1. On The Backs Of Angels (Mangini Era 1)
2. Ytse Jam (The Instrumental/Dominici Era)
3. Lifting Shadows Off A Dream (Moore Era)
4. Take The Time (Moore Era)
5. The Bigger Picture (Mangini Era 2)
6. Honor Thy Father (JR/MP Era)
7. Disappear (The Ballad)
8. A Change Of Seasons (The Epic/Sherinian Era)
76:41
I didn't pick my favorites from each album, nor did I pick a lot of fan-favorites (no Metropolis, Glass Prison, Pull Me Under, etc.), but tracks that were fairly representative of each era, and a good balance of those eras.
I picked 4 songs that were Pre-Rudess, just to get a good feel for that era of the band, and of course I just *had* to include ACOS, which meant it doubled as my epic AND Sherinian pick. The Moore songs felt like good, varied choices - a heavy instrumental, a rocking shorter tune, and a longer mini-epic with some great vocals and playing from all members.
Of the Rudess-Forward songs, I knew I wanted "Disappear" as my ballad, and for it to precede ACOS, but I wanted one more song from the SFAM-BC&SL era, and narrowed it down to a couple, but I felt like "Honor Thy Father" was a good pick for a fairly heavy and more metal side of the band, something I hadn't put in quite yet. It was going to be that or "The Dark Eternal Night" but I just love the drumming in HTF a bit more, and it has a nice flow going into "Disappear", evocative of having the similar-sounding ballad of "Vacant" after HTF on its home album.
And I knew I wanted one more Mangini-era song, but I didn't want to pick a random piece from The Astonishing, so I narrowed it down to a couple of DT12 pieces, but eventually landed on "The Bigger Picture", which ended up fitting between TTT and HTF.
So...there's my almost-randomly-picked compilation. I like the flow if it, and I'm sure I could make up a whole different disc with different songs, but I'll just go with this one for now! This was fun to figure out!
-Marc.