Where does your favorite DT album rank among your favorite albums of all time?

[Jaffa]

Hey everyone!

This may seem like a silly poll, but the question occurred to me after listening to Images and Words today.  I haven't been listening to Dream Theater very much lately, as I've been making an effort to explore a lot of other artists and genres, so it had been more than a year since the last time I listened to I&W from start to finish.  With so much time having passed, and so much new music in my mind, I was curious to see if my perception of this album would have changed at all.  But I found that I still loved it as much as ever, and it occurred to me that it probably is my favorite album of all time.  I don't know if anything else will ever beat it for me.

What about you lovely people?  If you compare your favorite Dream Theater album (whichever it may be) with your favorite albums from other artists, how does it stack up? 

[Luis W]

Top 5 as in "I can't tell what would be number 1,2,3,4 or 5 but know what are the albums".

Just don't ask me what DT album I would put there!

[KevShmev]

Top 10 without a doubt, and top 5 depending on what day it is.  That album, of course, is Awake.

Scenes would probably be just out of the top 10.

[TheGreatPretender]

Scenes From A Memory is my #1 favorite album, period. And I'd take my top 5 DT albums over any other albums out there. I really do love this band wholeheartedly.

The thing is, I'm not the type of person to just downrank an artist or an album because I haven't listened to them recently. To be honest, I don't listen to Scenes From A Memory that much, but that's because it's not fresh for me, and the reason it's not fresh for me, is because I love the album so much that I listened to it until it was burned into my brain. I can think about the album and just hear the whole thing in my head. And yeah, taking a break from it and then revisiting it after a while does actually feel fresh, which is another reason to give it a rest. So yeah, just because it's not something I still listen to on a regular basis, doesn't mean that it somehow less favorite for me. That's not really how my brain works. It's an integral part of my identity and personality, as much as the movies I've been watching since I was a child, or the video games, or whatever.

And yes, of course, a large part of that is nostalgia, but at the end of the day, the important part is how much I enjoy it, not WHY I enjoy it. And if nostalgia makes me enjoy this awesome album on a whole other level, then there's nothing wrong with that. Objectively, it's not like the album got worse, I mean, it's the exact same collection of sounds as it was when I first heard it, so everything that I found awesome about the album, on its own merits, is still just as awesome as it ever was.

[MirrorMask]

The vast difference between genres makes, for me, basically impossible to have a list, and last time I did lists I was a little kid 

Having said that, I'd consider Scenes from a Memory my favorite album EVER so yeah, #1 option for me.

[bosk1]

Favorite by DT is SDOIT.  It was my #1 favorite for a long time.  But there are a couple that are competing with it for the top spot.  It's a tough call which would actually be #1 overall.  But the ones that are giving it a run are One (Neal Morse) and The Whirlwind (Transatlantic). 

[pg1067]

My top 3 DT albums are I&W, SFAM and SDOIT.  I think I&W or SFAM is probably #1, but I'm not sure I could say with certainty which one it is.

Regardless, I feel reasonably confident that whichever is #1 is in my top 5 of all time, but I honestly couldn't tell you without spending way more time than I care to spend figuring it out what my top 5 are.   

[lovethedrake]

SFAM is #2 for me.    I have London Calling by the Clash as #1.     Not sure what I would put as #3 but the Kinks are my #1 favorite band with DT #2.   

I know... HUGE differences in genres!   The brain loves what the brain loves.

[bosk1]

Yeah.  But if your brain is telling you that anything from The Clash is #1, then I'm not sure the brain is actually engaged in that process.

[TAC]

SFAM is #2 for me.    I have London Calling by the Clash as #1.     Not sure what I would put as #3 but the Kinks are my #1 favorite band with DT #2.   

I know... HUGE differences in genres!   The brain loves what the brain loves.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GOnENVylxPI

[lovethedrake]

Yeah.  But if your brain is telling you that anything from The Clash is #1, then I'm not sure the brain is actually engaged in that process.

Come on now!  London Calling is an incredible record from start to finish.   Such a unique blend of punk, ska, jazz, reggae, rock etc....

[King Postwhore]

SDOIT is top 10 for me.

[TAC]

I&W is my #1 album of all time!

[bosk1]

Yeah.  But if your brain is telling you that anything from The Clash is #1, then I'm not sure the brain is actually engaged in that process.

Come on now!  London Calling is an incredible record from start to finish.   Such a unique blend of punk, ska, jazz, reggae, rock etc....

[Nekov]

SFAM is my #1 album ever

[krands85]

I&W is my #1 album of all time!

Likewise. I don't see that changing any time soon.

[Bertielee]

I&W is my #1 album of all time!

Likewise. I don't see that changing any time soon.

