Awake = #1 album?

[Ħ]

So, I get fanboyism.  I get how someone could rank SFAM at the top, or SDOIT, or possibly even OVM and FII.  But the one album that seems to have the most stubborn fanboys is Awake.  I mean, yeah, it's an enjoyable listen.  But does it really compare with the rest of DT's discography?

1) Not enough masterpieces.  I mean, you have AMBI, which is fantastic, and SD-V (I'll probably lose some credibility at this point), and the first half of Scarred.  But then you've got CIAW, IF, Lie, 6:00, and The Mirror, which are definitely fun songs in the right context, but in no way compare to most of DT's material.

2) Poor production.  Examples: poor editing at 7:11 with LaBrie's "-TAAAAAAY", early cutoff of the end of SD-V.

3) Lack of variety.  You have two types of songs, without much of a spectrum in between--the heavy riffy side of Lie, and the ballady side of LSOAD.  Compare with an album like FII, where you have a huge variety of sounds.

So somebody explain to me why Awake is better than the rest, cause I really don't get it. =/

[ariich]

Tastes innit.

[LieLowTheWantedMan]

Tastes innit.

[robwebster]

Awake, for my buck, trundles along being great, but unremarkable.

There aren't any truly weak moments, but neither are there any true facepunch moments. Erotomania confidently rocks you to the core, but it doesn't smack you in the face. Which, from a band as soaring and ambitious as Dream Theater, is a little out of character.

It's grey, where most DT albums are black and white. And while it benefits from the lack of weakness, it also suffers from the lack of strength.

Images and Words, meanwhile, is all bangers and no mash. Ditto SDOIT. There's not a single song I don't like on Octavarium, either. So an album like Awake just can't compete against them. It's not poor, nor ever bland, but amongst the rest of their discography it's fairly... unexceptional. So, while I like it, I can't in good faith give it a rank any higher than sixth.

The greyness, however, is probably the precise reason loads of people really dig it.

[j]

Reasons cited will be things like flow, atmosphere, it is more than the sum of its tracks, etc.

I do think you're understating even the quality of the individual songs though.  The worst song on Awake (probably The Mirror or Lie) is still better than 90% of DT's post-SDOIT songs.  IMO.

-J

[Ħ]

Great post RW.  Same for me.  I don't mean to bash Awake because I think it's solid, but I can't see it being the best.

[RuRoRul]

Different people have different tastes, but I agree with your overall assessment of Awake. Except the "masterpiece" is Scarred for me, and Voices is a great track, but one of the weakest of the great DT tracks, if you know what I mean. It's a very good album, probably better as a whole than FII, Octavarium and Systematic Chaos, but at the same time those three albums all have one or two songs better than anything on Awake. I wouldn't say it has no weaknesses (weaknesses being relative to other DT tracks) for me though since I'm not a huge fan of Lifting Shadows Off A Dream or 6:00.

But then again I'm inclined to rank Train Of Thought as the top DT album, so you and others would probably not be able to see how someone could do that. So I'm not questioning how someone could like Awake best, even though I don't.

[ytsejamon]

Is the first album which was created as an  group/album  (WDADU and I&W were created with more time without fan and media pressure )
they created one of the best albums and the most innacesible and dense


saluDTs

[Jamesman42]

Great post RW.  Same for me.  I don't mean to bash Awake because I think it's solid, but I can't see it being the best.

This. Love the album, but DT has done better.

[WildeSilas]

I guess I'm an Awake fanboi. Without getting into a detailed analysis, I can say that it's the only DT album that simply hasn't left my CD changer or come off of my .mp3 player since purchase. It's the standard DT album for me due to its consistency, lack of wankery, and as a drummer, I feel it's MP's finest moment. Also LSOAD is worth the price of admission.

[PlaysLikeMyung]

Awake is the best album because it is

Also Kevin Moore

Also this:

Tastes innit.

[Hal Incandenza]

Reasons cited will be things like flow, atmosphere, it is more than the sum of its tracks, etc.

