Observations of the Polls

[chaossystem]

As many of you know, I've been running a series of polls in an effort to determine which song off each album, and several of the non-album tracks as well, is the most popular, or best-loved.

Eventually I also want to take the songs or songs that get the most votes from each album to maybe elect an "unofficial DT forum best or favorite song." I know it could never really be "scientific" or "fair," but at least we'll know what the preference of most or all of anyone who participates on here is.

But what I want to do here is just post some of my observations based on the poll results as they stand at the current time.

WHEN DREAM AND DAY UNITE>
92 votes-
This was a bit of an upset! Only a Matter of Time, which I voted for, has JUST pulled ahead with 18 votes!
It was behind!
Afterlife, which was winning, is now in 2nd place with: 16
A Fortune in Lies: 12
Light Fuse and Get Away: 10
I don't know what I really expected here, but I guess I thought "Fortune" would get more votes, maybe even win, because it seems to be the best-known song from the album. I also thought TKH might win, given the trend toward voting for longer songs.

NON-ALBUM TRACKS>
70 votes-
Raise the knife: 17
Don't Look Past Me,
Eve,
and my choice of To Live Forever,
are all tied for 2nd place with: 11
I kind of expected DLPM to take it, but I also thought TLF would get more votes, maybe even win.

IMAGES AND WORDS>
98 votes-
I don't know if I should be surprised by this or not, given that a lot of people favor the longer more "epic" tracks but...
Learning to Live is #1 with: 33, and
Metropolis is #2 with: 28!
Given the number of posts I've seen on the forum expressing undying love and devotion for this song, I was strongly expecting it to be the "run-away" winner!
It would have been my #2, but I just had to give my vote to...
Pull Me Under, which ie way behind with only 2 votes. Surrounded and UAGM both got more votes than PMU did! I would have thought it would at LEAST make #3. Strange how UN-popular this song seems to have become...

AWAKE>
101 votes-
Voices: 25
My choice of Scarred: 22
Space-Dye Vest: 17
Scarred appeared to be winning at first, and I thought it would, being that it's the longest track on the album. Speaking of which, this album seems to be everybody's favorite right now. Not sure why.
I'm also surprised SDV got as many votes as it did, because there have been a lot of negative posts on here, including a few people saying they wished that it hadn't been played on the AftR tour!

A CHANGE OF SEASONS / UNCOVERED>
83 votes-
A Change of Seasons: 75
It's not really worth mentioning because of the huge margin here, but a few people did say the like "Perfect Strangers," and that is my #2 as well. However I did go with the majority this time.
ACoS is a CLASSIC as far as I'm concerned.

FALLING INTO INFINITY>
112 votes-
Lines in the Sand: 42
Trial of Tears, a distant second with: 33
my choice of New Millennium, way behind with: 3
Again  I might have thought that ToT would get it because it is a little longer than LitS.
Also thougfht that NM would get more votes, because I thought it was more popular than that.

SCENES FROM A MEMORY>
91 votes-
Overture 1928 / Strange Deja Vu: 20
Home: 17
Finally Free: 18
The Dance of Eternity / One Last Time: 10
I think we all agree that this album has a lot of great music on it.
I am again surprised by the winner here. Also might have thought that Home, being the longest single track at least MIGHT have taken it.
Surprised again that Fatal Tragedy and/or Beyond This life Didn't get more votes.
It was very hard for me to pick something here, but:
One more surprise is that my choice of The Spirit Carries on didn't get more than 7 votes.
I thought it was more popular than that, maybe even enough so to win.

SIX DEGREES OF INNER TURBULENCE>
88 votes-
Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence as whole is slightly ahead at this time with 24 votes
Blind Faith: 22
The Glass Prison: 18
I would have thought that TGP would be the winner, by more that just two votes.
Also didn't think that BF would be as popular as it apparently is.
My choice of ATC only got 2 votes.

