In what order have you heard DT's discography?

[Dublagent66]

This is easy for me cause I've been a fan since I&W, so everything is chronological except for WDADU.  Here's my list.

Images & Words
Awake
Falling Into Infinity
When Dream & Day Unite
Scenes From A Memory
Six Degrees Of Inner Turbulence
Train Of Thought
Octavarium
Systematic Chaos
Black Clouds & Silver Linings

[Cool Chris]

This is easy for me cause I've been a fan since I&W, so everything is chronological except for WDADU. 

Same for me, except I am not 100% sure where WDaDU falls. Probably later than 2000. Didn't even know it existed for a number of years.

[orcus116]

Started with Six Degrees then Scenes From A Memory then Images And Words then Train Of Thought came out then the rest for Christmas of '03.

[Zantera]

This order:

*Live At Budokan (my dad bought it, so this is where i discovered the band)*
Train of Thought
(2 year jump)
Systematic Chaos
Octavarium
6DOIT
Images & Words
Awake
Scenes From a Memory
Falling Into Infinity
Black Clouds & Silver Linings

Never really bothered with WDADU.

[The Letter M]

I became a fan back in late 2003/early 2004, not long after Train Of Thought was released, so everything since then (studio and live) have been in order of release.

I was on Christmas vacation in California in 2004 and found Live At Budokan on CD and DVD and bought them there. It was the first new release by DT after I became a fan, and I remember listening to it on my portable CD player the rest of the vacation...and I was also lucky that my brother brought his portable DVD player! I remember watching that concert at least two or three times before we came back home.

But before that, I think I got Train Of Thought first, since it was their latest release, but I can't remember.
I ordered the majority of the back catalog through Amazon at the time.
When Dream And Day Unite - 2/24/04
Awake - 3/7/04
A Change Of Seasons - 3/16/04
Images And Words and Scenes From A Memory - 4/8/04
Six Degrees Of Inner Turbulence - 5/25/04
Live Scenes From New York - 6/1/04 (the first full live album I bought!)

After a summer of engaging those studio albums, I bought LAB (as noted above), then went back and got OIALT and LAM on 12/30/04 from Amazon. After that, I was all caught up and looked forward to their then-upcoming 2005 release, Octavarium!!!

After that, it was all in order of release.

-Marc.

[lordxizor]

Images & Words
Awake
When Dream and Day Unite
Falling Into Infinity
The rest in their chronological order

I got into DT right as FII was coming out, but didn't get that album until I had gotten all of their others.

[WDADU]

Metropolis Pt. 2: Scenes From A Memory
Six Degrees Of Inner Turbulence
Falling Into Infinity
When Dream And Day Unite
Train Of Thought
Images And Words/ Awake/ A Change Of Seasons (received them all for Christmas in 2003)
Octavarium
Systematic Chaos
Black Clouds And Silver Linings

[tri.ad]

Images And Words
Awake
Octavarium
Six Degrees
SFAM
FII
WDADU
TOT
SC
BCASL

The live albums are scattered somewhere in-between.

[Chino]

Images and Words
LSFNY
LAB

Then I just went on a massive downloading spree of everything.

[j]

First listened to 'em in '07, a few months after SC had come out I think (although I didn't know it), but I didn't hear any album in its entirety for a while thereafter.  Listened to several random songs (among them ACoS, Metropolis, Octavarium, Pull Me Under, Stream of Consciousness, and ITPOE, if I recall) and liked what I heard.  Downloaded another handful and listened, and then began acquiring their music legally.

-J

[cygnusaz]

Chronological, as well, my first DT show was in 1989 at the Ritz when they opened for Marillion. Of course, I didn't know I was going to see DT until they started playing, and I asked someone who they where lol...

I have bought every album with the exception of WDADU and I & W on the first day of release.

WDADU I bought probably a year or so after the show. It actually was pretty hard to come by for a long time.

I & W, bought the CASSETTE sometime in the Spring of 1993 after I heard PMU on the radio. Bought the CD a year or so later.

That's right - for you younger folk PMU was actually played on the radio consistently. Most hard rock stations had it in heavy rotation. They even played 'Take the Time', and 'Another Day' as well, though I only heard those a few times.

