The "would be top 10 if not for ___" thread

[?]

I'm not sure if these would make my top 10 even after improvements but I would enjoy them much more:

Repentance: Just end the song after JP's solo. I know the spoken apologies are meant to represent the 9th step and it's a cool idea to have some well-known musicians speaking there but the music should matter the most. The 10-minute length makes a song as repetitive as this boring and hard to listen to in full.

Ministry of Lost Souls: The ballady main part of the song and the instrumental section are both good but they don't belong in the same song together; the instrumental wankery simply destroys the atmosphere. Instead of 2 good songs you get a messy 15-minute piece. This is one of the few occasions where having an outside ear could've helped a lot.

Octavarium: Shorten the intro and the instrumental wankery between Full Circle and Intervals and the song gets better.

In the Presence of Enemies: The first part is excellent and would make my top 20, and part 2 opens promisingly with Heretic but Slaughter of the Damned is where the song starts to go downhill and The Reckoning ruins it all. The end of Heretic should've been the end of the song IMO - just change the lyrics a bit to get the so-called happy ending if necessary.

[Vivace]

Thank God for music editing software and that Black Clouds was released with stems. 

[Mladen]

A Nightmare to remember, definitely. Hadn't it been for long solos and long outro.

[MoraWintersoul]

People are bugged by the samples in SDV? Wait, what?

Holy mackerel, I never thought I'd hear that  how lovely and different we all are.

[Scorpion]

Yeah, that was my first reaction as well. The samples add sooooooooo much to the song!!!

[tristl]

great thread!
For me it has always been the voice samples in the great debate.
i just can not listen to that song,
its what some of these people say and how.
i know it is the idea of the song,
but it gives me the creeps.
when they played it live last year in rome i realized how much i like the song otherwise.

[mrjazzguitar]

where is this blast beat you guys are talking about?

14:44-14:58 in A Nightmare To Remember.

holy shit that sounds terrible lol I usually skip to the next song before I get to that point

[YtseJamittaja]

To be honest, I think A Nightmare to Remember is f*cking awesome, just shorten the solo section after the "Beautiful Agony" part.

FTFY 

Repentance: Just end the song after JP's solo. I know the spoken apologies are meant to represent the 9th step and it's a cool idea to have some well-known musicians speaking there but the music should matter the most. The 10-minute length makes a song as repetitive as this boring and hard to listen to in full.

Octavarium: Shorten the intro and the song gets better.

My thoughts as well.

[TheGreatPretender]

Yeah, that was my first reaction as well. The samples add sooooooooo much to the song!!!

Yes, especially Conan O'Brian talking about how hot it is in Houston. 

[theseoafs]

Yeah, that was my first reaction as well. The samples add sooooooooo much to the song!!!

Yes, especially Conan O'Brian talking about how hot it is in Houston. 

It's not the content of the samples that matters.

[Madman Shepherd]

Yeah, that was my first reaction as well. The samples add sooooooooo much to the song!!!

Yes, especially Conan O'Brian talking about how hot it is in Houston. 

I always envision this from the perspective of a guy who feels so isolated and he hears inane voices from the TV and realizes thats all he has.  It really adds to the song for me. 

Anyway, Under a Glass Moon on Score is absolutely ruined by the cute circus music they add in.  I get it, its funny...you guys like to noodle around, but it takes a very spiritual song and makes a mockery out of it.  I cannot listen to that song which sucks because I have no other decent live version. 

[theseoafs]

Oh, come on. It's not a "spiritual song". They wouldn't have messed with it if the content were sacred (and no DT song is, really).

[Madman Shepherd]

Oh, come on. It's not a "spiritual song". They wouldn't have messed with it if the content were sacred (and no DT song is, really).

Hey, you can take what you want out of it and I take what I want.  I don't think its a song to be messed with but then again I don't they should do that with any song.  Its just plain annoying. 

[theseoafs]

You're welcome: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q835eDJMc88

But it's still not a "spiritual song".

EDIT: Christ, JLB sounds amazing in this video.

[TheGreatPretender]

It's not the content of the samples that matters.

So it's the sheer fact that they decided to splice in those samples? Because that only distracts from the music. I say it's a terrible thing they did to SDV, and I stand by that statement. If I had to rank it, I'd say SDV as is with the samples gets a 3/10 for me. The Edited version I made would be like a 7/10, and if the original version had no samples, it'd be like a 9.5/10.

[theseoafs]

It's not the content of the samples that matters.

So it's the sheer fact that they decided to splice in those samples?

No, the samples are from popular movies and TV shows because the character in the song is supposed to be flipping channels. It serves to heighten the sense of loneliness.

[TheGreatPretender]

No, the samples are from popular movies and TV shows because the character in the song is supposed to be flipping channels. It serves to heighten the sense of loneliness.

Which would be fine if it was a TV show or a radio play. But since it's a piece of music, I want to hear the MUSIC, without annoying distractions.

[theseoafs]

I disagree, but I understand your reasoning. Your first comment made it seem as if you found the samples to be irrelevant and out of place, but I understand if you just don't want anything to distract you from the music.

[Fluffy Lothario]

The only songs I can think of that I'd apply this to are -

SDV - samples are awful, song is otherwise perfect.

The Glass Prison - this is probably already Top 15, maybe even Top 10 for me, but it would be even higher, and one of the best songs they ever did, except it drags a bit in the section from 6:00 - 9:45. Something shouldn't be there, or shouldn't be as long, and I always felt it was the fairly bare between-verse grunting-along-to-the-riff bits.

[tweeg]

Off the top of my head, the only one I can think of is Blind Faith. The song is ridiculously good, possibly my favourite DT song, right up until the chorus. It's just out of place for me... turns a 10/10 song to an 8/10.

