Official DT Top 50 Thread Mark II (bss4life15 up now - starting page 79)

[Scorpion]

Good ones that you picked there. Innocence Faded never really clicked for me, but then I don't have the emotional connection to it that you do, and there are songs in my Top 50 that have their place there for my personal emotional reasons, so that gets no complaint from me. Mind you, I don't dislike it, it just never stood out.

The other two rather high up in my list as well, though I would rank both a good ten spots lower. Again, amazing songs, but the intro of Octavarium drags on for too long for the song to crack my Top 10.

[Mladen]

Great pick at number 10, very original. 

[BlackInk]

Even though I wouldn't put Innocence Faded anywhere near that spot it is indeed refreshing so see some originality this far up.

Octavarium, great choice.

[hefdaddy42]

I asked for this a couple posts back. Don't ignore me Hef 

Speaking of which, can you add me to the list hef?

Sorry I missed that.  You're on now.

[Nekov]

 

Octavarium and Innocence faded are great songs though I doubt I would put IF so high. TSCO is one of the most overrated DT songs IMO.

[Silver Tears]

I like your write ups 

[MoraWintersoul]

I haven't listened to SFAM yet

I wish I could listen to it for the first time again

[TheGreatPretender]

Though I haven't listened to SFAM yet *braces self*

[Scorpion]

Though I haven't listened to SFAM yet *braces self*

Remedy that. Nao.

[Ruba]

Innocence Faded  .

I love it sooo much! The best song on Awake.

[Elite]

I like your write ups 

Why, thank you 

Though I haven't listened to SFAM yet *braces self*

Remedy that. Nao.

Seconded. DO IT.

[Elite]

And specifically because of the results of tonight's UEFA Euro games, I give you two songs that in one way or another resembles some kind of sadness or hopelessness. Nah, not really, they were already on my list and it's partly bullshit. I guess I'll have to root for my spare nationality now. But we'll keep the football discussion out of this thread of course. This will be the last update with multiple songs, all following updates shall have 1 each as we move into the top 5. But first #7 and #6. Enjoy.

7. Trial of Tears
Something you'll see more often in this top 10 than elsewhere on my list is the fact that this song took long, really long before it grew on me and finally clicked. In fact, this actually happened with all of Falling Into Infinity, but I guess with this song in particular. It's not your regular Dream Theater pro epic. Tempo-wise it's slow for Dream Theater standards and it doesn't really have any flashy instrumental sections or amazingly (or stupidly) fast solos (well, Petrucci's solo is pretty fast, but it fits). You could in fact almost say this is about as straightforward a progressive song as they come, if that even makes any sense. Listening to Falling Into Infinity the first few times was quite tiring for me in a way. It wasn't the progressive metal awesomeness I had come to expect of them from Images & Words, Awake or Scenes From A Memory, but at first a bland, pretty boring listen in comparison. By the time you get to Trial of Tears, I used to be pretty fed up with the record, so this song got overlooked a lot. Nowadays I actually really like Falling Into Infinity, as some of my rankings have shown, even putting it in my top 5 Dream Theater albums. This could also be due to my own music taste maturing, moving away from the metal and more into other genres. Anyway, on to the song; this is John Myung's song. The man grooves like a motherf*cker and the song structure is amazing. Starting out slowly, with a buildup that demands a resolve and that we get at the first chorus, probably one of the best the band had ever written. I may have wasted all those years. Beautiful lyrics, all thanks to our silent man. The instrumental part feels like a jam and works wonderfully, with a solo trade-off between mister guitar and mister Sherinian, who was definitely underrated for his work in Dream Theater as it shows through this song and some other he participated on. The Wasteland then is exactly what it sounds like. Rarely has the title of a song of section evoked that much feeling towards what it actually sounds like. After the instrumental part, the Wasteland does feel like a wasteland. Nowhere to turn, I look for a way back home and we get to the chorus again. It's raining, deep in heaven. An astonishing finish makes the song fade out again, letting it end almost the same how it started, with the same bass motif repeating. It's not really difficult to say why this is a fan favourite among many people. It's a beautiful song and one of their best epics.