I do think you're understating even the quality of the individual songs though.  The worst song on Awake (probably The Mirror or Lie) is still better than 90% of DT's post-SDOIT songs.  IMO.

-J

I don't know that I'd go that far, but Awake is one of the few DT albums where I never skip a single song.  On the song rating thread, I gave it four 9s, four 8s, two 7s, and one 10, and frankly the two 7s might be 8s on another day.

Also, I am an unabashed Space Dye Vest fanboy.  That song just flat-out works for me, and provides a really interesting and different coda to the album.

[Jamesman42]

I will say that I like Awake as a whole and don't skip any songs. It IS a great record.

[JayOctavarium]

I don't know that I'd go that far, but Awake is one of the few DT albums where I never skip a single song.  On the song rating thread, I gave it four 9s, four 8s, two 7s, and one 10, and frankly the two 7s might be 8s on another day.

Also, I am an unabashed Space Dye Vest fanboy.  That song just flat-out works for me, and provides a really interesting and different coda to the album.

i read this and thought "wait... Another Day is on Awake?"

then i was disappoint in myself

[ricky]

i like awake because it has this charismatic air about it. to me, awake isn't about "epic masterpieces" or "complexity".

i don't know, I just get this underlying emotion from awake as a whole, that I don't really get from the other albums. there's something mysterious about this album, and that's why I think it's one of my favorites.

edit - i meant favorites.

[Nefyn]

What Ricky said. 

[JasonScandopolous]

So somebody explain to me why Awake is better than the rest, cause I really don't get it. =/

It's not, there's just a lot of people who have been fans since 1994...

[robwebster]

Awake is the best album because it is

Also Kevin Moore

Kevin Moore's conspicuous only by his absence...

Songwritingwise, he essentially just did what he was told. By all reports he'd more or less signed off before they started recording. Space-Dye Vest aside, Moore was almost unquestionably the LVP.

Awake is, at its core, the sum total of three guys writing music.

[voncorn]

-

[tgstk2]

I havent played awake in yearss i always go back to i&w tot sfam acos wdadu but always seem to skip awake

So for me no

[ricky]

Awake is the best album because it is

Also Kevin Moore

Kevin Moore's conspicuous only by his absence...

Songwritingwise, he essentially just did what he was told. By all reports he'd more or less signed off before they started recording. Space-Dye Vest aside, Moore was almost unquestionably the LVP.

Awake is, at its core, the sum total of three guys writing music.

i agree with pretty much everything you said. what's weird though is that while I sit here listening to it for maybe the thousandth time, I can't help but hear kev in alot of places. he brought this rich, atmospheric element to DT's music as well as simple, yet direct melodies. i get subtle hints of those characteristics all through this album, in a number of places. i just feel like he contributed more to the music than we give him credit for.

[ReaPsTA]

i agree with pretty much everything you said. what's weird though is that while I sit here listening to it for maybe the thousandth time, I can't help but hear kev in alot of places. he brought this rich, atmospheric element to DT's music as well as simple, yet direct melodies. i get subtle hints of those characteristics all through this album, in a number of places. i just feel like he contributed more to the music than we give him credit for.

In the LiT/5YiaLT commentary, Portnoy notes that KM worked a lot on 6:00, Lie, and SDV, the songs that he wrote lyrics for.  JP also adds that he put a bit of work into Voices too.

As for Awake, three thoughts:

- Yeah, the lack of any stinkers really helps it.  Listening to an album as a whole, any bad moment puts a bad taste in the experience as a whole.  The stuff beforehand is less good because it leads into something bad, and the stuff afterward is less good because it comes from something bad.  An album isn't a collection of songs, it's a cohesive experience.  Awake is by far the most consistently good.