How about this? I bought the CASSETTE SINGLE for 'Another Day'. That's right, before Mp3 in the CS Single was a popular format.

When 'Lie' was first released it was also in rotation at least on the NY radio stations.

Then that was it. I don't think I've heard DT on the radio (not HD, Pandora, Internet - the one in your car that mainly plays commercials) since 1994.

I remember when FII came out, I was very disappointed they weren't using the 'Dream Theater' logo type they used on I & W, Awake, and COS.

When SFAM came out, and that font type was back - I knew it was going to be a good album, lol... The SFAM release was really the beginning of a new era, I remember Mike posting that the new 'masterpiece' was out and thinking 'why is the drummer posting' 'what about the singer', lol

For those of you missing Mike, in actuality he wasn't that vocal and involved until SFAM came out. I never even paid much attention to him until he starting taking the reigns of the band in 2000.

Live Scenes from NY. Who remembers the craziness when they had to change the cover? It was coming out 9/11/2001 with an image of the burning NY skyline. Yikes.

S6DOIT, my memories from that release date...I remember not digging the cover, too abstract, but was excited for a double album. And was not disappointed.

TOT... honestly I don't even remember buying it, lol, but I know I did on the first day...

8VM...I remember going to Best Buy right after work and snagging her. That was a new era in my life and a lot of the lyrics moved me.

Systematic Chaos... another new era for me job wise, I like the cover... not much else stands out from buying that one.

BC/SL... this is the first one I tried to download from Itunes. But the sound was awful, so I just went back to Best Buy and bought the CD, lol....

Well, now we move forward to the first DT album in 2011 without Mike Portnoy... that is going to be strange, sad, and exciting all at the same time. I figure if they are recording in January, we'll see the album late summer 2011.

The dream continues...

[JayOctavarium]

full albums?

Systematic Chaos
Awake
Images and Words
Octavarium

and the rest were pretty much all at once after that


you see, i pretty much became a fan right before SC came out... i had heard a few tracks off awake and I&W... but the first full was SC

then completed awake and images

and Octavarium is/was my fav for a looooong time

[bosk1]

I've been a fan since I&W

Same here, but I had a break in between where I heard some bits and pieces, but hadn't bought albums.  I liked DT from '92 on, but didn't really dig deeply into them after I&W until 1999, so mine goes something like this:

I&W
SFAM
LSFNY

Then I really started digging into the back catalog and ordered Awake and FII at the same time.  A little while later, I got the ACOS EP and 5YIALT not too long after that. 

Starting with SDOIT, I got the rest of the discog in order, buying every release just as it came out.  Sometime during the SDIOT-TOT timeframe, I also picked up WDADU and LATM, but I don't recall exactly when.  I might have even gotten WDADU around the time 8VM was out.  I also picked up a second copy of LATM around the time 8VM was out because I wanted the import version with alternate track listing. 

[AtmosphericV]

Scenes from a memory was the first one, and it was the best album I'd ever heard. I realized I had to buy it all. So I bought LSFNY, I&W, ACOS, Awake, LATM, 8VM alltogether. Then I bought SDOIT, FII and TOT. I never bought LABudokan because my friends had it. I never bought OIALT, same reason.

This was back in around june 2005.
From there, Score, SC, CIM and BC&SL

[Lowdz]

In order from WDADU.
Read the review in Kerrang and got it on release in the uk. I was blown away and have been ever since. Lost track of the band totally after this (this was way before the internet for us in the UK! and Kerrang had long since become Kerrap) until i heard Pull Me Under and Another Day in a pub in my hometown. Of course the singer had changed and the style was different so I didn't recognise it as DT. I went over to ask the DJ who it was and couldn't believe it was the same band. Bought I&W the next day.
Everything else I got on release day except for my USA import of live Scenes with the original cover. Had to wait a few days for that to arrive.

[Vahvahenki]

Train Of Thought -> Images & Words -> Octavarium -> Scenes From A Memory

I can't recall how I continued from there on...

[Gadough]

....I basically went backward. Black Clouds, then Systematic Chaos, then Octavarium. Etc.

[hefdaddy42]

Been a fan since I&W.  I got that first, then WDADU, then in order.