6. The Great Debate
Despite its length, The Great Debate rarely gets viewed as an epic among Dream Theater fans, while songs shorter of length than this one do. I always found that curious and I suppose that's mainly because it's besically in the middle of an album. (for comparison, is Outcry an epic?, is Honor Thy Father?) To answer is not really important, what is though is what it means to you. To me, The Great Debate is not a Dream Theater epic, just a very, very good long song. I rarely see this song mentioned on the forums compared to the other massive songs on the same record, which probably isn't very strange. The Glass Prison is an awesome metal song, Blind Faith is progressive  metal at it's finest, Misunderstood mostly gets mentioned for its weirdness, Disappear is one of their saddest songs and the title track is their ultimate epic. Well, The Great Debate outdoes ALL of those in my opinion and that's mainly because it's just so fucking badass that not much can actually stand up to it. This is definitely one of Dream Theater's weirdest songs and one of the songs where they stray farthest from their usual stuff. It starts at the immense buildup with all the samples, setting the mood for a heated debate. Then the weird (please read: awesome) riffs begin and the singing begins, odd time signatures kick in ans James's voice sounds weird as well. From the beginning on you can hear this is one of Dream Theater's most layered songs, as it launches into a false chorus ('Turn to the light'), which contains my favourite drum break in all of Dream Theater's songs (straight after the 'Don't be frightened of the shadows it creates' verse, it's so simple, yet so very, very effective, I love it). Back to the weird/awesome riffs we go, which are exaggerated into an even more oddball tempo and then we finally get the full chorus. Oh my God, those guitar sounds are amazing. LIFE TO SAVE LIFE. yeah, John, you just grabbed the entire essence of the topic in 4 words, very nice. We go back to a short verse and back to the chorus in a double-time like feeling. But what is this? Our false-chorus returns. What? Does that mean this song has 2 chorusses!? That's right folks, this song does, but what makes it even more awesome that they won't return anymore. No, instead we're given a taste of some more random verses, that have a bridge-like quality, a return of the 'Turn to the light'-verse for the last time, although with a completely different feeling and a fantastic instrumental section to boot, along with a great unison solo by our favourite guitarist and keyboard player. The song ends as quickly as that, when the debate samples kick in again at the end, ending the song the same way as it began. This is their weirdest song, with a seemingly random structure, weird riffs and lyrics that are difficult to grasp the first time around. I love it, it's one of my favourites (though it took long for it to get to that place!) and that's not really likely to change. I'd almost argue this being Dream Theater's most progressive song, because the band is really doing something else here than what they're used to. It's a shame they didn't do it more often as of yet, because as this song shows, it can really pay off.

[Jaffa]

The Great Debate is actually one of my least favorite Dream Theater songs.  For sake of playing nice, I won't dwell on that point too long.     Either way, it's cool to see such a unique pick so close to the top of the list.

Trial of Tears, on the other hand, is amazing. 

[iamtheeviltwin]

What I like about the Great Debate is that is is one of their longer songs which does not waste a minute.  No wasted instrumental wanking in the middle just a long song that flows well from one part to the next.  The inventive use of the left-right channel samples and the middle of the road tone for a controversial topic is refreshing as well.

[TheGreatPretender]

The Great Debate is one of several DT songs that if it didn't exist, I wouldn't miss it at all. Once the long, boring introduction passes, it can be enjoyable, but I've never been compelled to go out of my way to listen to it. When I found out their set list back in the fall, several songs that I kind of ignored were on it, and I listened to all of them in order to try and familiarize myself with them more, such as Caught In A Web and These Walls, and it worked. For those two, I started enjoying and appreciating them a lot more, so much so that for those who have been keeping up, they both made my Top 50. But The Great Debate, no matter how much I listen to it, there's almost nothing exciting about it. The subject matter is cool, and the lyrics are good. But musically, it's one of DT's least interesting songs for me.

[Nekov]

Two great songs tight there. The Great Debate is a bit underrated in my opinion.

[FlyingBIZKIT]

YESS 

[theseoafs]

More great songs (though I disagree that TGD sits above anything on 6DOIT; it's in the lower half for me, but only because a few other songs on the record are somehow more awesome).

[Jarlaxle]

The Great Debate is so good. Top 3 for me for sure.