TRAIN OF THOUGHT>
106 votes-
In the Name of God: 41
Stream of Consciousness
A distant second with: 22
My choice of As I Am: 7
I didn't think This Dying Soul would be as UN-popular as it is.
Also thought AIA would get more votes.

OCTAVARIUM>
120 votes-
Octavarium: 89 votes
Not even worth mentioning what was 2nd,3rd, etc., but I would have thought that my choice of The Root of All Evil (6 votes), as well as some of the other songs such as SS and TW would have had a stronger showing.

SYSTEMATIC CHAOS>
109 votes-
In the Presence of Enemies as one "unit" took it by far and away-including my vote-with: 37
The others are so far behind, it's not even worth mentioning at this time.
I don't know which one I expected to win here, but I was thinking that CM, Forsaken, and TDEN would all be a lot closer than they are.

BLACK CLOUDS & SILVER LININGS, pt. 1: THE NEW SONGS>
113 votes-
The Count of Tuscany: 67
CLEARLY ran away with it!
A nightmare to Remember,
a distant second with: 27
My top choice of A Rite of passage: 3
I'm surprised that BOTH ARoP and TSF didn't have a stronger showing.
I would rank those four songs as those two first, then ANtR, and THEN TCoC.

BLACK CLOUDS & SILVER LININGS, pt. 2: THE COVERS>
60 votes-
The Queen Medley: 24
Stargazer (my choice): 18
At first I thought Stargazer was winning, but I guess this is another upset.

A DRAMATIC TURN OF EVENTS>
85 votes-
Breaking All Illusions: 39
Bridges in the Sky: 15
My choice of On the Backs of Angels: 5
I don't think there are any real surprises here. ,
This one was pretty predictable.

DREAM THEATER>
109 votes-
Illumination Theory: 51
IT is obviously way ahead, and will probably maintain the lead.
I voted for Behind the Veil, which only got 6 votes.
I was KIND of expecting the votes on this one to be spread out a little more.

So there you have it. Now you can go ahead and make fun of me and tell me how WRONG i was to vote for so many of the songs that hardly anybody else liked.
Or complain about how badly YOUR favorite songs did.
Hopefully there will be some "overlap" in that area...

[fischermasamune]

Why did you create a THREAD for this?

[SuperTaco]

Here's my issue with this. If you're going to make a poll to determine, as you said, an "unofficial" best song.. Why don't you do that? To me, this seems like a thread specifically designed for you to state more of your opinions about the albums and songs. This is something you can easily do in each of the threads you created. That is where you should post your observations.

I don't see the need for this thread at all.

[chaossystem]

I wanted to give everyone the opportunity to observe all of the "data" by having it collected in one "spot."

They can comment on it, debate about it, etc.

There are some people who will probably go off on a million different tangents, as has happened many times in the past.

The discussions and debates could very well end taking on a life of their own.

And if I'm wrong, then everyone has the option of ignoring this thread, and just letting it DIE!!! DIE!!! DIE!!!

[The Letter M]

Also, all of these statistics in the OP will be outdated in days or weeks as more and more people vote, especially new members who come in and see the polls. Some "winners" might shift down a spot or two, while others may move up. No real reason to post these here if they're just going to change individually as time goes on. As said above, these posts should be done in the preexisting threads with their respective polls.

That is, unless you decide to update the OP with new numbers every day or so to reflect the most current results.

-Marc.

[chaossystem]

Well, I DID say "as they stand at the current time."

[Rodni Demental]

Space Dye Vest has always had a cult following, even if there are a few of us loud enough to voice our discontent with the song. I'm not a fan of the piece really, it's right near the bottom of the DT library (doesn't make it a bad song). I wasn't that excited that it was on the last tour, but I certainly wasn't disappointed considering it's status as a somewhat infamously unplayed song 'til that point. It was definitely still interesting to hear live.

And as for Pull Me Under, I think a lot of us love it without the need to praise it much. Honestly, there are more interesting songs to talk about on I&W but PMU will still always be a classic.