I would have to say that as well.

[pg1067]

SFAM is #2 for me.    I have London Calling by the Clash as #1.     Not sure what I would put as #3 but the Kinks are my #1 favorite band with DT #2.   

I know... HUGE differences in genres!   The brain loves what the brain loves.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GOnENVylxPI

That dude broke that egg LIKE A BOSS!  I wonder how many takes that took.

[darkshade]

My fav album is SDOIT that would definitely be top 10 favorite albums of all time for me, but I don't know if it would be top 5, maybe. The rest of DT's catalog is somewhere in the top 20 for sure, particularly IaW, Awake, maybe FII, Scenes, TOT, 8vm, BC&SL, ADTOE, and probably DOT.

[Indiscipline]

Images and Words #1 studio album, Made in Japan #1 live album.

[Trav]

Images and Words. Top 5

[Ninjabait]

My #1 and #2 DT albums, The Astonishing and SfaM, are my #1 and #2 overall albums.

[Grappler]

Top 10. 

I'm a huge Dream Theater fan, but they aren't my favorite band of all time.  Nor is my favorite album of theirs (Images & Words) my favorite album of all time.
Depending on what I'm listening to, the album can fluctuate between my top 5 and top 10, but I don't know if it would ever leave the top 10.

[The Walrus]

Six Degrees is my favorite, with Images right on its heels - both are in my top 5 of all time. Six Degrees could potentially be top 3, but I'm not confident enough at the moment to say.

[Cool Chris]

I don't rank albums across bands, but I&W would be in the top 3 in the all time most influential albums along my musical journey.

If I had to rank my favorite albums of all time, that would just be impossible. I don't know how to do that across time. If I had to do it based on my current listening tastes and trends, a DT album wouldn't crack the top 20. But they are still my favorite band. I just listen to a wider range of artists now, and my DT listening has tapered off after reaching levels of near saturation years ago.

[Architeuthis]

I can't say which is my favorite DT album,  but whatever it is it would easily be in my top 5 albums from any band ever! 
I could say my top five seasoned albums of all time are these in no particular order:
Rush - Moving Pictures
Yes - Talk
Dream Theater - Octavarium
Boston - Boston (debut album)
Queensryche - Operation Mindcrime

With Rush and Dream Theater, they have other albums I like equally as much. I just had to pick one to list.
There are modern day contenders that could easily swap into the top five.
Dream Theater - Distance Over Time, The Astonishing
The Neal Morse Band - The Similitude of a Dream, The Great Adventure
Symphony X - Underworld
Styx - The Mission

It's true, I like all the above mentioned albums better than Dark Side Of The Moon.. 

[Mladen]

Top 10. Scenes ends up at number six for me.

[RAIN]

Top 25...but could very well be in Top 10...not sure.

But either way, that Album is AWAKE

[Volante99]

I'd probably put I&W on my top 10 favorite album list.

Top 10 lists are tough for me. My personal favorites are different than say albums I think are the GREATEST OF ALL TIME(!). Like, if our civilization was about to collapse and I could only save 10 albums to represent humanity, DT probably wouldn't make the cut.

[Podaar]

My favorite from DT album is SDOIT which is a top five album for me.

[New World Rushman]

Yeah.  But if your brain is telling you that anything from The Clash is #1, then I'm not sure the brain is actually engaged in that process.

Come on now!  London Calling is an incredible record from start to finish.   Such a unique blend of punk, ska, jazz, reggae, rock etc....

Count me as another Prog and Metal head that counts London Calling as one of the greatest albums of all time.

I voted top ten.
SFAM for me, but not sure exactly where, it would have a hard time cracking any of my top albums that I grew up on and discovered in high school in the 70s and early 80s.

In no particular order, except Animals, which is always at the top:

Animals
Aqualung
Brain Salad Surgery
The Yes Album
A Farewell To Kings
London Calling
Sabotage
Foxtrot
Killers
Screaming For Vengeance
Point Of Know Return
Grand Illusion
Physical Graffiti
The Pretenders debut
Van Halen I

Shit, now that I started typing out an actual list, I guess I should have voted top 25...

[deslock]

Top 25 here... no Dream Theater album thus far has cracked my top 10, though three are in the top 25: A Dramatic Turn of Events, Images and Words, and Distance Over Time (Octavarium was before being bumped down by more recent releases).

[Herrick]

I voted top 5. If A Change of Seasons (the official version not that weird version) was on Images and Words then it would probably be my #1 album.

[TheCountOfNYC]

Top 3.

[kociol21]

SFAM is my number one and I would put it at number two overall. No matter how I love this album, I could never deny Roger Waters's "Amused to death" title of best album in Rock history.