Official: DTF's song ratings 2011 RESULTS

[clinks63]

i did not expect Learning To Live will be on top.

[yorost]

I think some of your () numbers are off:

Original
9. The Glass Prison: 8.827
10. Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence: 8.819
11. In the Name of God: 8.811

Yours
9. The Glass Prison: 8.832 (+1)
10. In the Name of God: 8.818 (-1)
11. Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence: 8.775 (+0)

[Riceball]

Hmmmm....not sure whats gone on there. You are right though, my data set must be marginally different.

I suppose the conclusion I drew is still valid though. Does anyone demand a recount?

[ricky]

i have to say, im not really surprised that ACOS is #1 and you not me is dead last.

[orcus116]

I'm surprised Raw Dog isn't second to last.

[mrjazzguitar]

wtf is Raw Dog anyway?

[lucky7]

Raw Dog was the track for God of War 3

Thanks for all the hard work Ariick, this is an amazing list!

[Jaffa]

Very nice top 10, although I feel that there might be what is known as "respondent effect" (some people's rankings might be affected by others)

Must admit that this is probably true at least for me.  Being relatively new to DT, I probably did have some of my votes shaped by the numbers I saw on other votes. 

[The Presence of Frenemies]

I wonder what would happen if we were to do one of these song ratings things for all the non-bootleg live material. Would voting follow this pattern--i.e. people's favorite songs would get voted as the best live ones--or would it reflect the quality of the performance (like voting pre-94 stuff higher if you like pre-94 JLB better, etc.).

[The Silent Cody]

TDEN definitly too low!!

[Dellers]

Well done Ariich    I agree with the top section, with the exception of TCOT, like someone mentioned, ANTR too me is much better.  The one that kills me is You not me...I just don't get the hate for that song.  It would be in the middle for me.

I agree. TCOT is a good song, but ANTR is a level higher. Actually both TCOT and ACOS are too high IMO, none of those are among the greatest.

[ariich]

Interesting alternative ranking there Riceball, although not with any major changes really, which I guess is to be expected in a way, because if someone chooses just to rank everything with 9s and 10s (which may well reflect how they feel about the songs) then it just means that it'll have very little effect on the overall rankings. Still, interesting to see how it's a little different, although the fact that your dataset is apparently slightly different is a bit concerning. It could be because a few people edited their ratings in the last week or two, so when finalising my dataset, I went back to see who had edited their post and redid their ratings to make sure everything was up to date. I can send you my dataset so you can do your analysis again if you like.

Out of interest, what technique do you use for standardising?

[Sixtease]

Hey ariich, good job, nicely done! Thank you for this.

[Zydar]

Great job there ariich! The Top 10 is pretty much what I had expected.

I've assembled a playlist in this order for those of us who use Spotify. Not all the songs are in it (Speak To Me, Eve, A Vision, and others) because they're not available.

https://open.spotify.com/user/zydar/playlist/2wKsWu4uNX7a03pp157lVA

97 tracks, 13 hours 

[mariocalin]

I´m glad to see that Octavarium is the third one. It´s my favourite song for all time 

[The Presence of Frenemies]

I find it kind of hilarious that Another Won is at 58 while the rest of the MD songs are right at the bottom. I mean, if they played those on Score too, you'd imagine they'd shoot up the list as well. I actually like most of them in their original versions.

[Mladen]

but seeing Scarred at 25 

Yeah, it's definitely too low...

Great job, ariich. 

[wjc]

Wish I'd gotten around to putting in my rankings, ah well!

[Nekov]

Great Ranking. Although Blind Faith is a too low. It should be a couple places above, at least above Lines in the Sand. By the way, how did Lines in the Sand get the top 20? It's a good song but not that good.

[yorost]

I find it kind of hilarious that Another Won is at 58 while the rest of the MD songs are right at the bottom. I mean, if they played those on Score too, you'd imagine they'd shoot up the list as well. I actually like most of them in their original versions.

As do I.  I think they're simply never going to get much attention because they were unpolished demos.  Part of the problem is that between the production and the singer not only are they going to pick up a lot of bad ratings but aren't likely to be raking in any 10's.  I would bet almost all of the songs on the official albums took in more 10 ratings than the Majesty Demos other than Another Won did.  If they released any of them on a live DVD again I wouldn't be surprised if it also took a huge step up in the rankings.  I also wonder how many people heard them once and killed them off in their rankings, same as most of the other misc tracks.

[CrimsonSunrise]

Great Ranking. Although Blind Faith is a too low. It should be a couple places above, at least above Lines in the Sand. By the way, how did Lines in the Sand get the top 20? It's a good song but not that good.

 .... I beg to differ Senor    The 2 aren't even on the same level... LITS for the win!

[Tomislav95]

I'm really suprised, some songs are too low: Forsaken, Take Away My Pain, Never Enough...

