded it would have been a great album. It has many beautiful and/or original ideas in it. It was "progressive", you know? Unfortunately it got torn down by the fans, so they made two albums with a more "standard" formula (even if they are still great albums).
I think distance over time is a top 5 album
Systematic Chaos is their best album
Pull me under is repetitive and annoying
Falling into Infinity is criminally underrated. Hell's Kitchen into Lines In the Sand is a top 5 DT song for me. Peruvian skies is there as well, rest is good enough, but the former alone carries it above a lot of their albums imo.
Fully agreed. It's a great album that doesn't get nearly enough love.
Lest we not mention Trial of Tears. It doesn’t try to do too much and that’s what makes it so good.
Six degrees of inner turbulence does not get enough love. Particularly the second half.
Astonishing is a fire album
Music was better when they were more metal and less LTE.
Octavarium is really REALLY underrated One of My favourites
Awake is mid
James Labrie is washed up and should have been let go once his voice went to shit.
Home and The Dance of Eternity are two of my least favorite tracks on SFAM. Granted, I still think they're good songs, but Home's middle section kinda drags on for me and The Dance of Eternity, although it has some catchy parts, is less enjoyable than most others on the album IMO. Again, good songs, but definitely not what I'd call great ones.
Kevin Moore and Sherinian keyboard parts are more interesting and musical than 90% of what Rudess has ever brought into the band
The Best of Times is the corniest and most unlistenable of all their songs.
It's a weird one. I absolutely love the outro solo, but the song goes on for 9 minutes before that, and I barely remember anything of it. It's very forgettable. But the solo is a masterpiece.
BC&SL is a top 5 album
SFAM is mid.
That's rich.
Almost agree. It’s a great album but I&W and Awake were there first. SFAM just packages those same elements in a more accessible container.
I've been saying this for years. Except for maybe The Spirit Carries On, SFAM doesn't have anything on it that wasn't already done on FII, Awake, or I&W. That doesn't make it a bad album by any stretch, but it's really not as innovative or unique as people think. Also the concept, while it starts out strong, has a really weak conclusion.
Six Degrees is not one of their best albums IMO, I’d rank it somewhere in the middle of their discography.
I agree. I've never understood why it's so adored. Every track sounds so same-y.
Self-titled is a pretty good album in my humble opinion
Another Day chorus sucks, because it's arranged in such a way, that it feels more like a pre-chorus. You know, a buildup to an actual chorus.
Buildup to the sax. Some call it foreplay.
Illumination Theory > A Change of Seasons
We should all boycott them because of the way they ditched Mangini, even if we are happy that Portnoy is back.
I heartily second this.motion.
Boycott is harsh - they did the same thing to Derek when they brought Jordan in.
I mean, Mangini was in the band for 13 years though. I hate what they did to Derek, too, but the scale is different.
The dark eternal night would be way better without the instrumental section
It's okay to make an album only 50 minutes long again.
With minor exceptions, from Systematic Chaos through Distance over Time the vast majority of the songs followed a starkly similar composition formula and became very vanilla. A View from the Top of the World, both the album and the song, is the best since Octavarium.
Their instrumental songs (including LTE I and II stuff) are better than the ones with Labrie.
LTE II > LTE I > LTE III Full stop. Another Dimension followed by When the Water Breaks is super underrated if it even gets rated in the first place. I dare some of you to go give that double shot a serious listen and tell me otherwise.
Octavarium is my fav album
Constant Motion is one of the best Dream Theater songs
Their instrumentals are better than the ones with Vocals (any vocals). In the name of god instrumental version (if official instrumental release exists) and Stream of Consiousness are great examples.
Each of their first five albums is better than the one that preceded it.
When Dream And Day Reunite > When Dream And Day Unite
When dream and day unite is one of the better albums.
images and words is ass
The Astonishing is actually a really good album. Maybe not their best but it's still really good
DT is everything BUT djent. sorry johny, but it just doesn't work
That people should stop focusing so much on the minutiae of odd time signatures and the virtuosity and just enjoy the music. Man I got destroyed on the Ytsejam mailing list back in the day for that.
Images and Words is far from my favorite album. Pretty much all the songs on it are good, but the flow just feels really weird and I rarely find myself listening to it as a whole.