- RW pointed out that Awake has a lot of "grey," which I think is a good point.  It's by far the most subtle DT album in terms of how it's designed.  For instance, I absolutely love the ending of Octavarium, it's one of the best DT moments ever, but I don't think a piece of music can more obviously say "THIS IS AN EPIC MOMENT, YOU SHOULD BE OVERWHELMED BY IT!"  Awake never ever makes anything too obvious.  The ending string section of Scarred is pretty epic, but there's some mildly complex guitar stuff going on under it.  The Mirror is very tortured and regretful, but it's tempered by the groovy metal and the spaceiness of it.  This also leads to:

- Awake is the most complex DT album in terms of emotional dimension.  Not only does it never beat you over the head with a theme or idea, it juggles multiple themes and ideas at one time virtually all the time.  I'm not saying modern DT has never done this.  A lot of Octavarium is complex, TMOLS is overtly sad/mournful yet brings a lot of angles into it, Forsaken (I'm being serious) even has some dimension.  But Awake is consistently multidimensional, and I don't see how moments like SUCKING ON HIS PIPE even begin to compare.

- Awake has the best lyrics of any DT album. 

- A lot of people say Awake has no really big moments, but I don't see how that's the case, although I realize taste comes into play here.  Scarred is one of DT's top three songs.  The Mirror/Lie is a ridiculous one/two combo.  Lifting Shadows is one of the few really romantic songs in the DT catalog, with some great and subtle playing from the band.  Voices is also incredible as a song.  Space Dye-Vest is wonderfully weird and dark, and so on.

When it comes down to the question of "Which DT album would I most want to sit down and listen to in its entirety?"  No other album is as satisfying as Awake.  Although I&W is a legitimate second place.

[Raoul Sanchez]

1) Not enough masterpieces.  I mean, you have AMBI, which is fantastic, and SD-V (I'll probably lose some credibility at this point), and the first half of Scarred.  But then you've got CIAW, IF, Lie, 6:00, and The Mirror, which are definitely fun songs in the right context, but in no way compare to most of DT's material.

Not every song has to be an epic, for the most part the shorter songs songs on Awake are very well written. Certainly better then the shorter songs on any album following it in my opinion, where for the most part the shorter songs are fairly entertaining filler between the "epics".

[Ħ]

You think Awake has poor production? While it's not even in my top 5 favorite DT albums, I think it certainly has very good production and sits only behind FII in terms of best production on a DT album. I can just hear how much "heavier" the metal riffs on songs like CIAW and Lie are compared to songs from Train of Thought or SC and I believe that is attributed to the fact that the rhythm guitars on Awake were quadruple tracked.

Did you look at the examples I gave for its poor production?  It is littered with mistakes.  And as for Awake sounding heavier than TOT....wut?

Not every song has to be an epic, for the most part the shorter songs songs on Awake are very well written. Certainly better then the shorter songs on any album following it in my opinion, where for the most part the shorter songs are fairly entertaining filler between the "epics".

I agree.  But the shorter songs are not top DT quality at all.  I mean, look at songs like New Millennium, These Walls, Constant Motion, etc. that simply blow CIAW and IF out of the water.

[Ħ]

Reap, your post wast probably the best defense I've seen here.

- Yeah, the lack of any stinkers really helps it.  Listening to an album as a whole, any bad moment puts a bad taste in the experience as a whole.  The stuff beforehand is less good because it leads into something bad, and the stuff afterward is less good because it comes from something bad.  An album isn't a collection of songs, it's a cohesive experience.  Awake is by far the most consistently good.

I agree with your psychology of listening to albums as a whole, but I would say that Awake is littered with stinkers.  CIAW and IF are simply boring.  The Mirror only works on certain days, Lie is okay.  As for the epics, there are lousy parts that really bring them down, like the post-do-you-feel section of Scarred.

- RW pointed out that Awake has a lot of "grey," which I think is a good point.  It's by far the most subtle DT album in terms of how it's designed.  For instance, I absolutely love the ending of Octavarium, it's one of the best DT moments ever, but I don't think a piece of music can more obviously say "THIS IS AN EPIC MOMENT, YOU SHOULD BE OVERWHELMED BY IT!"  Awake never ever makes anything too obvious.  The ending string section of Scarred is pretty epic, but there's some mildly complex guitar stuff going on under it.  The Mirror is very tortured and regretful, but it's tempered by the groovy metal and the spaceiness of it.