[IronEarthTheater]

OK - so much of this is subjective, I understand how there can be huge differences in opinion.  But there seems to be a consensus that ACOS is either their best, or one of their best.  I don't get it, but I would like to get it.  I love the beginning and the end, but the middle just seems, I dunno, forgettable/bland/whatever.  Which of course makes it hard to listen to.  Would someone care to explain what it is about the song that you love so much, so that I can maybe get a better appreciation for it?

[Durg]

Endless Sacrifice, don't worry, you are top 10 material to me baby.

Me 2.

[Mebert78]

Wow, great job on this!  Stupid question, but does DT have exactly 100 songs?  Or did you just do a Top 100 to keep it at a round number?

Also, kinda makes me cringe that PMU is so low.  It's a great song.  Maybe it gets less love because it's the "hit."

[hefdaddy42]

What I think it shows is that people agree on the real top shelf songs, and those which aren't that great, but when it comes to those in the middle there is quite wide ranging opinion.

That's what I would have expected.  Thanks for putting together the alternate list!

[Jamesman42]

Also, kinda makes me cringe that PMU is so low.  It's a great song.  Maybe it gets less love because it's the "hit."

Maybe. It's also nowhere near as good as the other tracks on the album, IMO. And compared to a lot of their other stuff, it doesn't hold much water.

[ariich]

Wow, great job on this!  Stupid question, but does DT have exactly 100 songs?  Or did you just do a Top 100 to keep it at a round number?

Purely coincidental. Last time I only included unreleased songs that Splent had included in the DT survivor, which was mostly done based on popular consensus I think. There was also the decision to include SDOIT and ITPOE as single songs. And that came to 99 songs. This time the addition of Raw Dog made it 100!

Also, kinda makes me cringe that PMU is so low.  It's a great song.  Maybe it gets less love because it's the "hit."

I dunno, I'm surprised it's so low as it seems to be pretty popular, but I've never been a huge fan. I've revised my rating of it upward this time as I seem to be digging it a bit more these days, but I still find it one of the weakest on the album.

[Implode]

OK - so much of this is subjective, I understand how there can be huge differences in opinion.  But there seems to be a consensus that ACOS is either their best, or one of their best.  I don't get it, but I would like to get it.  I love the beginning and the end, but the middle just seems, I dunno, forgettable/bland/whatever.  Which of course makes it hard to listen to.  Would someone care to explain what it is about the song that you love so much, so that I can maybe get a better appreciation for it?

It took me a while to get into the song. I had to force myself to listen to it until I knew the song. Once you know your way around offers a lot better. It's a grower. Or at least it was for me.

[RoeDent]

Really frustrating that You Not Me is bottom. It's not a masterpiece by any means, but there are many good things about it. That is all.

OK - so much of this is subjective, I understand how there can be huge differences in opinion.  But there seems to be a consensus that ACOS is either their best, or one of their best.  I don't get it, but I would like to get it.  I love the beginning and the end, but the middle just seems, I dunno, forgettable/bland/whatever.  Which of course makes it hard to listen to.  Would someone care to explain what it is about the song that you love so much, so that I can maybe get a better appreciation for it?

Another World (which is clearly in the middle of ACOS) is James LaBrie's most emotional vocal performance ever.

[Bone_Daddy]

85 votes, eh? Pretty small sample size. I wonder what percentage that is of registered active DTF users.

[orcus116]

OK - so much of this is subjective, I understand how there can be huge differences in opinion.  But there seems to be a consensus that ACOS is either their best, or one of their best.  I don't get it, but I would like to get it.  I love the beginning and the end, but the middle just seems, I dunno, forgettable/bland/whatever.  Which of course makes it hard to listen to.  Would someone care to explain what it is about the song that you love so much, so that I can maybe get a better appreciation for it?

It's just the journey the song takes the listener on. Every part is meaningful in some way and never once does the song come across as forced or cheesy despite touching on a number of different moods and styles. It also feels less manufactured than say "Octavarium" which is a very good song but it was put together like a modular house.

[ariich]

85 votes, eh? Pretty small sample size. I wonder what percentage that is of registered active DTF users.

Fairly small, but a lot of users barely come into the DT-side, if ever. It's 12 more voters than last year, so I'm pretty pleased with the turnout!

[wasteland]

Fairly small, but a lot of users barely come into the DT-side, if ever. It's 12 more voters than last year, so I'm pretty pleased with the turnout!

How come that the biggest non-IFC DT forum around only has a small percentage of its user basin interested in Dream Theater? 

[ariich]

Fairly small, but a lot of users barely come into the DT-side, if ever. It's 12 more voters than last year, so I'm pretty pleased with the turnout!

How come that the biggest non-IFC DT forum around only has a small percentage of its user basin interested in Dream Theater? 

Oh there's a ton of interest in DT, but for a lot of people it's not enough to keep up with the absurd speculation and bickering that goes on in the DT-side at times.