[BlobVanDam]

TGD is my least favourite off SDOIT (which is my favourite album), although it's still a great song, but not a top 10/20 for me. ToT is an amazing choice though. That may be top 10 for me. Definitely worthy.

[Scorpion]

I love both of these songs to death, though I'd place TGD a bit lower. It's not bad, by any means, but there are a few songs that I like more.

Trial of Tears, however, is my second favourite DT song, ever, so you'll find no complaints coming from here there.

[Mladen]

That's great, I'm no longer the only one with The Great debate in my top 10. 

[Elite]

The Great Debate is so good. Top 3 for me for sure.

That's great, I'm no longer the only one with The Great debate in my top 10. 

Whoo, another one! *\o

[Ruba]

These two songs:  .

[BlackInk]

The Great Debate never really clicked with me. It's still a pretty good song but not this good.

[hefdaddy42]

Nothing epic about The Great Debate, or Honor Thy Father or Outcry.

[Mladen]

I dunno, I think Outcry is pretty epic.

[darkshade]

Elite, I've been enjoying your write-ups. They're like mini-reviews 

[Elite]

Thanks for all the replies! Because I didn't get to update yesterday due to being busy, I'm doing a double update tonight. One fan favourite, and one.. not that much. Only three songs left after these 2. Enjoy.

5. Learning to Live
Ah, another fan favourite. Again, how can a top 50 be complete without including including this masterpiece? As I've stated so many times, Images & Words is my favourite Dream Theater album and my favourite album of all time and that's because of top notch songs like Learning to Live. I'll be honest here and say that this is the song it took me longest to get in to off all the songs on Images & Words. Listening to the album, I would always find this song a chore to listen to the first two dozen times or more I listened to the album. I didn't get at all, that weird song at the end of the album, that seemed to go nowhere, with lots of different things going in. I actually usually stopped the album after Wait for Sleep, because I initially thought this song wasn't good at all and wondered why people actually loved it. It was only when one of my guitar playing friends told me he was learning this song on the guitar that prompted me to listen to it again, years later and then I finally 'understood' it. One might definitely say it's overrated, as I used to do. To those people, I can only recommend you listen to it more often, for when it *does* click, it suddenly becomes an amazing some from start to finish. Starting with a keyboard intro, with the drums and guitar joining in a heavily syncopated rhythm, creating a three way polymetric rhythm. The guitar then lays a completely irregular rhythm under the piano, which starts to solo. From this moment, you know you're off to something proggy and good. After that finishes we take away some of the intensity and go down towards a bass groove by John Myung. Like Trial of Tears, that man grooves on this song and also provides some of the best lyrics they have written. James LaBrie starts singing and some Petrucci and Moore lay some lush chords across the soundscape, constantly moving up the intensity as well, in drums and guitars alike. A taste of the chorus comes afterwards. NO MORE TO GIVE and the song enter a heavy part, exaggerated with a scream from our favourite singer. Under a constantly changing rhythm, the next few lines of the lyrics are song and we're back to one of the intro riffs again, before moving back into some lush chords, but made heavier with guitar powerchords. A short keyboard solo is heard, before a slight change of the intro is heard again and we're off into a stunningly brilliant instrumental section full of progressive goodness. This is beauty, this is kindness, this is truth, accentuated by a very laid-black, clean guitar solo by John Petrucci, underscored with laid-back drumming. The buildup that follows takes some time to fully develop but is written and composed brilliantly and the execution is pretty flawless, leading towards probably James's most revered moment, the F#. What the actualy fuck? As if his vocals Another Day and Take The Time hadn't stupefied you as of yet, that scream is incredible and the short guitar lead that follows is as well. Off to more proggy goodness, with some weird riffs and then comes a LITERAL reprise from Wait for Sleep, infinitely tying that song towards this one, but it's integrated without difficulty at all, with a guitar solo on top. This is amazing stuff. This is awesome. The keyboards are awesome and the return to the chorus is amazing, with James singing with more power than before in the song. I'm learning to liiiiiiiive. But the song doesn't end there, we groove along nicely until the guitar comes in with that amazing harmonic motif. The song ends on a high note, the highest note of the entire album, a perfect way of ending it as the song fades out. There's not a lot to say against this song. It is one of Dream Theater densest songs, with the most things going on. A lot gets thrown around your head and it's a lot to grasp. Perhaps that's why I didn't understand it at first and maybe my own development has led me to appreciate this song. There's one thing I know now though, and that's that this song is incredible. It was Dream Theater's most difficult to me, but it's also definitely one of their best.

