IAW is probably the best. The others range from lame to horrible. As Adami correctly pointed out, ADTOE takes the cake, and even goes beyond DT as one of the most horrible album titles in rock history.
I mostly agree there, although I don't consider IaW one of their better ones. It's the least bad of the "____ & ______" group, but that's not saying much.
Of the "_______ And/& ______" titles, I'd rank them as such:
When Dream And Day Unite
Images And Words
Black Clouds & Silver Linings
I like the debut's title most because it contains a verb, an action that connects the two halves of the title more so than just the simple "and" conjunction connecting two noun-sets. IAW is over BC&SL because it's more streamlined and not as wordy/clunky because of it's lack of adjectives.
Now how about the "__________ of _________" titles?
Hmmmm....
A Change Of Seasons
Six Degrees Of Inner Turbulence
Train Of Thought
A Dramatic Turn Of Events
Again, ironically, I'd rank them chronologically. The first two are pretty good, with ACOS being short and simple, and it's pretty intriguing to me. The last two are a bit more cliche and are derived from common phrases that one might hear in everyday life - I don't normally hear people use "a change of seasons" in ordinary conversation. When I hear that phrase, chances are they're referring to Dream Theater. It's pretty unique to them, and even when I Google the phrase without quotations, seven out of the first page of 10 results are all DT-related. If I Google TOT, only 3 results are DT, althought for ADTOE, the entire page of results is DT-related, but the title just feels so cliche (and I suppose not many people have used it in any industry for it to be associated with anything BUT DT's latest album).
And between this post and my previous one in this thread, the only titles I haven't discussed have been FII and SC, and while being less-than-loved albums, the titles aren't that bad, actually. FII is a bit cheesy, but it has a good flow to the words and syllabic sounds, especially with all the "I"-sounds throughout the title. SC has a bit of a palindromic effect in syllables in that it starts and ends with an "S" sound and has two hard-"C" sounds in the middle, with some "A" sounds between them. Also, the ironic pairing of the words is clever, and not cheesy or cliche in my eyes. It's a pairing of words I never would have thought to put together for an album title.
-Marc.
Poll