[toro]

SFAM
Octavarium
I&W
Awake
FII
6DOIT
TOT
SC
WDADU
BC&SL

Yep.

[ScioPath]

I think something along the lines of

Octavarium
Images and Words
Train of Thought
Awake
SFAM
SDOIT
WDADU
SC
BCSL
FII


But back when I started getting into DT I would listen to individual tracks rather than albums.

[zxlkho]

It basically went like this:

Pull Me Under from GH3
Greatest Hit
I&W
BC&SL
Octavarium, Systematic Chaos, Train of Thought
Awake, SFAM
SDOIT
FII & WDADU

[LieLowTheWantedMan]

I&W
SC
BCaSL, SFaM
Octavarium
Awake, SDoIT
ToT
WDaDU
FII

[mainframe004]

I only really became a fan near the end of 2006, when I was hopping around Wikipedia reading about progressive metal. I listened to Pull Me Under first (like almost 100% of us), and got hooked immediately. I got Images and Words soon after. Then I got introduced to Systematic Chaos the next year, and decided to get the entire discography in 2008.

Images and Words
Systematic Chaos
Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence
Awake
Octavarium
Train of Thought
Metropolis Part II
Black Clouds & Silver Linings
Falling into Infinity

Never bothered to listen to When Dream and Day Unite.

[Infinite Cactus]

Images and Words
WDADU
Train of Thought
Octavarium
Awake
Scenes From A Memory
Falling into Infinity
SDOIT
Systematic Chaos
Black Clouds and Silver Linings

Fan since about 2005.

[Phantasmatron]

Scenes from a Memory
Octavarium
Images and Words
Six Degrees of Inner  Turbulence
Train of Thought
Awake
Falling Into Infinity
When Dream and Day Unite
Systematic Chaos
Black Clouds and Silver Linings

[Perpetual Change]

I can pretty much remember when I got which albums.

The year before 8va came out, I bought Awake in the spring.

By the time school was out, I'm pretty sure I had Images and Words and Train of Thought.

That summer, I got LiT/OIALT. I also got Scenes for my birthday.

By Christmas, I had already had bought LSFNY and got 6DOIT as a gift.

Sometime after that, I got Falling into Infinity.

And then Octavarium came out.

[ThroughHerEyesDude6]

According to FULL albums:

Images and Words
Metropolis Pt. 2: Scenes from a Memory
Octavarium
Systematic Chaos
Awake
Train of Thought
Falling Into Infinity
A Change of Seasons
When Dream And Day Unite
Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence
Black Clouds & Silver Linings

[nikatapi]

1.Train Of Thought
2.A Change Of Seasons
3.Images And Words
4.Scenes From A Memory
5.Awake
6.When Dream And Day Unite
7.Six Degrees Of Inner Turbulence
8.Falling Into Infinity
9.Octavarium
10.Systematic Chaos
11.Black Clouds And Silver Linings

[yeshaberto]

chronological since IW...except heard Reunite around six degrees and unite after SC

[?]

Black Clouds & Silver Linings
Images & Words
Awake
Octavarium
Scenes from a Memory
6 Degrees of Inner Turbulence
Systematic Chaos
Falling into Infinity
Train of Thought
When Dream & Day Unite

I bought BC&SL a week or two after its release so I'm a quite new fan.

[Perpetual Change]

Interesting. I'm always curious to hear how newer fans rank the albums opposed to older fans.

[hefdaddy42]

Interesting. I'm always curious to hear how newer fans rank the albums opposed to older fans.

They are just ranking when they got them, not how much they like them.

[JayOctavarium]

Interesting. I'm always curious to hear how newer fans rank the albums opposed to older fans.

what would u define as a newer fan?

[dethklok09]

lol i never listened to individual albums at the start, (except for most of octavarium my fav at the time) youtube and individual downloading ftw lol

[?]

Interesting. I'm always curious to hear how newer fans rank the albums opposed to older fans.

They are just ranking when they got them, not how much they like them.

Yeah, my ranking of DT albums by how much I like them, is here:
https://www.dreamtheaterforums.org/boards/index.php?topic=352.msg542886#msg542886