4. Space-Dye Vest
And as the final notes of Learning to Live fade away, the opening drum beat of 6:00 set you off on a completely different track. The track that opens Dream Theater's heaviest album leaves nothing to rely on from their earlier stuff. It's actually kind of funny how the last three tracks follow a completely different pattern. Space-Dye Vest is the most oddball song on the album and definitely doesn't have the same feeling as the rest of the songs on the album. There's a lot of people that don't like Space-Dye Vest. They're everywhere and they're also definitely on this forum, yet I don't feel it's a bold thing for me to place this song this high up in my top 50 list of Dream Theater songs and that's mainly because out of all the Dream Theater songs, this speaks to me as the saddest, most emotive and most sentimental song in their discography. Starting with the faint sounds of a dying electric piano, we are brought down to a sad mood, before the song has even properly started. Building on the same blocks of a pretty simple rhythm, Kevin Moore elaborates on that for almost a minute before the guitar joins in, with faint industrial drums in the background. James sounds hauntingly beautiful, going unison with the dying piano and the first sample kicks in. For some reason, people hate these samples, but I love them. They show the utter hopelessness of the main character, the first one being about being able to love. A guitar drone then completes the picture, being one of Petrucci's ugliest guitar sounds ever, it adds that much more sadness to the song. Next sample I always found almost unintelligible, and it's followed by a seemingly random sample of a swimming pool, a failed joke amidst the sadness of the song, like failure is the only thing the character can think about. Drums kick in, in a slow and brooding rhythm, the guitar drone and dying piano still going strong, with James singing the most depressive lyrics Dream Theater has penned. I'll never be open again, a beautiful guitar lead accentuating the line. The drums move to an upbeat as the lyrics take somewhat of a positive turn, as far as that goes in this song. An epicly, haunting outro ends the song, almost happy, but the whole thing crashes down and we end with the same piano motif. I don't know what it is, but this is one of the most beautiful, melancholic things I've ever heard. It's utterly, hauntingly beautiful and though it might sound stupid, this song has helped me through weird or tough times. There's nothing wrong with this fantastic song and this being Kevin's swan song makes it probably even better. He outdid himself on this track and Dream Theater took the right decision putting it on Awake. It's without a doubt one of my favourite Dream Theater songs.

[TheGreatPretender]

The samples in SDV (particularly Conan) are the worst thing that DT has ever done to any of their songs. If it wasn't for them, Space-Dye Vest would probably be in the top 10 for me as well. The melodies and everything else about it is beautiful.

[Jaffa]

You really do have some very interesting write-ups, Elite.  Enjoyable to read - even though I personally think you're grossly overanalyzing SDV's samples, personally.   

Learning to Live is a truly amazing song.  It deserves every ounce of praise it gets. 

As for SDV... I can understand why a person would love it if the samples didn't bother them.  Wonderful melodies. 

So, cool choices.   

[54_diplomats]

Learning to Live is such a fantastic song. It's top 5 for me. Space-Dye Vest would easily hit my top 10 if it weren't for the samples or more specifically the Conan sample. I don't have a problem with samples but there were too many in that song. Still SDV is top 20 for me.

[TheGreatPretender]

Learning to Live is such a fantastic song. It's top 5 for me. Space-Dye Vest would easily hit my top 10 if it weren't for the samples or more specifically the Conan sample. I don't have a problem with samples but there were too many in that song. Still SDV is top 20 for me.

Hahah, glad someone shares my sentiments on Space-Dye Vest.

As for Learning to Live, I think it's safe to say that most people would consider one of DT's best.

[BlobVanDam]

Both overrated, especially SDV. Part of the last half hour of Awake that drags it down to one of my least favourite DT albums. LTL is ok, but it's easily the weakest on IaW imo.

[TheGreatPretender]

LTL is ok, but it's easily the weakest on IaW imo.

Now there's a controversial opinion if I ever saw one.