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Dream Theater => Dream Theater => Topic started by: krands85 on July 06, 2018, 03:33:45 PM
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For a bit of fun, try putting together the best album of DT songs you can using these rules: -
1. There must be (at least) 1: 'epic' - Personally I would say this would be songs around the 20minute mark or above, so The Count of Tuscany, Illumination Theory, A Change of Seasons, Octavarium, In the Presence of Enemies and 6 Degrees.
2. There must be (at least) 1: instrumental - Self explanatory.
3. There must be (at least) 1: 'ballad' - this is open to a bit of interpretation, but it shouldn't be too difficult.
4. There must be (at least) 1: song from each lineup of the band - so you need a song from the 'Dominici era' (eg. WDADU); 'LaBrie and Moore' era (eg. I&W/Awake); 'Sherinian era' (eg. ACOS/FII); 'Rudess era' (eg. SFAM to BC&SL) and the 'Mangini era' (eg. ADTOE/DT12/The Astonishing).
5. At least 7 albums must be represented - you must have at least one song from 7 or more of Dream Theater's 14 studio releases (13 albums and the ACOS EP). You can choose B-sides or covers (or even Raw Dog) if you like, but they won't count towards this category.
6. You have a maximum of 80 minutes run time
Hmm, this sounded way more fun when I thought about it earlier, but once it's written down it just feels like I'm ramming rules down your throat :lol Oh well, here was what I came up with.
1. Metropolis Part 1
2. A Fortune in Lies
3. Breaking All Illusions
4. Voices
5. Hell's Kitchen
6. Learning to Live
7. Vacant
8. Octavarium
79 minutes 45 seconds - just inside the limit. It's quite hard to fit that collection of songs in to an actual album together. I was originally planning to open with A Fortune in Lies, but then felt there was too much 'meat' closer to the middle of the album with Metropolis, BAI, Voices and LTL, so I then switched Metropolis to the opener and realised that if you cross-faded things right, the cool little drum section right at the end of Metropolis would segue quite nicely into A Fortune in Lies.
Anyway, lets see if anyone else can be bothered to come up with anything :biggrin:
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4. There must be (at least) 1: song from each lineup of the band - so you need a song from the 'Dominici era' (eg. WDADU); 'LaBrie and Moore' era (eg. I&W/Awake); 'Sherinian era' (eg. ACOS/FII); 'Rudess era' (eg. SFAM to BC&SL) and the 'Mangini era' (eg. ADTOE/DT12/The Astonishing).
What about the lineup with Chris Collins? Don't forget the Majesty demos :P
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I'm game. Was hard to remove a lot of my favorites, but being that this is just a game, I'll consider this my DT best of (what I like best - AKA my favorites) given the parameters. I came up with:
1. Overture 1928
2. Strange Deja Vu
3. The Mirror (w/ reprise like on LSFNY)
4. The Bigger Picture
5. Light Fuse and Get Away
6. Lines in the Sand
7. Disappear
8. Learning to Live
9. The Count of Tuscany
Some tracks would need slight editing to get it to 80 minutes (especially lop off the last 45 second of TCoT), but there's my submission.
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1. Erotomania
2. Voices
3. The Silent Man
4. The Looking Glass
5. Take the Time
6. Light Fuse and Get Away
7. Three Days
8. Solitary Shell
9. The Spirit Carries On
10. A Change of Seasons
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Ytse Jam
Scarred
Lines In the Sand
Fatal Tragedy
Disapear
Breaking All illusions
Learning To Live
Octavarium
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Ytse Jam
Scarred
Lines In the Sand
Through My Words
Disapear
Breaking All illusions
Learning To Live
Octavarium
:lol :lol :lol :lol What a cheater. :P
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Those are really difficult criteria (primarily because of the time limit). Nonetheless....
Metropolis, Pt. 1 (JLB/KM lineup) (9:32)
Blind Faith (10:21)
The Looking Glass (MM lineup) (4:53)
Ytse Jam (instrumental and Dominici lineup) (5:46)
Wither (ballad and MP/JR lineup) (5:25)
ACOS (epic and Sherinian lineup) (23:09)
Fatal Tragedy (6:49)
Breaking All Illusions (12:25)
Total run time: 78:20
If I gave it more thought, I might swap out The Looking Glass for something else (in order to take advantage of the 1:40 that I have left over).
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Ytse Jam
Scarred
Lines In the Sand
Through My Words
Disapear
Breaking All illusions
Learning To Live
Octavarium
:lol :lol :lol :lol What a cheater. :P
I fixed it to say Fatal Tragedy. I put Disappear down for my ballad. It's just when I go to type Fatal Tragedy, instinctually, I always type Through My Words first. It was a mistake.
