Your favorite DT album

[Orthogonal]

Masterpiece:
I&W

Exceptional:
SFAM
ADTOE
SDOIT

Very Good:
Awake
ToT
FII

Good:
8V
BC&SL
WDADU

Mediocre:
SC

[yorost]

Train of Thought 
Awake 
Scenes From a Memory 
Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence  ( 1 , 2  )
Falling Into Infinity 
Images and Words   
A Dramatic Turn of Events   
Systematic Chaos   
When Dream and Day Unite   
Black Clouds and Silver Linings 
Octavarium 

[aprilethereal]

Octavarium 

This is something I'll probably never understand

[yorost]

Beaten to death on the forums, but while the song is great the album has an awful flow and not much on the great side.

[Rattlehead]

Beaten to death on the forums, but while the song is great the album has an awful flow and not much on the great side.

Agreed... I never listen to 8vm for that reason. TRoAE and Panic Attack are decent and the title track is good even though I hardly ever want to listen to it, but the rest ranges from decent but boring (TALW, SS, TW) to awful (Never Enough, IWBY). It's also one of DT's most sterile sounding albums imo (aside from the title track), which is why I even prefer albums like SC and BC&SL over it just because they're much more fun and invigorating to listen to.

[nicmos]

Beaten to death on the forums, but while the song is great the album has an awful flow and not much on the great side.

I completely disagree.  This album has a great flow, and always leaves me feeling very satisfied.  I reach for it more than just about any DT album (even though I wouldn't rank it as my favorite) because it's just so listenable.

[?]

I think Octavarium has a mostly good flow (except for TALW being after Root - WTF were they thinking?), but unfortunately the songwriting itself isn't that good compared to most DT albums. IMO Never Enough is terrible, TALW is boring, IWBY and PA are ok but nothing special and the title-track, while having some good moments, is really overrated and feels long just for the sake of being long.

[Cedar redaC]

Six Degrees. I wouldn't have thought of putting it before, but now that I think about it, I enjoy every song on the album a lot. Images and A Dramatic Turn of Events come in second. Scenes is probably in there too.

[aprilethereal]

the songwriting itself isn't that good compared to most DT albums. IMO Never Enough is terrible, TALW is boring, IWBY and PA are ok but nothing special and the title-track, while having some good moments, is really overrated and feels long just for the sake of being long.

I disagree with pretty much everything you mentioned 

[yorost]

...and that sums up Octavarium among our group. I ran a poll for Octavrium and Train of Thought 2 or 3 years ago to try and settle what the general ranking was on them. The only trend either of them has is that there is just about no common opinion. At the time it was 10 albums out, and the other 8 all have very clear ranking trends. These two are the weirdos.

Wow, they're still alive...

Octavarium: https://www.dreamtheaterforums.org/boards/index.php?topic=22215.0
1(best) 8 (4.9%)
2 14 (8.6%)
3 10 (6.1%)
4 25 (15.3%)
5 27 (16.6%)
6 19 (11.7%)
7 16 (9.8%)
8 24 (14.7%)
9 12 (7.4%)
10(worst) 8 (4.9%)

Train of Thought: https://www.dreamtheaterforums.org/boards/index.php?topic=22173.0
1(best) 12 (5.7%)
2 14 (6.7%)
3 19 (9.1%)
4 15 (7.2%)
5 33 (15.8%)
6 35 (16.7%)
7 32 (15.3%)
8 23 (11%)
9 18 (8.6%)
10(worst) 8 (3.8%)

[robwebster]

Man! That's one shallow curve. Two shallow curves, even. Funnily, with Octavarium, same number of people put it in first place as last place. Spot on, same number. Votes vaguely colluding somewhere near the middle, but yeah, scattergun rankings. Usually land somewhere near the middle, but basically... shrug!

[Dellers]

Scenes From A Memory of course. Images & Words a good number two.

What's up with everyone's hate for Never Enough though? One of my favorites from Octavarium.

[yorost]

Me too. Despite disliking the album, Never Enough has always been a song I liked.

[aprilethereal]

+1

[Ruba]

One more Never Enough liker here. 

[TheGreatPretender]

One more Never Enough liker here. 

I'd say the same, but honestly, there's not a single DT song that I actively dislike.

[Mister Gold]

Definitely Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence, followed closely by Metropolis II: Scenes From a Memory and A Dramatic Turn of Events. 6DoIT is that perfect blend of aggression and musical progression for me. 

That being said, it'll be very interesting to see where we all stand on this matter in a year's time and we've all had the time to let the upcoming album sink into our systems.

[Lark the Starless]

My list is always changing. Don't have WDADU, though.

However, right now I would say...

Excellent (A)
1. Awake
2. SFAM
3. Images and Words

Very Good (B)
4. Falling into Infinity (Been growing fond of this one, lately)
5. 6DOIT
6. Train of Thought

Good (C)
7. ADTOE
8. Systematic Chaos

Meh (D)
9. Octavarium
10. BC&SL

[Daso]

I like how Awake works better as an album, though if it was based on song ratings I would've voted for Images and Words.

[Limelight]

Untouchable
1. Images and Words
1.5. A Change of Seasons (just the song itself)
2. Scenes From a Memory

Great
3. Train of Thought
4. A Dramatic Turn of Events
5. Black Clouds and Silver Linings
6. Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence

Very good
7. Octavarium
8. Falling Into Infinity
9. Awake

Ok, but a little disappointing
10. Systematic Chaos
11. When Dream and Day Unite