Okay, I can get on board with that.  But greyness isn't necessarily better or worse than being black-and-white and "obvious".

- Awake is the most complex DT album in terms of emotional dimension.  Not only does it never beat you over the head with a theme or idea, it juggles multiple themes and ideas at one time virtually all the time.  I'm not saying modern DT has never done this.  A lot of Octavarium is complex, TMOLS is overtly sad/mournful yet brings a lot of angles into it, Forsaken (I'm being serious) even has some dimension.  But Awake is consistently multidimensional, and I don't see how moments like SUCKING ON HIS PIPE even begin to compare.

I see where you are coming from.  I agree that it is overall more emotional than many of their modern albums, but I wouldn't say it is clearly the most emotional.  Look at Train of Thought, for example, which is chock full of feeling (although a different kind of feeling from Awake).

- Awake has the best lyrics of any DT album. 

I can get on board with that.  But it's not like there aren't bad lyrics, or that others don't even remotely compare.  It's pretty close overall.

- A lot of people say Awake has no really big moments, but I don't see how that's the case, although I realize taste comes into play here.  Scarred is one of DT's top three songs.  The Mirror/Lie is a ridiculous one/two combo.  Lifting Shadows is one of the few really romantic songs in the DT catalog, with some great and subtle playing from the band.  Voices is also incredible as a song.  Space Dye-Vest is wonderfully weird and dark, and so on.

I agree that there are big moments, although there are less of them.  But I think it hurts the album more than help it.  DT just didn't do the whole atmospheric subtlety thing that well back then (although they've definitely improved).

The thing is, I like atmospheric albums, I really do, when they are done well.  I mean, I listen to Opeth and Porcupine Tree! I just don't think that Awake is an extremely strong attempt at being atmospheric, although it is definitely designed that way.  DT is much better at writing "obvious" music (as Reap put it) and the albums that are "obvious" are the best, and not by coincidence.

[Raoul Sanchez]

I have to disagree there. I prefer Innocence Faded to all of those songs, and I only really rank New Millennium over Caught In a Web. You also managed to choose my two least favorite songs from Awake  

Though this is getting heavily into opinion, I just feel the song writing for the shorter songs was much better on Awake.

[emindead]

The best things Awake has are the following:
-LaBrie's vocals
-Voices
-Lifting Shadows
-Puppies on Acid

[WildeSilas]

I just thought of something else. I remember buying Awake the day it came out and being really nervous about how it would sound. I was still a new DT fan who had devoured I&W (and didn't know about WDADU because there was no internet and record stores didn't stock it). I had such high hopes for them and didn't want to be disappointed. About 2 minutes into Voices, I realized they had actually topped my much beloved I&W (for me), and this meant they were probably going to be consistently good for years to come. It was also when I realized they'd also kept the same members for two albums (unheard of for prog-metal bands in those days, though I didn't learn about Kev 'till later) - which meant they had a chance at consistency and longevity.

In retrospect, Awake might be terrible compared to the albums that followed but I'll never be able to objectively hear that because Awake is the album that made me into a full-blown-frothing-at-the-mouth- forcing-strangers-to-listen-to-them DT fan. I have absolutely no objectivity when it comes to Awake because for me it is the entire essence of what made me a DT fan, inspired my discovery of Rush, Yes, and Iron Maiden and made me realize that I wasn't a run-of-the-mill metalhead, but rather a prog-head, and that that was something pretty unique and wonderful. It was the opening of a whole new world to me and probably the single most vivid memory I'll ever have of listening to any album for the first time.

In short, I can't fairly answer the question in the OP.

[BanksD]

Awake is an awesome album, but not as good as SFAM and I&W are for me. Those two albums just amaze me every time.

but Awake as some amazing stuff too

-6:00
-Caught In A Web
-Lie
-Space-Dye Vest
-Voices
-Lifting Shadows

[LieLowTheWantedMan]

- Yeah, the lack of any stinkers really helps it.  Listening to an album as a whole, any bad moment puts a bad taste in the experience as a whole.  The stuff beforehand is less good because it leads into something bad, and the stuff afterward is less good because it comes from something bad.  An album isn't a collection of songs, it's a cohesive experience.  Awake is by far the most consistently good.