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A Fortune in Lies (Dominici era)
Peruvian Skies (Sherinian era)
Lifting Shadows Off A Dream (Moore era)
Stream of Consciousness (instrumental)
Home (Rudess era)
Beneath The Surface (ballad)
Breaking All Illusions
The Count of Tuscany (epic)
Albums: 7
Running time: 79:16
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Ytse Jam
Scarred
Lines In the Sand
Through My Words
Disapear
Breaking All illusions
Learning To Live
Octavarium
:lol :lol :lol :lol What a cheater. :P
I fixed it to say Fatal Tragedy. I put Disappear down for my ballad. It's just when I go to type Fatal Tragedy, instinctually, I always type Through My Words first. It was a mistake.
Knowing that makes me giving you crap a lot less fun. ;) :biggrin:
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I'm sorry to disappoint.
Hang tight, I'm sure another opportunity will arise at any time.
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Fortune in lies
Overture 1928
ACOS
Scarred
Learning to live
Dissappear
Bridges in the sky
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As I Am
Blind Faith
Hell's Kitchen
A Fortune in Lies
Solitary Shell
Metropolis
Spirit Carries On
Octavarium
Our New World
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Wait, if we're considering disc 2 of SDOIT as a big epic song, we shouldn't be able to use one of it's tracks as a separate song, right?
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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.
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4. There must be (at least) 1: song from each lineup of the band - so you need a song from the 'Dominici era' (eg. WDADU); 'LaBrie and Moore' era (eg. I&W/Awake); 'Sherinian era' (eg. ACOS/FII); 'Rudess era' (eg. SFAM to BC&SL) and the 'Mangini era' (eg. ADTOE/DT12/The Astonishing).
What about the lineup with Chris Collins? Don't forget the Majesty demos :P
Damn, I meant to say lineups that have put out a studio release :biggrin:
Wait, if we're considering disc 2 of SDOIT as a big epic song, we shouldn't be able to use one of it's tracks as a separate song, right?
Either option is fine, I know the subject has been a contentious issue at times :lol Actually, it would probably be really tough to do one of these with 6 Degrees as a full song as it's taking up more than half your run time.
Good effort though guys, some interesting and varied selections :D
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Don’t ask me what the right sequencing would be but the songs for me would be:
A Change Of Seasons (epic/Derek/album 1)
Wait For Sleep (Ballad/Kevin/Album 2)
Learning To Live
Overture 1928 (instrumental/MP&JR/album 3)
Breaking All Illusions (Mangini/album 4)
Afterlife (Dominici/album 5)
Space Dye Vest (album 6)
Trial Of Tears (album 7)
My iPhone says that’s 79 min.
Took some time but weirdly didn’t have to compromise as much as I thought. ACOS, LTL, BAI, SDV and TOT are some of my absolute favourite DT songs and would be on any DT compilation I did.
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This is easy. :p
False Awakening Suite (instrumental / album 1 / Mangini era)
Afterlife (album 2 / Dominici era)
Trial of Tears (album 3 / Sherinian era)
The Mirror (album 4 / Moore era)
Disappear (ballad / album 5 / Ruddess era)
Surrounded (album 6 / Moore era)
Our New World (album 7 / Mangini era)
Breaking All Illusions (album 8 / Mangini era)
Illumination Theory (album 1 / Mangini era)
1 hour 19 minutes and 11 seconds
I still manage to keep my fanboyishness of the current lineup. :lol
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01: 6:00 (5:31)
02: Take the Time (8:21)
03: Afterlife (5:26)
04: Breaking All Illusions (12:25)
05: Just Let Me Breathe (5:28)
06: Stream of Consciousness (11:16)
07: The Spirit Carries On (6:38)
08: Octavarium (24:00)
Total runtime 79:05
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1. A Change Of Seasons
2. A New Beginning
3. Scarred
4. Light Fuse And Getaway
5. Disappear
6. Stream Of Consciousness
7. Learning To Live
I'm right at the time limit and would've liked to have added a few more songs (Speak To Me, Trial Of Tears, Voices, Three Days, Breaking All Illusions), but I can live with this. LFAGA is only in there to satisfy the Dominici-era requirement. I like it, but there's much stronger songs I'd replace it with.
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1. A Change Of Seasons
2. The Bigger Picture
3. Disappear
4. Breaking All Illusions
5. Ytse Jam
6. Scarred
7. Learning To Live
1:18:14
Damn, that'd be the ultimate album!
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Don’t ask me what the right sequencing would be but the songs for me would be:
A Change Of Seasons (epic/Derek/album 1)
Wait For Sleep (Ballad/Kevin/Album 2)
Learning To Live
Overture 1928 (instrumental/MP&JR/album 3)
Breaking All Illusions (Mangini/album 4)
Afterlife (Dominici/album 5)
Space Dye Vest (album 6)
Trial Of Tears (album 7)
My iPhone says that’s 79 min.
