The Official DTF Best of the Epics- Final Results, Page 6!!!!!!!!

[Heretic]

Seventh Wonder - The Great Escape
Haken - Visions
Locktender - The Burghers of Calais
Frost - Milliontown
Green Carnation - Light of Day, Day of Darkness
Sleep - Dopesmoker
Godspeed You! Black Emperor - Sleep
Yndia Halda - A Song for Starlit Beaches
Dream Theater - Octavarium
Agalloch - Faustian Echoes

[Shadow Ninja 2.0]

forgot milliontown fuuuuuuuck

[lonestar]

forgot milliontown fuuuuuuuck

Just edit your post, they are considered open until the tenth of next month.


For those of you not putting numbers by the songs, please do, or I will number them during tabulation top to bottom.

[Onno]

1. Dream Theater - Octavarium
2. Pink Floyd - Shine On You Crazy Diamond
3. Steven Wilson - Raider II
4. Haken - Visions
5. Transatlantic - The Whirlwind
6. Porcupine Tree - The Sky Moves Sideways
7. LTE - Three Minute Warning

[PuffyPat]

Beethoven - Symphony No. 9 (as The Dark Master said: if each movement counts as a song, I'd pick the 4th movement)
Tchaikovsky - Violin Concerto in D Major, Op. 35 (same question here: does it count? It has three movements, but it does all belong together...)
Rachmaninoff - Piano Concerto No. 2 in C Minor, Op. 18 (same question)

Personally I would count the whole thing as a song.

[Zyzzyva17]

Beethoven - Symphony No. 9 (as The Dark Master said: if each movement counts as a song, I'd pick the 4th movement)
Tchaikovsky - Violin Concerto in D Major, Op. 35 (same question here: does it count? It has three movements, but it does all belong together...)
Rachmaninoff - Piano Concerto No. 2 in C Minor, Op. 18 (same question)

Personally I would count the whole thing as a song piece.

If you really want to be technical.

[PuffyPat]

Beethoven - Symphony No. 9 (as The Dark Master said: if each movement counts as a song, I'd pick the 4th movement)
Tchaikovsky - Violin Concerto in D Major, Op. 35 (same question here: does it count? It has three movements, but it does all belong together...)
Rachmaninoff - Piano Concerto No. 2 in C Minor, Op. 18 (same question)

Personally I would count the whole thing as a song piece.

If you really want to be technical a snob.

I had to do it.

[King Postwhore]

Beethoven - Symphony No. 9 (as The Dark Master said: if each movement counts as a song, I'd pick the 4th movement)
Tchaikovsky - Violin Concerto in D Major, Op. 35 (same question here: does it count? It has three movements, but it does all belong together...)
Rachmaninoff - Piano Concerto No. 2 in C Minor, Op. 18 (same question)

Personally I would count the whole thing as a song piece.

If you really want to be technical.

Nugget.

[Zook]

What about trilogies? Probably not, eh?

Also, you suck for making the minimum time so long. Dante's Inferno and And Then There Was Silence are epic as fuck.

[lonestar]

What about trilogies? Probably not, eh?

Also, you suck for making the minimum time so long. Dante's Inferno and And Then There Was Silence are epic as fuck.

And you swallow for asking about trilogies. No.

Folks, keep in mind, one of my all time favorite songs is under the limit at around 15 minutes, so it's not just your folks that are having to trim some epic shit.

[Lucien]

Well, in that case...

1. Stravinsky - The Rite of Spring
2. Stravinsky - The Firebird
3. Rush - The Fountain of Lamneth
4. Shostakovich - Symphony 5
5. Tchaikovsky - Symphony 4
6. Bruckner - Symphony 9
7. Beethoven - Symphony 5
8. Beethoven - Piano Concerto 4
9. Mahler - Symphony 8
10. Respighi  - Pines of Rome

 

[Bolsters]

This is why I don't make threads.

[lonestar]

This is why I don't make threads.

I couldn't agree more at this point.

And I definetely should have made a rock/metal only stature. One of my objectives was to find new prog epics, not to get a lesson in classical music.

[Dr. DTVT]

Making me decide between Duel with the Devil and Stranger In Your Soul just proves you are one cold, heartless bastard RJ.  Those are probably 1a and 1b without the one song per band rule.