As for SFAM, I guess it's hard to know which votes were because of the Overture, and which ones were for Strange Dejavu. But it still reflects that scene is possibly still more popular than Home which is interesting.

[AngelBack]

Chaos I admire your resilience...bit of an enigma but I am becoming a fan.  After your first handful of posts I was growing weary of what seemed like intentional miswording to confuse us and the rebuttals that you offered to suggestions on posting that came no where near addressing the point raised.  But now I have become a fan and look forward to your posts.  More Chaos I say.

[chaossystem]

okay...

Thanks.

I think...

[Rodni Demental]

Chaos I admire your resilience...bit of an enigma but I am becoming a fan.  After your first handful of posts I was growing weary of what seemed like intentional miswording to confuse us and the rebuttals that you offered to suggestions on posting that came no where near addressing the point raised.  But now I have become a fan and look forward to your posts.  More Chaos I say.

 

[chaossystem]

Space Dye Vest has always had a cult following, even if there are a few of us loud enough to voice our discontent with the song. I'm not a fan of the piece really, it's right near the bottom of the DT library (doesn't make it a bad song). I wasn't that excited that it was on the last tour, but I certainly wasn't disappointed considering it's status as a somewhat infamously unplayed song 'til that point. It was definitely still interesting to hear live.

And as for Pull Me Under, I think a lot of us love it without the need to praise it much. Honestly, there are more interesting songs to talk about on I&W but PMU will still always be a classic.

As for SFAM, I guess it's hard to know which votes were because of the Overture, and which ones were for Strange Dejavu. But it still reflects that scene is possibly still more popular than Home which is interesting.

I like SDV more than either The Mirror or LSoaD. I think it's pretty much as good as the rest of Awake. I was glad that they included it on the AftR set-list, and I thought it sounded very good live.

Maybe I should have separated the tracks on SFaM, or given separate options, like I did on some of the other polls.
Sorry about the confusion.

[BlobVanDam]

I notice a strong trend in this data. chaossystem doesn't know DTF.

[Skeever]

The huge trend is exactly what someone said in the other poll. After Scenes, Six Degrees, DT entered a "saved by the epic" phase of their career with their albums.

[TheGreatPretender]

The huge trend is exactly what someone said in the other poll. After Scenes, Six Degrees, DT entered a "saved by the epic" phase of their career with their albums.

Or, I would argue that they've made quite a few extremely good and consistent albums where it was actually harder to choose a favorite. DT12, for example, in terms of quality, every song is absolutely top notch. It's just that IT provides more of that quality music. Same with their other albums after SDOIT. Their more straightforward songs have been absolutely excellent, but most of them ride one or two riffs or ideas, whereas their epics ride ideas almost as good, or just as good, but there's like, 7 of them instead. It's all consistent quality, it's just that epics provide more quantity.

[Dublagent66]

Why did you create a THREAD for this?

I think because he likes creating threads. 

The huge trend is exactly what someone said in the other poll. After Scenes, Six Degrees, DT entered a "saved by the epic" phase of their career with their albums.

Except for DT12 was not "saved by the epic".  I wonder what phase they'll enter next?

[fischermasamune]

Except for DT12 was not "saved by the epic".

I agree with you! There are other great tracks besides IT. IT is still the best, though.

I wonder what phase they'll enter next?

Maybe they are in the phase of great albums with top-notch epics? Or is it just DT12? We don't know.

[sylvinception]

"As many of you know, I've been running a series of polls"

No we don't.

[bosk1]

"As many of you know, I've been running a series of polls"

No we don't.

Knock off the snarky, insulting comments.

[bosk1]

I notice a strong trend in this data. chaossystem doesn't know DTF.

And has no idea how to interpret data either, for that matter.

And this:

Why did you create a THREAD for this?

Also, all of these statistics in the OP will be outdated in days or weeks as more and more people vote

There is no reason for this thread to exist.