Took some time but weirdly didn’t have to compromise as much as I thought. ACOS, LTL, BAI, SDV and TOT are some of my absolute favourite DT songs and would be on any DT compilation I did.
It'd be hard to create a workable track order, considering you've got so many album-closers on there, the compilation will feel like it's constantly climaxing and not really giving itself a sense of finality. I guess if you put it on random, it wouldn't really matter... either way, here's what I could come up with using your song list:
A Change Of Seasons
Overture 1928
Afterlife
Breaking All Illusions
Trial Of Tears
Wait For Sleep
Learning To Live
Space-Dye Vest
Open with the epic, since there's already so many closing tracks, then follow it with the instrumental since it's a short one anyway, it'll be a nice breather after the epic. Afterlife just seemed to fit right after that, and the closing trio of WFS/LTL/SDV seemed to work, so the rest just fell into place. I think it has a good flow, but like I said, you picked a lot of album-closers, so it might sound a bit odd for any seasoned fan who expected an album to end when hearing these songs.
-Marc.
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1. A Change Of Seasons
2. The Bigger Picture
3. Disappear
4. Breaking All Illusions
5. Ytse Jam
6. Scarred
7. Learning To Live
1:18:14
Damn, that'd be the ultimate album!
Hell yeah thatd be an amazing album. All those songs I love.
I need to try this. Will post when I have the chance.
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Looked at my playlists in my phone and found that my Dream Theater Light playlist also qualifies.
Dystopian Overture
The Gift of Music
Afterlife
Blind Faith
Hell's Kitchen
Lines in the Sand
Take the Time
The Spirit Carries On
Illumination Theory
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Bridges in the Sky
Afterlife
These Walls
Hell's Kitchen
Blind Faith
Surrounded
Strange Deja Vu
Space-Dye Vest
A Change of Seasons
80:00 :biggrin:
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Looked at my playlists in my phone and found that my Dream Theater Light playlist also qualifies.
Dystopian Overture
The Gift of Music
Afterlife
Blind Faith
Hell's Kitchen
Lines in the Sand
Take the Time
The Spirit Carries On
Illumination Theory
What are the chances! :biggrin: I really like that list too - it doesn't quite have any of my top 4/5 favourite songs, but it does have a couple from my top 10 and a consistently high quality throughout. :coolio TAC's is my other favourite from those posted. But it's cool that despite such restrictions, there's still lots of different ideas.
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A Fortune In Lies (5:12, Dominici Era)
Wait For Sleep (2:29)
Lie (6:33, Moore Era)
Peruvian Skies (6:43, Sherinian Era)
Disappear (6:46, Ballad)
Vacant (2:57)
Stream of Conciseness (11:16, Instrumental)
Octavarium (24:00, Ruddess Era, Epic)
Breaking All Illusions (12:25, Mangini Era)
78:21
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I'm trying for the sensible LP, hence I'm gonna follow a couple of self-imposed rules (stil following the OP's ones):
1. With my heart bleeding I'm eschewing songs from 2 of my Top 5 albums: SFAM and TA, and from one of my top half-albums: SDOIT disc 2. Rationale: lyrics not self-sustaining outside the album concepts. Otherwise Three Days, Beyond this Life and Losing Time/Grand Finale would be definitely in.
2. I'm leaving out songs from SC and BL&SL. Of course, there are moments of sheer brilliance, but they're still my bottom 2 albums.
SIDE A
False Awakening Suite 2:42 - Perfect brief ouverture to a mixed bag album.
Lines in the Sand 12:05 - Sherinian at his DT best, great prog-rocker opener.
Breaking all Illusions 12:25 - Enter Mangini, side's meat and potatoes.
Space-Dye Vest 7:29 - All about Moore, perfect curveball closer
SIDE B
Octavarium 24:00 - Jordan Era magnus opus, the album's hidden in plain sight treasure.
Ytse Jam 5:46 - Token Dominici Era, but nobody's singing but James in my LP.
Vacant 2:57 - Breather, and James deserves a spotlight piece.
Learning to Live 11:30 - Seriously, are there better ways to close an album?
Total Running Time: 78:54 (if you're OCD enough to fill up the 80 minutes, just add Machine Chatter as hidden bonus track)
EDIT: Typo Demon never sleeps.