- RW pointed out that Awake has a lot of "grey," which I think is a good point.  It's by far the most subtle DT album in terms of how it's designed.  For instance, I absolutely love the ending of Octavarium, it's one of the best DT moments ever, but I don't think a piece of music can more obviously say "THIS IS AN EPIC MOMENT, YOU SHOULD BE OVERWHELMED BY IT!"  Awake never ever makes anything too obvious.  The ending string section of Scarred is pretty epic, but there's some mildly complex guitar stuff going on under it.  The Mirror is very tortured and regretful, but it's tempered by the groovy metal and the spaceiness of it.  This also leads to:

- Awake is the most complex DT album in terms of emotional dimension.  Not only does it never beat you over the head with a theme or idea, it juggles multiple themes and ideas at one time virtually all the time.  I'm not saying modern DT has never done this.  A lot of Octavarium is complex, TMOLS is overtly sad/mournful yet brings a lot of angles into it, Forsaken (I'm being serious) even has some dimension.  But Awake is consistently multidimensional, and I don't see how moments like SUCKING ON HIS PIPE even begin to compare.

- Awake has the best lyrics of any DT album. 

- A lot of people say Awake has no really big moments, but I don't see how that's the case, although I realize taste comes into play here.  Scarred is one of DT's top three songs.  The Mirror/Lie is a ridiculous one/two combo.  Lifting Shadows is one of the few really romantic songs in the DT catalog, with some great and subtle playing from the band.  Voices is also incredible as a song.  Space Dye-Vest is wonderfully weird and dark, and so on.

When it comes down to the question of "Which DT album would I most want to sit down and listen to in its entirety?"  No other album is as satisfying as Awake.  Although I&W is a legitimate second place.

[Metabog]

Hmm. I really disagree, I think the production rules. I love love love the airy reverb on the drums, especially. It's probably the one album that has no bad songs at all, and I have no trouble listening through the whole thing in one go any time. So many memorable drum parts, as well. MP shines on it more than on any other album imo. JLB is top notch on it, in my opinion his best DT album performance, followed by IW.

[inoku]

awake to me tied in the first place with IAW.
while IAW won on the melody and technical side.
Awake won on the ambient, atmospheric, and emotional side.

[reo73]

I may be an Awake fanboy because to me no other DT album has even come close to it.  Every song seems to bring something different to the table yet the album blends well as a theme.  It is darker than any other DT album and has an undeniable atmosphere and emotion to it.  It's not overtly technical which I appreciate.  Petrucci plays within the song and has very memorable guitar parts, more so than any other album.  And JLBs vocals are amazing.  They are more growly than any other album.  Lastly, the lyrical content is by far their best as a whole.    

[Infinite Cactus]

I remember back on the official message board, I almost never heard anything but unbridled enthusiasm when discussing awake. The times sure have changed a bit. Most newer fans(to be fair some old fans as well) don't tend to dig Awake and Images as much. For me, Awake is not only my favorite album by Dream Theater, but of all time. I love everything about it. There are so many moments that just stand out as incredible:
The opening of 6:00
The last verse of CIAW
The outro of Innocence Faded
The Silent Man theme in Erotomania
"I'm lying her in bed..." and  DAT SOLO in Voices.
The bridge right before the solo in The Silent Man
PUPPIES ON ACID in The Mirror
The build up to the solo in Lie
The strings in the beginning of LSOAD(or all of it, ladies' choice)
Scarred being my favorite song, everything  about it is awesome.
SDV, the outro strings into the lone piano.

The reasons this album is #1, for me, is that it moves me. It makes me think. I enjoy it from start to finish. I love everything about it and if you don't, then that's fine. Because I still get to enjoy it. And that's good enough for me.

[inoku]

one other thing. Awake has the best James Labrie performance