Beyond that, the one per band is pretty helpful, but I still had to make some painful cuts.  The following were considered, but just missed the cut:

The Great Escape - Seventh Wonder
Light of Day, Day of Darkness - Green Carnation
Sleeping in Traffic - Beardfish
Undetermined Moon Safari song (couldn't settle on my favorite epic of theirs)
Egypt - The ANABASIS
White - Lee Abraham
Mirror of Souls - Theocracy
Retrospective - Silent Memorial
Laudanum - Days Between Stations
The Ivory Gate of Dreams - Fates Warning
Our Fortress is Burning - Agalloch
Möbius Slip - Sound of Contact
The Illusion Is Freedom - Darwin's Radio
The Underfall Yard - Big Big Train (#11, and that hurt to leave off)

The real deal coming soon.

[Dr. DTVT]

OFFICIAL BALLOT AND THE ONLY ONE THAT MATTERS, DAMMIT

1) Duel With The Devil - Transatlantic
2) Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence - Dream Theater
3) Without Walls - IQ (I don't care if the album is less than 6 months old I want to make sweet passionate love to this album and make it have my babies)
4) The Great Nothing - Spock's Beard
5) Send of Message From the Heart - Karmakanic
6) Waiting For The Axe To Fall / Hive Mind / The Claws Of A Crayfish / My Sleeping Slave - Phideaux (It's one track on the album)
7) Visions - Haken
8) Milliontown - Frost*
9) In Appearance - A Portrayal of Figures (Part 2 qualifies on its own, but in case anyone else has this one down the whole thing) - Flaming Row
10) In Darkest Dreams - The Tangent

[King Postwhore]

1. Octavarium.
2. Rush - 2112
3. Yes - Close To The Edge
4. Karmakanic - Send A Message To The Heart
5. Spock's Beard - The Great Nothing
6. Druckfarben - Second Sound
7. Frost - Milliontown
8. IQ - Without Walls (I'm with Mason and taking sloppy seconds)
9. Steven Wilson - Raider II
10.  Pyramid Theorem - The Dream

[jingle.boy]

Re-posting... I've snipped my original post.

1 - Octavarium
2 - 2112
3 - The Odyssey
4 - Duel With the Devil
5 - Drawing the Lines of Mortal Existence (Dimension Act)
6 - The Illusion is Freedom (Darwin's Radio)
7 - Shine on You Crazy Diamond
8 - IQ - Harvest of Souls
9 - Magic Pie - Change
10 - Spock's Beard - The Great Nothing

Though it's not SB's best, I couldn't make this list without something from them.  Some of my Honorable Mentions:

Chain - Cities
Seventh Wonder - The Great Escape
Jethro Tull - Thick as a Brick
Genesis - Supper's Ready
Mystery - Another Day
Circus Maximus - The 1st Chapter
Presto Ballet - Relics of the Modern World

And of course, a host of DT and Transatlantic.

[Evermind]

I actually decided to swap Harvest of Souls for Without Walls to pay my respects to a brilliance of new IQ album, too. Though I dunno, I may change it back the other day.

[CharlesPL]

OFFICIAL VOTE:

1.Dream Theater - A Change of Seasons
2.LTE - Three Minute Warning
3.Transatlantic - Duel with the Devil
4.Pink Floyd - Echoes
5.Manowar - Achilles, Agony and Ecstasy in Eight Parts
6.Genesis - Supper's Ready
7.Symphony X - The Odyssey
8.Neal Morse - The Conflict
9.Yes - Close to the Edge (Awaken is my favourite,But was too short)
10.Rush - 2112

[Lolzeez]

1.Godspeed You! Black Emperor - Sleep
2.Genesis - Supper's Ready
3.Swans - Bring The Sun/Toussaint L'ouverture
4.Agalloch - Faustian Echoes
5.Jethro Tull - Thick As A Brick Part 1
6.Yes - Close To The Edge
7.Opeth - Black Rose Immortal
8.Dream Theater - A Change Of Seasons
9.Rush - 2112
10.Pink Floyd - Echoes

As you can see,you don't have to be prog to make the best epics.

[Sacul]

I have updated my post with the songs in order.

[Onno]

This is why I don't make threads.

I couldn't agree more at this point.

And I definetely should have made a rock/metal only stature. One of my objectives was to find new prog epics, not to get a lesson in classical music.

In that case, I'll just edit my post to only include only rock/metal epics. I can see where you're coming from.