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Couldn't resist doing one more just for the challenge of it - fitting as many epics in but still following the restrictions set by the OP. :biggrin: Here's what I came up with:
1. Wait for Sleep
2. Vacant
3. The Answer
4. Ytse Jam
5. A Change of Seasons
6. Octavarium
7. Illumination Theory (removing the last 3 minutes - the blank space and easter egg)
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Overture 1928 3:38
Strange Deja Vu 5:12
Pull Me Under 8:12
Hollow Years 5:54
Solitairy Shell (single edit) 4:10
Ytse Jam 5:41
The Spirit Carries On 6:38
As I Am 7:45
This Is The Life 6:53
Constant Motion 6:55
Breaking All Illusions 12:07
Saviour In The Square (intro) 1:35
Our New World 4:12
Octavarium 24:00
Ten LPs, all requirements met. Time......78:54
Maybe a bit 'mellow', but we weren't allowed a second disc. As an older fan, I also try for 'flow', as well as what would be a fair introductory disc to a newbie.
The long 'epic' requirement is a killer. Any song longer than ten minutes should fit that bill. But, rules be rules.
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I decided to create another one, just for fun. I tired making a heavier compilation, showcasing some of the band's heavy, harder, and more side, which was a bit more difficult than I expected with the rules involved, but I think I turned out a good list:
77:07
False Awakening Suite 02:42
A Fortune In Lies 05:12
The Mirror 06:45
Lie 06:33
Burning My Soul 05:29
Bridges In The Sky 11:01
Vacant 02:57
Stream Of Consciousness 11:16
In The Presence Of Enemies 25:12
I knew I wanted those last three tracks, as they take care of the Epic that I wanted, the Instrumental, and the Ballad. I also knew I wanted BITS as the Mangini-era heavy song as well, and the duo of The Mirror/Lie really seemed to fit as well. All that was left was picking a song from WDADU and one from FII, then finding a shorter track to represent a 7th album (which ended up being FAS).
I think if you crossfade BMS into BITS a bit, the time might be a bit shorter, but I like the flow of this one a lot! It could make a great introduction to metal fans who want to get into DT and hear songs from across their discography!
-Marc.
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I have a question...Do FII demo songs count towards the album rule, or are they considered B-Sides?
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I have a question...Do FII demo songs count towards the album rule, or are they considered B-Sides?
Well the original idea was that the albums are represented by tracks that were actually on the final studio release, but it's just a game, so feel free to interpret the rules the way you like! Same for those who have a different idea of what makes an 'epic' for example.
Keep them coming though, I'm enjoying the creative ideas people are coming up with. Making one fit with 3 epics was pretty unexpected! :D I need to put together another one myself...
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Keep them coming though, I'm enjoying the creative ideas people are coming up with. Making one fit with 3 epics was pretty unexpected! :D I need to put together another one myself...
I made one but had to cut so many good songs that wasn't happy with the end result :lol Will post it after some tweaks, or after I make another one from scratch :P
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This was a bit harder than expected, mostly because I don't really like most of DTs instrumentals and including Hell's Kitchen without Lines in the Sand didn't make sense. Here it is
Only a Matter of Time (Dominici Era)
Blind Faith (Rudess & Portnoy)
Hell's Kitchen (Instrumental)
Lines in the Sand (Sherinian)
Lifting Shadows of a Dream (Ballad)
Beneath the Surface (Mangini)
Surrounded (Moore)
Solitary Shell
Illumination Theory (Epic)
7 albums
78:20 minutes.
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01. Pull Me Under (Moore)
02. Constant Motion (Rudess)
03. Ytse Jam [Remixed] (Instrumental/Dominici)
04. Hollow Years (Sherinian/Ballad)
05. On the Backs of Angels (Mangini)
06. The Enemy Inside [alt: Panic Attack/The Mirror]
07. The Spirit Carries On
08. Our New World
09. Octavarium (Epic)
Tried to do something different with mine and make something you could introduce a new fan to DT with rather than fan favorites or my personal favorites.
Track 6 is pretty flexible, you can drop it completely or use any of those songs. Thought about including As I Am, but I don't think it'd flow as well
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I tried to do another one, including all 13 studio albums, but there would have been just too many compromises and I've already had to cheat slightly to get it to 12! So Black Clouds has to miss out.
I've already spent too long thinking about this, so it's just in chronological order ;D
1. A Fortune in Lies
2. Take the Time
3. The Mirror
4. Hell's Kitchen
5. Fatal Tragedy
6. War Inside my Head
7. In the Name of God
8. Panic Attack
9. Forsaken
10. On the Backs of Angels
11. The Enemy Inside
12. The Gift of Music
It's 30 seconds over 80 minutes, but the end of Panic Attack could be trimmed off and obviously I've counted In the Name of God as the epic! I could have got a bit more balance by adding a pure piano ballad in there somewhere, but I wanted to keep the 12 album thing and also that it was a collection of songs where I really liked all of them. That's quite tough when you tend to prefer the longer songs the band does. :lol
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Pull Me Under
The Looking Glass
Ytse Jam
Chosen
Fatal Tragedy
On The Backs Of Angels
Forsaken
Beneath The Surface
Our New World (feat. Lzzy Hale)
A Change Of Seasons
76:31