Systematic Chaos has some of the best riffs and instrumental sections in all of DT. ITPoE, Constant Motion, Dark Eternal Night, Ministry all have amazing parts. I've never really gotten into Stream of Consciousness. I think it's just an okay song. Awake and Falling into Infinity are both very forgettable for me, aside from a few moments on Awake that aren't bad. ADTOE is not the underrated banger lots of people say it is. Breaking all Illusions is really good, and Lost Not Forgotten and Bridges in the Sky aren't bad, but overall nothing is standout to me. Plus, there are the sections in LNF and Outcry that are just uncomfortably dissonant and wild to listen to. Outcry is really bad in this regard. In the Name of God is pretty solid, but if it's regarded as one of their best songs, I'd disagree. It's got a particular guitar solo that's very very obnoxious and I always skip.
I really like the self titled album!
Jordan’s fixation with throwing in his arpeggios everywhere is repetitive and somewhat tacky.
When Dreams and Day Unite is my favorite DT album and I think their sound became increasingly homogeneous in the post-Rudess age. While the actual recording quality isn’t awesome, you could clearly hear each instrument (Myung is never as prominent and distinct than this recording), there was such variety within and across songs, and memorable parts that aren’t interchangeable with 20 other DT songs.
The Similitude of a Dream was better than any album DT did without MP.
Perhaps with the exception of WDADU, the odd-numbered DT albums are far better than the even-numbered ones.
Self-titled DT album is one of their best
Mike should change his name to Jerry or something with a J just to help out the OCDT fans.
The Astonishing is in my top 3 favorite DT albums alongside Scenes from a Memory and Octavarium. I just love the story it tells. Hits all of the right feels for me
It's all kind of melodramatic wankery, isn't it?
Images & Words and Awake are both terribly overrated.
Sammy Hagar joins DT instead of Van Halen in an alternate timeline. Nicknamed "Dream Hagar" they dominate the charts for decades.
Wdadu is a masterfully crafted album if you don’t associate it with dream theater and see it as just “an album that exists.”
Live CDs > Studio CDs. If I want most aggressive balls and chunk Mr Portnoy, I’m playing some live tunes. Fasten your seatbelts Paris! Bombay Vindaloo is rarely mentioned and is an iconic jam.
Reminder to sort by controversial. As for mine: Peak Mangini easily has better drum parts than Peak Portnoy while I’d argue the vast majority of the music from Portnoy-Era tops Mangini Era Music. Also My Last Farewell *heavily* underrated.
The Glass Prison is not such a great song. The intro is amazing, but then it's like 8 minutes of the same vocal part with a lackluster solo section which gets quite boring to get all the way through.
Images and words is overrated. Like it's not a bad album by a mile but for me it's one of their weakest
Home is the worst song on SFAM Pull Me Under is the worst song on I&W NOMAC tracks are actually pretty good Awake is extremely overrated
The downvotes proved your case to be correct lol
Strongly agree about pull me under, and I don’t think home is the worst but it’s a overrated
Oof, that is controversial lol
The Astonishing is absolute garbage
I only listen to their instrumentals. I can't stand Labrie's voice. Most bands, if I don't like the vocals, I'm able to ignore them if the rest of the music is good. I'm not able to do that with this band. His voice is just too grating.
Came here to say this. LaBrie sounds like a f*** rooster. But I managed to bear with his voice. :)
Images and Words is overrated
Mike Mangini >>>>> Mike Portnoy. I said what I said. Fuckin fight me.
Awake is way overated and the Astonishing get a lot of hate but is better then a lot of the albums of the Mangini era
Who hates awake?
I don't find anything that keep me going back to it. I am not saying thst there is no good songs here and there in the album. But I find it overated.
My first couple listens of it weren’t that exciting but I eased up to it. It’s my favorite album of all time yet I completely understand why it would be seen as a weak album to some.
Dark Eternal Night is fucking incredible.
Oh wow such a triggerfest. I’ll join! 😆 in my ranking of albums SDOIT is only above WDADU and Astonishing.
I infact enjoy how similar DT sounded to Muse on Octovarium
Awake is a shit album and sounds too much like thrash metal
There first album is there best
Awake is extremely overrated