Songs that get "lost" in an album due to flow and such things

[Ħ]

So I just listened to a live version of Forsaken, and man the song blew my mind like it never did on the album.  I listened to the studio version right after, and it was great.  So it got me to thinking that a lot of songs might be disliked or even forgotten about due to placing in the album, or being swallowed up by being on a great album.  What are some songs you think are like this?

Here's some I can think of:
- Forsaken
- These Walls
- The Ministry of Lost Souls
- Surrounded
- Goodnight Kiss (yes, I know it's a "movement" but still I think it's one of DT's best moments)

[olliemedsy]

dark eternal night ruins the whole flow of SC imo

[jsem]

All songs on 8vm. They're not that memorable to me, because all you remember after the album is the epic title track.

[Ħ]

Er, I specifically meant songs that are good but get swallowed up.  Not songs that are swallowed up and are bad anyway.

[The Silent Cody]

Voices and Scarred for me... Even Awake is my favourite album, these two tracks always been somewhere far. It doesn't mean that I think they are shitty, they are awesome

[MasterShakezula]

Well on FII, I'd say Hollow Years and Take Away My Pain, while among DT's finest soft numbers, aren't given too much help by being proceeded by major fan favorites Peruvian Skies and Lines in the Sand.  Plus, almost any album's contents are goingto feel like a mere warm-up if it's topped off with Trail of Tears.

Also, The Silent Man, though among my top 3 from A, could easily get lost amongst being sandwiched between Voices and The Mirror.  Same for Lifting Spookies off a Myung, in relation to TSA and Scanned.

Then, The Answer Lies Within/I Walk to U2 have to deal with being great softer rockers on the same album as Octovarium.  Same with Sacrificed Sons being perhaps DT's best 10+ but below 18 minute song since The Great Debate.  But since it's right before Eigthalbum, so well, yeah.

[Jirpo]

I agree with Forsaken and The Answer Lies Within.

[Tomislav95]

Surrounded is great but it is surrounded( ) by other great and more appreciated songs

[Chrissalix]

I agree with Forsaken and The Answer Lies Within.

I wouldn't say those are lost, they just suck the momentum the openers before them (both really good) started. Both 8vm and SC would sound better with These Walls and Constant Motion coming straight after the respective opening tracks. TDEN kills any momentum SC had left too.

The Best of Times is a little lost for me. It's rammed in the middle of a 13 minute heavy clipshow and the best 19 minutes Dt has done for 5 years or so. Never a place for a 12 minute memorial service.

[Zukuduku]

Through My Words is one piece that I have rarely noticed when listening to SFAM. Usually you are still recovering from the amazing ending of Strange Déjà Vu and at the same time preparing for the Final Tragedy.

But when you listen to Through My Words in isolation, it is actually quite a beautiful song with a nice chord progression and piano playing.

[JediKnight1969]

"Take away my pain".

(unforgivable).

[Jamesman42]

Surrounded
Scarred
Anna Lee

[TheGreatPretender]

It's definitely different for everyone.
For me it were:

Under A Glass Moon
Scarred
Blind Faith
The Great Debate

I used to tune those songs out pretty much. But I learned to enjoy them a lot. Especially Under A Glass Moon.

[reo73]

One on every album (Not including WDADU)

Surrounded...is a hidden gem sandwiched between a radio hit in TTT and their prog semi-epic Metropolis
Innocence Faded...Great song that doesn't get recognition because the album starts with two heavy tunes and on the backside you got the quirky Erotomania that starts the AMBI Suite.
Anna Lee...Love the feeling of this song but it's heading into ToT so it's hard not to look ahead and skip it at times.
Through My Words/Fatal Tragedy...Kinda a different type of song, sandwiched between two killer intro tunes and killer heavier metal tune.
Disappear...I LOVE this song but for some reason I always seem to not get to it because it's at the end and I don;t want to skip the other tunes.
Vacant...great song but oddball on this album.
These Walls...good radio firendly rock tune but I agree that 8V the song overshadows the whole disc except for maybe Sacrificed Sons and TROAE.
Prophets of War...I like this tune a lot because it has a nice flow and to all the parts but TMOLS is much more epic feeling so it gets downplayed.
A Rite of Passage...I may be one of the few who think this song is great (sans the ongoing noodling instrumental middle part) but this album only seems to be known for ANTR and TCOT.

[Mebert78]

I definitely agree with the people who said "Scarred." 

[TheGreatPretender]

Surrounded is great but it is surrounded( ) by other great and more appreciated songs

I always liked Surrounded a lot more than Take The Time.