[Dark Castle]

I really like the samples in SDV, as it just showcases how lonely the guy in the song is.

[JayOctavarium]

I really like the samples in SDV, as it just showcases how lonely the guy in the song is.

Makes me think The Wall

[Scorpion]

Yeah, that was my first reaction as well. The samples add sooooooooo much to the song!!!

Yes, especially Conan O'Brian talking about how hot it is in Houston. 

It's not the content of the samples that matters.

This. I don't even know what the samples are saying sometimes, but they underline the mood of the song perfectly.

However, I don't like every use of samples (6:00, for instance), so I can kinda understand the point of those disliking the samples. It doesn't apply to SDV for me, though, for some reason.

Oh, and Blind Faith is awesome, and this chorus is too. Best song from SDOIT.

[Kotowboy]

BC&SL would have been a #1 album if it were not for the other 5 albums in the Billboard 100 that week.

[Scorpion]

Which ones were that?

[snapple]

Would be top 10 of there weren't 10 better songs.

[Mosh]

Sacrificed Son's instrumental section seems very out of place. Even though that 15/16 riff is cool, it should've gone in a different song.

[Madman Shepherd]

You're welcome: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q835eDJMc88

But it's still not a "spiritual song".

EDIT: Christ, JLB sounds amazing in this video.

Now get it onto my copy of Score and then I'll thank you.

What I will thank you for now is being the beacon of posting opinion as fact!  THANK YOU! 

[theseoafs]

Burn the first disc of Score onto a new CD but replace the new UAGM with the one from that video. These are solvable problems.

[Sketchy]

Yeah, that was my first reaction as well. The samples add sooooooooo much to the song!!!

This, exactly, is how I feel about the samples in SDV. I love them.

Things that detract from otherwise amazing songs? The lyrics of TBOT sometimes seem a bit not-quite-working for me, and the lack of use of violin throughout the entire thing other than the intro. Otherwise, it's more lack of things that are in other versions of songs which detract for me, like all the extra bits added to later versions of The Killing Hand, or the growly organ on the climax up to the amazing solo found on the demo of TAMP.

[BanksD]

On the subject of SDV. Imo it wouldn't be nearly as enjoyable as it is if not for the samples.


As far as the topic of the thread goes...AROP would probably one of my favorites (not top 10 but up there) if the solo had been taken out entirely.

[Dark Castle]

I was hoping someone would bring up AROP, I love that song, and I'm actually listening to it right now.  It's been awhile since I've heard the solo, so I'll edit in my thoughts once it comes up, but it's probably a top 20 for me.  I think the guitar part of the solo is just fantastic, and most of the keyboard part is cool, but then it gets to this point where it gets really head scratchy around mid 6 minutes in and through the rest of the keyboard solo that could have been removed.

[Ben_Jamin]

With Space Dye-Vest, the tone of the samples fit the tone and atmosphere of the music, it synchs up, same thing with The Great Debate.

[TheGreatPretender]

With Space Dye-Vest, the tone of the samples fit the tone and atmosphere of the music, it synchs up, same thing with The Great Debate.

I disagree with Space-Dye Vest big time.

As for The Great Debate, yes those samples fit, but the problem I have with it is that the intro is so damn long it drags on. By the time the samples are half done, I'm sick of it and want to skip the song. Which is what I end up doing half the time.

I think they're just the cases where the "message" or the "artistic vision" messes up the most important part of it all: The Music.

[The Fatal Tragedy]

Great thread.

So, Nightmare. Nightmare could have been a top 10 tune. The first 8 minutes and 30 seconds or so are, in my mind, practically flawless. Things start falling apart at the solo section. The guitar/keyboard tradeoff goes on entirely too long, and could have been cut down severely/eliminated entirely. The riff at 11:05 is particularly ridiculous, and the MP verse is so silly-sounding and unnecessary that it practically ruins the song by itself. The riff at 12:05, however, is golden, and things continue on in a more or less fine fashion until the blast beats which serve only to prompt further facepalming. As it stands, Nightmare probably still sits around my top 30, because those first 8 minutes are just so good, and because there are only a couple cringe-worthy moments in that final act. But it really bugs me that DT felt like they had to ruin a musical idea as promising as this.

I really want to bring up something from SC here for discussion, because I really dislike it, but none of the songs are really "near-misses", they're just bad all around.

Oh, I know. Ministry of Lost Souls. That instrumental section, dude. Listen, I'm fine with long instrumental sections, but they have to make sense in the context of the song, and TMOLS doesn't even try to do that. In context, it just sounds silly. Had the instrumental section been better, or more fitting, or even nonexistent, I would have liked TMOLS a lot better.

EDIT: Oh, and nobody try to tell me what the instrumental section "represents". Come on, man. I've listened to Dream Theater before. I know it doesn't represent anything.

Speaking of the MP growl verse, the original take on that section was supposed to be WAY heavier compared to what ended up on the album! MP claimed the verse to have originally been done in all-out "cookie-monster" style grunts, but ended up being toned down because it was too extreme for DT's known sound. Also, I've had the pleasure to listen to the original recording of this verse, and there was actually something else that I was shocked to hear being sung in the background during MPs vocals. James LaBrie had originally sung a melody faintly in the background, accompanying the grunts! (I can still remember the melody, but I cannot quite remember the words he was singing). This clip has since been removed from YouTube within a few hours of its original posting due to copyright infringement, although I have also heard that MP himself posted the original grunts on his forum a while ago, but I have not heard that version. Can anyone here confirm whether or not James' vocals were on the version MP posted on his forum, or was it just the grunts?