Dream Theater Top 100 countdown - 2024 Version! (#01 Up!)

[MirrorMask]

And I&W is very over-represented apparently

It's a classic album filled with fan favorites AND it is just their second. This combination is bound to generate overplaying stats. By the time another fan favorite, SFAM, rolled out, there have been already several records and consequent tours where I&W songs were played, gaining advantage over anything else.

[Lonk]

Is also fair to keep in mind that they did an entire tour playing the album, which pushed the count number for every song up.

[Stadler]

It's got kind of an African or maybe Caribbean rhythm to it

It does?

I mean, not to my ears.

Even MP said that it does (he complained about it!).

Yep. Taken from the FII demos liner notes:

I've made no secrets about my absolute dislike of the Kevin Shirley re-arrangement that ended up on FII (I think my quote was that it took some of the most heart-wrenching lyrics written and placed them in the middle of a Disneyland ride in the Caribbean!). The live version on Once In A LIVEtime was a bit of a musical cross between the two.

Also HOF called it regarding the Peter Gabriel vibe, which I know MP commented elsewhere was a direction they were going in with the rearranging of the song.

I mean, opinions and all, but MP thinking it sounds like that doesn't mean anything to me.  It still doesn't sound like that to me.

I think this is going to be a controversial opinion, but this wouldn't be the first time that a fanbase adopted a band members opinion because "reasons".   I maintain to this day that "Tai Shan" is slagged by the Rush fanbase because Geddy slagged it, not because it's actually a bad song.    I think some of the opinions of Space Dye Vest are rooted in the fact that it was - to a degree - marginalized.  I think several of the opinions surrounding Falling Into Infinity (and certain songs on that record, you know who you are) are shaped by reactions to the band regarding third party inputs, or outright contributions.   

I can sort of see the "Disney-nature" of some songs, including "Take Away My Pain" (especially the "I'm not frightened anymore!" part), but that doesn't make it a bad thing and certainly doesn't impact my enjoyment of the song (a song that means a lot to me at this point in my life).

[Setlist Scotty]

I was a little curious to see some statistics of the most performed DT songs ever, I got this from setlist.fm (don't know the accuracy of it though):

https://www.setlist.fm/stats/dream-theater-bd6a102.html

I was surprised to see 'Lie' in the Top 10, I didn't know it's been played THAT much? And I&W is very over-represented apparently

I've seen them in concert twice (2009 and 2014) and haven't got one single song from that album. What are the odds?

Those stats are pretty much on the ball. The vast majority of them were copied from MP's tourography which I used to maintain. And since that time, DT's setlists have been completely static for most tours, so I think it's safe to trust them, aside from the numbers maybe being off in the single digits.

As for IaW being "over-represented" MirrorMask and Lonk nailed it. As for why you personally haven't seen any of those songs live, that's down to the tours and specific shows you attended. The 2009 tour was the first time that MP didn't include a single IaW track in some setlists. I still remember him e-mailing me about it and asking if I noticed anything suspect (I think it was regarding the 2009 show in Washington DC), and he pointed out that it was the first time an IaW song wasn't in the setlist since they started playing those songs.Funny thing is he didn't specifically plan it that way - it just happened as he was creating the setlist and he only noticed it after the fact. As for the 2014 tour, because of the focus on the s/t album, the 20th anniversary of Awake and the 15th anniversary of SFaM, there wasn't much space for songs from other albums, so aside from PMU making a few appearances at festivals, IaW (and 5 other albums) were not represented on that tour.

[pg1067]

I was a little curious to see some statistics of the most performed DT songs ever, I got this from setlist.fm (don't know the accuracy of it though):

https://www.setlist.fm/stats/dream-theater-bd6a102.html

I was surprised to see 'Lie' in the Top 10, I didn't know it's been played THAT much? And I&W is very over-represented apparently

I've seen them in concert twice (2009 and 2014) and haven't got one single song from that album. What are the odds?

Regarding the I&W songs, keep in mind that the entire album was played at almost every show for nearly 300 shows in 1992 and 1993 and 2017.  Those three years account for more than half of the plays of most of those songs (PMU being the obvious, biggest exception).

Not sure about Lie, except that it was part of the mini-set of Awake songs that got played for the 20th anniversary in 2014.

As for the odds of not seeing any I&W songs at two shows, to quote Beverly Hofstadter, "Is that a rhetorical point or would you like to do the math?"

Looking at those statistics, I'm more interested in the least played songs. Repentance was performed once, Disappear twice, You not me three times. That's kind of cool.

I wouldn't mind seeing YNM, but I hope the other two remain where they are.

I think this is going to be a controversial opinion, but this wouldn't be the first time that a fanbase adopted a band members opinion because "reasons".   I maintain to this day that "Tai Shan" is slagged by the Rush fanbase because Geddy slagged it, not because it's actually a bad song.    I think some of the opinions of Space Dye Vest are rooted in the fact that it was - to a degree - marginalized.  I think several of the opinions surrounding Falling Into Infinity (and certain songs on that record, you know who you are) are shaped by reactions to the band regarding third party inputs, or outright contributions.   

Tai Shan was slagged LONG before Geddy ever made his "error" comment (which I believe was in a 2009 interview).  I definitely agree that MP's comments about SDV and FII (particularly the latter) have colored fans' opinions - both for the negative and in terms of positively influencing some fans' opinions about the FII reject songs.  That said, as the recent countdown showed, SDV is well-liked (at least in this forum).

[Wim Kruithof]

When it comes to live shows, I would say Scenes From a Memory is a little over-represented (especially The Spirit Carries On). I've seen them five times, had my fair share, but also on official live releases.

- Live Scenes From New York (full conceptalbum)
- Budokan (Beyond This Life)
- Score (The Spirit Carries On)
- Greatest Hit (Home, Through Her Eyes, The Spirit Carries On)
- Luna Park (The Spirit Carries On)
- Breaking the Fourth Wall (Overture1928 / Strange Déjà Vu / The Dance of Eternity / Finally Free)
- Distant Memories (full conceptalbum)

And Finally Free is innertwined in the Instrumedley on Chaos In Motion, so literally any live release since Scenes From a Memory was brought out, had at least one song.

[Cool Chris]

We spent way too much time in a Top 100 DT songs thread talking about Take Away My Pain. I disliked this song when I first heard it in 1997, and I still dislike it today. It didn't take any comments from MP for me to dislike it. And I have no idea what a "Disney song" sounds like, and I have two young girls and a Disney+ subscription.

[HOF]

We spent way too much time in a Top 100 DT songs thread talking about Take Away My Pain. I disliked this song when I first heard it in 1997, and I still dislike it today. It didn't take any comments from MP for me to dislike it. And I have no idea what a "Disney song" sounds like, and I have two young girls and a Disney+ subscription.

Would have been in my top 10 if I had done a list.

[MirrorMask]

So.........

We never really got around to see the complete list and all the fun trivia that comes with it, uh?