[DJay32]

As for me, I'd say, by album,

(I need to listen to When Day and Dream Unite a LOT more to form opinions)

"Pull Me Under." I usually just skip to at least "Take the time," but when I got the Greatest Hit collection with the remaster, I actually really listened to this song, and I felt nostalgia. I fell in love again. But this song's right at the start, where you can easily skip it and not have flow ruined later on.

"Under a Glass Moon." In between "Metropolis, pt. 1" and "Wait for Sleep/Learning to Live" is one of the most badass metal songs from the nineties.

"Innocence Faded." I tend to skip the second two songs, or more frequently the first three, of Awake. But after watching Score, I noticed how much I really loved the ending to this song. It's beautiful, and right before "A Mind Beside Itself!"

"Scarred," for reasons I'm sure everyone else empathizes with.

(I need to listen to Falling into Infinity a LOT more to formulate opinions on it.)

"Beyond This Life." Between "Fatal Tragedy" and "Hom--"wait. Uh.. well, between "Fatal Tragedy," and (skipping the song directly after) "Home?" Hard to remember this song. Plus, of all Dream Theater songs, this just feels like it goes on and on. But the Budokan performance was utterly phenomenal, and I play that live version all the time.

"The Dance of Eternity." I mean, it's a beautiful song and all, but when I listen to this album, I go straight from "Home" to "Finally Free." At least, I used to. Now I listen to "The Dance of Eternity," because it is just awesome.

"Blind Faith," when I first got Six Degrees, was just "that song between 'The Glass Prison' and all the other awesome songs." But one day, I realized I didn't really know much about this song, and I realized I was in love with the album but I clearly didn't know this song, so I sat down and listened to it, and I've been a massive fan ever since.

"Disappear" was always just "the interlude" to me. It's the breather between Disc One and Disc Two. But one day, I also sat down and listened to this, and I learned to truly appreciate the beauty of it. I think it was the same day I found out what it was about. Now Six Degrees is a perfect album in my eyes.

"This Dying Soul" was "the song between 'As I Am' and 'Endless Sacrifice'" for a while. It felt like I didn't really "get" it. But when I started to appreciate the Twelve-Step Suite as a whole, when I started counting this song not as one song but as two individual movements that are completely separate musically, I saw the beauty of it. And now this is one of my most-favourite songs of all time.

"The Answer Lies Within" was "the song between 'The Root of All Evil' and 'These Walls'" for a while. But then I heard Jordan Rudess' cover off of Notes on a Dream. I found myself enjoying the melody, singing along, and I genuinely had fun listening to it. Then I listened to the real song again, and I felt such a surge of joy. This song is a classic. ;w;

"Sacrificed Sons" was "that one really slow 9/11 song made four years late, in between 'Never Enough' and 'Octavarium'" for a while. Hell, even up until pretty recently. It was watching Score for a third time that got me to fall in love with the song.

"Repentance" was "that one really slow song in between 'The Dark Eternal Greatest Instrumental Section Ever' and 'Prophets of Really Awesome Song.'" But I think it was around the same time I started appreciating "This Dying Soul," when I started counting the Twelve-Step Suite by their individual movements instead of their tracks, that was when I saw the fucking beauty to this, as well. The ninth movement is still one of my favourite anythings of anything ever.

Pretty much everything on Black Clouds that wasn't "The Shattered Fortress" or "The Count of Tuscany" was "one of the songs that's not 'The Shattered Fortress' or 'The Count of Tuscany'" until I'd had enough time pass to listen to the album with a sense of nostalgia. "A Nightmare to Remember" is now sixteen brilliant minutes of amazing flow, "A Rite of Passage" is eight minutes of yes yes yes yes yes, "Wither" is the most badass I've ever seen anyone describe writer's block (and the piano cover on the EP adds new layers to the beauty!), and "The Best of Times" is unadulterated beauty. Hell, I also got a newfound appreciation for "The Shattered Fortress" when I did that whole "they're individual movements, not songs" thing.

Pretty much every song I didn't mention except for most of Metropolis, pt. 2 or "The Ministry of Lost Souls?" I always loved them so much. ;w; The aforementioned album and song? Meh. >.>

[reo73]

Why do people think Scarred is lost in the album?

[wammabe]

Why do people think Scarred is lost in the album?

Scarred is possibly one of the hardest songs for me to digest in Awake. When listening to the entire album, I used to forget that scarred was even there. The song goes to many different places, which makes it harder for some people to identify as a single song while spaced out when listening to the entire album.

[reo73]

Why do people think Scarred is lost in the album?

Scarred is possibly one of the hardest songs for me to digest in Awake. When listening to the entire album, I used to forget that scarred was even there. The song goes to many different places, which makes it harder for some people to identify as a single song while spaced out when listening to the entire album.

