DTF.org The Astonishing Survey (aka Rate the Album)

[twanky]

Just finished the 1st disc and to be fair, it's ok .. No more... Will take a few more hearing i guess

[DarkLord_Lalinc]

Cool idea. I'm in!

[IdoSC]

Just finished the 1st disc and to be fair, it's ok .. No more... Will take a few more hearing i guess

But please tell me you didn't fill out a survey about the album after one listen of half of it?

[jakepriest]

Definitely a nice idea. Gonna get right on it. 

[ZKX-2099]

Three Days the albums most "metal" song (my opinion) seems to be the favorite right now. Which is odd because in the "elements of DT" question metal only got 4 votes.

Not trying to be snarky or anything just thought it was an interesting tidbit.

[ariich]

Current results are fairly interesting in and of themselves, but what I'm most interested in, Implode, is whether you'll be able to do any cool analytics once you've got a bigger data set. So, say, people who loved these previous albums were x% more likely to love The Astonishing, or whatever.

And yeah, the love for Three Days is marvellous.

[Bertie_Wooster]

Why did so many people become fans in 2003? 

[Implode]

Yes, I definitely plan on doing things like that! There's so many combinations of variables, it'd take forever to test all the correlations. So feel free to make suggestions for things you want tested!

[ariich]

Yes, I definitely plan on doing things like that! There's so many combinations of variables, it'd take forever to test all the correlations. So feel free to make suggestions for things you want tested!

Anything that stands out really. It's a good dataset that you're collecting, but not so vast that it would take too long to test lots of different things out.

I'm totally a data analysis geek so let me know if you want me to help out.

[ZKX-2099]

Why did so many people become fans in 2003?

Train of Though is a great album so...

[noxon]

huh... someone has posted as me there... and it's not me.

[MrBoom_shack-a-lack]

Though I should say, when people view the responses, they can see all the names entered. They can't see which other responses correspond to those names, but everyone can see that robwebster has either come back simply to chime in or someone is having a bit of fun with identity theft.

The former!

Welcome back dude! 

[MacClaus]

I have heard the album 3x

Composing a concept album is hard... this is a spectacular failure!

I must edit my first rating... from 4/10 to 2/10. It's the worst DT album in their catalog.

[Implode]

huh... someone has posted as me there... and it's not me.

Welp. The name is kind of meaningless, so I'll keep the response there but change the name if you'd like.

[noxon]

Doesnt matter if the entry isnt like an obvious troll

[RuRoRul]

I voted now just after finishing my first listen - I wouldn't normally rate things straight away but I can update later after more listens.

I see my pick for favourite track was the most popular one among other too though.

[Implode]

Haven't done any in depth analyses yet, still waiting for more responses. I know you guys are out there!

But it the mean time, here's a little bit about the average rating of all the albums. So on the first day, this is where The Astonishing stacks up according to DTF.

[Kotowboy]

2/10. It's the worst DT album in their catalog.

[Implode]

I favorite part is that implies there are worse, non-DT albums in their catalog. I want to know what those are!

[TioJorge]

Dream Theatre - When Clouds and Chaos Unite

[ariich]

Man, just seeing that little tidbit from Implode makes me very excited about this thread.

I'm such a nerd.

[Shooters1221]

Man, looking at the results makes me happy because of the age group chart. I remember begging my Mom to drive me to the record store for the new release "Permanent Waves" by Rush...LOL!! Looking at all of the younger fans into DT is AWESOME!!!

[LCArenas]

I favorite part is that implies there are worse, non-DT albums in their catalog. I want to know what those are!

I guess he's not a fan of the True Symphonic Rockestra

[Scorpion]

I favorite part is that implies there are worse, non-DT albums in their catalog. I want to know what those are!

I guess he's not a fan of the True Symphonic Rockestra

but that's impossible

every time that i am allowed to be in the presence of dirk ulrich's genius, i discover new cures for cancer and aids at the same time

[BlobVanDam]

Can't argue with the top 3 or the bottom 1. All hail the new holy trinity!

And a lot of people gave Awake a lower rating than I did, so don't blame me!

[fischermasamune]

It was very hard to pick my favorite song. There are so many good ones. Went for Three Days, but it could be TGOM, A Life Left Behind, MOB, Brother, Can You Hear Me?...

I rated TA as 9/10. The question is whether TA will resist the test of time. It can grow to be my personal best, but also get old and be the second worst (after WDADU).

[Outcrier]

Can't argue with the top 3 or the bottom 1. All hail the new holy trinity!

It's actually a big four, silly 

[Progmetty]

I enjoyed taking this survey and reading the overall results, thanks for making this.

[home]

Looking at the results I am pleased to see we all love Three Days.

Same! Three Days was the track that immediatly stood out on my first listen, I love it. Nice to see so many people agree

[BlobVanDam]

Can't argue with the top 3 or the bottom 1. All hail the new holy trinity!

It's actually a big four, silly 

I'll stick with the three correct ones, thanks.

[Laughingplace56]

Voted/commented/etc. However, I didn't pick a favorite song, because I simply can't yet. There's WAY too many songs to easily say *this* one is the best. Upon first listen it was Three Days without a shadow of doubt, but now I don't know. There's at least 13-15 songs that I consider top tier, but it's going to take a while for me to pick a discernible favorite.

[Implode]

I'm starting some of the fun analysis now. I'll just say right now, that obviously this is a very small sample size when compared to the population of DT fans, so take all of these conclusions with a grain of salt. Also, the results I'm going to highlight are all significant using a=.05. In the end, I'll probably post a link to all the stats data for fun, but for now I'll point out the highlights.

First I've done a comparison of album rating and preferred aspect of DT, which I thought would be a good way to make sure my math is checking out since some of the conclusions shouldn't be surprising. The significant results are as follows:

- People who prefer Prog are more likely to rate TOT higher. (Wasn't expecting that.) (has since become insignificant with more responses)
- People who prefer Metal are more likely to rate I&W lower.
- People who prefer Metal are more likely to rate 8VM higher.
- People who prefer Metal are more likely to rate DT12 lower.
- People who prefer Pop/Melodic are more likely to rate 8VM lower.

Some of these seem strange, but keep in mind the sample size with these responses in particular are very small. I think other comparisons will hold more weight.

Ignore this. I screwed it up and fixed it here: https://www.dreamtheaterforums.org/boards/index.php?topic=45705.msg2093269#msg2093269

[Enigmachine]

- People who prefer Prog are more likely to rate TOT higher. (Wasn't expecting that.)
- People who prefer Metal are more likely to rate I&W lower.
- People who prefer Metal are more likely to rate 8VM higher.
- People who prefer Metal are more likely to rate DT12 lower.
- People who prefer Pop/Melodic are more likely to rate 8VM lower.

Yeah, that doesn't look right. 

[ariich]

Yeah the sample sizes for "metal" and "pop/melodic" were very low. That first finding is an interesting one though! Can't say I would have expected that.

[Implode]

Yeah, these results do seem a bit arbitrary unfortunately. But like I said, it'll likely be better with other variables. Almost everyone just answered that they didn't care about labels with that question anyway.