[lonestar]

All good man 

I have updated my post with the songs in order.

 

[ThatOneGuy2112]

Went ahead and made my vote final. Seems like that's as good as I'm gonna get it.

[Orbert]

I wasn't gonna vote because two of my favorite epics aren't eligible, but I might as well get votes in for the ones I can.

1. Close to the Edge - Yes
2. Supper's Ready - Genesis
3. A Change of Seasons - Dream Theater
4. Thick as a Brick - Jethro Tull
5. Shine on You Crazy Diamond - Pink Floyd
6. Karn Evil 9 - Emerson Lake & Palmer
7. 2112 - Rush
8. All of the Above - Transatlantic
9. Stardust We Are - The Flower Kings
10. Mei - Echolyn

[King Postwhore]

Mei almost made it for me

[RoeDent]

Magnificent idea, OP.

1. Octavarium - Dream Theater
2. Raider II - Steven Wilson
3. Visions - Haken
4. Kaleidoscope - Transatlantic
5. Love Is the Only Answer - The Flower Kings
6. Echoes - Pink Floyd
7. Tarkus - ELP
8. Supper's Ready - Genesis
9. 2112 - Rush
10. The Sky Moves Sideways - Porcupine Tree

[BRGM]

yeah about The Incident, didn't Steven call it a song cycle instead of a single song?

[KevShmev]

Yes.  To me, that was like calling it a suite of songs.  Which it is.  It is not a single song.

[lonestar]

Well that debate didn't last long 

[RoeDent]

Edited my list. If TSMS (an album-bookending 35-minute epic) doesn't count, then neither should Shine On You Crazy Diamond. I prefer The Incident, but apparently  it's not an epic.

[Kilgore Trout]

I tried, but could barely find any so-called "epic" that I really liked. I like plenty of 14-18 minutes songs, but pretty much everything I've heard in rock music above 20 minutes long is just some bunch of songs badly put together with no sense of form (and even if I will probably get insulted for that, I don't think the Yes, Genesis, Jethro Tull classic "epics" are that well written, most of the time it's just suites of songs or song parts loosely connected together, not anything I would consider large forms). Plus it seems to be a neo-prog tradition, a genre I think is terrible.
Let's start the hate.

[Evermind]

Well, I dunno. I kinda see myself agreeing about incohesiveness of the few epics in the lists, but that's it for me. What about DT epics? They cover quite a wide range and they are mostly quite cohesive. Either Echoes or Shine On You Crazy Diamond from Pink Floyd is a well done thing too. I'm not going to more examples, because that's totally your choice and your tastes that matter in the end.

Oh, and I just can't leave it without a response, but TAAB by Jethro Tull was meant as a jab into the ridiculousness of epics and concept albums (there was a post by Orbert about it on DTF somewhere). And this is one of the reasons it's so high on my list, not counting its' quality and the impact it had on my musical tastes.

About the length, it's how RJ set the rules. If it was, say, 10 minutes or more, more than half of my list would be different. Maybe we should do that in future too. 

[ThatOneGuy2112]

I tried, but could barely find any so-called "epic" that I really liked. I like plenty of 14-18 minutes songs, but pretty much everything I've heard in rock music above 20 minutes long is just some bunch of songs badly put together with no sense of form (and even if I will probably get insulted for that, I don't think the Yes, Genesis, Jethro Tull classic "epics" are that well written, most of the time it's just suites of songs or song parts loosely connected together, not anything I would consider large forms). Plus it seems to be a neo-prog tradition, a genre I think is terrible.

Who said it has to be prog-related? There are plenty of picks on these lists that aren't even really prog.

In honesty, I think the time constraint is too strict and I'd consider songs 15+ minutes to be "epic" enough. I just had the luck that the minimum length was Yes' Close to the Edge which made the top spot on my own list. Even so, I haven't heard a Yes epic that wasn't well written.

Let's start the hate.

Oh, don't do that.

[hefdaddy42]

OK, fuck it, here's my list.

1. Transatlantic - Stranger in Your Soul
2. Dream Theater - A Change of Seasons
3. Yes - The Gates of Delirium
4. Flower Kings - Garden of Dreams
5. Neal Morse - Seeds of Gold
6. Frost* - Milliontown
7. Haken - Visions
8. Genesis - Supper's Ready
9. Steven Wilson - Raider II
10. Moon Safari - Other Half of the Sky