I can see that.  It was always one of my favorites from the get go so I always sought it out on the album.

[Mebert78]

Why do people think Scarred is lost in the album?

Scarred is possibly one of the hardest songs for me to digest in Awake. When listening to the entire album, I used to forget that scarred was even there. The song goes to many different places, which makes it harder for some people to identify as a single song while spaced out when listening to the entire album.

I agree about the digest thing.  Most of the other songs on Awake easily grab you, but "Scarred" takes time to digest like you said because of the different twists and turns it takes.  Plus, it's buried at track 10.  Personally, it took me years to appreciate "Scarred" so that's why it feels lost to me.  I'm glad I finally found it!

[hefdaddy42]

Another Day gets lost for me.  When I listen to it on its own, I think it's a really neat song.  But on I&W, it is just 8th out of 8.

[Infinite Cactus]

TOWHTSTS and LFAGA are in my opinion, perfect examples of this.

[Dublagent66]

I'm not as interested in how songs flow from an album standpoint as I am in the flow of the songs themselves.  Unless, it's a concept album and DT only has one of those.

[Orbert]

In general, the "mellow" songs seem to get a bit overlooked because they're usually shorter and used as breaks between "heavier" songs.

[robwebster]

dark eternal night ruins the whole flow of SC imo

Ohhh, definitely not! Dark Eternal Night is the perfect end to side A. Good segue from the metal section to the experimental section. The metal section climaxes with the heaviest song of the side, but it goes by way of an absolutely frantic instrumental interlude.

Incidentally, I've always kind of thought that SC might work quite well with ItPoE parts 1 & 2 as track one, before going into Repentance. Something a bit like...

1. In the Presence of Enemies
2. Repentance
3. Constant Motion
4. The Dark Eternal Night
5. Forsaken
6. Prophets of War
7. The Ministry of Lost Souls

So it sort of climaxes, then builds up momentum again.

[lateralus88]

TOWHTSTS and LFAGA are in my opinion, perfect examples of this.

Agreed 100%. More or less with Light Fuse. Such an underrated song, yet it's one of my all time favourites.

[Ben_Jamin]

One Last Time, Its after the brutal DoE and before TSCO. Love how it just flows on by like a little interlude/segue.

[Ħ]

One Last Time, Its after the brutal DoE and before TSCO. Love how it just flows on by like a little interlude/segue.

Defintely agree.  One Last Time is incredible.

[The Silent Cody]

One Last Time, Its after the brutal DoE and before TSCO. Love how it just flows on by like a little interlude/segue.

Defintely agree.  One Last Time is incredible.

I agree, but One Last Time is so incredible that it does not get lost for me, but TSCO yes TSCO is a track that get lost foe me. (TSCO looks like TESCO market ) 

[Riceball]

1. In the Presence of Enemies
2. Repentance
3. Constant Motion
4. The Dark Eternal Night
5. Forsaken
6. Prophets of War
7. The Ministry of Lost Souls

So it sort of climaxes, then builds up momentum again.

I like that track order, but if we are performing surgery to try to improve SC, I'd remove Repentance all together. Serious song chucked in with a bunch of cheese.

/thread derail.

[wolven74]

Why do people think Scarred is lost in the album?

I agree. Scarred is a killer track. Great song all around. I don't know how it could get lost. It's the longest song on Awake. Very emotional lyrics, a great riff. 

The song for me that I've done a complete 180 on is The Silent Man. It's between Voices and The Mirror. Two heavy, emotionally draining songs. I used to skip it because I didn't want to slow down after Voices. Now I really love the melody and JLB's voice on it is damn near perfect. That track kills me now every time I hear it.

[Nic35]

TOWHTSTS and LFAGA are in my opinion, perfect examples of this.

Agreed 100%. More or less with Light Fuse. Such an underrated song, yet it's one of my all time favourites.

[m0hawk]

I Walk Beside You. Would have preferred 8VM to look like:

1. The Root of All Evil
2. These Walls
3. I Walk Beside You
4. The Answers Lie Within
5. Panic Attack
6. Never Enough
7. Sacrificed Sons
8. Octavarium

Of course, that would take some time getting used to the 2 "lightest" tracks being placed together. But still, that to me is better than the heavy/light/heavy/light series the first 4 tracks of the album currently has.

[jeebustrain]

Why do people think Scarred is lost in the album?

For me, my first copy of Awake was on cassette - Scarred wasn't included. So I'd never even heard it until I got it on CD about 4-5 years later. Even now it kind of throws me when I listen to the album - and it's actually one of my favorite tracks.