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Dream Theater => Dream Theater => Topic started by: WildRanger on March 28, 2019, 01:50:08 PM
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Personally I do. I think it's one of their 5 best songs.
You?
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Yes.
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Of course, it's not my top song by them, but it's definitely one of their best.
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My #1.
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Yup
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My #2.
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I don't know if it is the best song or if it is #4, #7 or whatever, but I recently made a playlist with all my favourite DT songs and Octavarium is in it.
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No it's not one of their best.
It's one the best songs in the world.
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Kind of a ridiculous poll when the general consensus is most likely to be "yes". It's a difficult argument otherwise since a majority of DT fans will agree that it is, even if it isn't their favorite.
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Not as a whole but Razors Edge sure is
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no
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No, and I never have. I think it is completely overrated, derivative of other bands (that one section that doesn't just capture the vibe of Kansas, but literally is THE SAME PASSAGE as a Kansas song took me over the edge), and pointless.
I try to be positive these days about Dream Theater, but Octavarium is everything that was wrong about the band at that point and forward for awhile, for me.
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Three consecutive DT The League Championships tells you all you need to know about how the forum feels about Octavarium.
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It has never been among my favorites
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Used to be #1 for me around the time it was released but it fell off quite a bit and Scarred retook the number 1 spot. I like it but I think it would probably wouldn't make my top 20 if I had to make a list.
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Oh, yes.
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Yes, for me it's their single greatest achievement.
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It very well might be the greatest prog epic I have ever heard. It is definitely one of my favorites from DT.
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Yes, along with illumination Theory as far as their epics go. :tup
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I voted no. It's overall pretty good, but it's not even my favorite song of its album.
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Not even close, I find large parts of it pretty dull. Petrucci’s guitar soloing at the end is awesome but I can take or leave the rest of it. I also find that it feels like a bunch of songs strung together rather than one epic song, similar to SDOIT.
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Top 5? Hell no. Top 20 for sure, but not top 5 or even top 10. Still a great tune.
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I consider it be a solid DT song but nowhere near one of their best.
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Hands down their best song, no contest. Honestly, one of the best songs in both prog and metal (if not the best) and one of the best pieces of music I've ever heard period.
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I would take every song on I&W and SFAM over Octavarium
Also a Change of Seasons, Trial of Tears, SDOIT, Glass Prison, Great Debate, At Wits End
Then Octavarium would be a candidate for next in line amongt a bunch of other songs.
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Its alright and has some really decent parts, but I'll take Change of seasons anyday over it.
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I consider it their best mega-epic, as it was referred to in another thread. But one of their best songs? Insofar as the vast majority of their songs are nothing short of amazing, and this one is among them, yes.
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A personal favorite of mine
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There is a Learning To Live and Scarred. So no.
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I voted no, but it's not really that simple for me.
I have a lot of respect for Octavarium, and I would say that in terms of objective artistic accomplishment - insofar as such things can be measured objectively, of course - it is surely among their best. That being said, I find that I don't like Razor's Edge quite as much as most people seem to, and while the first half of the song is nice in its own right, I don't often feel compelled to listen to it. I actually saved the middle section of this song - 12:15 through 19:50, to be exact - as a separate track, and I listen to that track more than the song as a whole. It's worth noting that this particular stretch contains some of my favorite musical passages ever, so there is certainly a lot to like in this song.
But when I take it as a whole and listen to it from start to finish, it's not among my favorites. It's still a great song, don't get me wrong, but there are certainly quite a few DT songs I enjoy much more.
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Yes, I guess.
It's not a top 10 DT song, but it would probably squeeze into a top 20.
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Nope.
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Absolutely not.
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Absolutely not.
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I surely enjoy it, but not a top 5 for me.
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No. I never have and never will.
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Probably my favorite DT song along!
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I always think like this: it's weird that one of Dream Theater's best songs isn't really a Dream Theater song. I feel like they are doing the most amazing cover of something from the 70's.
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It does its job in the album and is a great song, but I think they have far better tunes. Still lots of fun, though
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No. I never have and never will.
Same here.
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This has been an interesting thread (I expected a more unanimous answer to the question). Octavarium is a really important song in my life, and to me it sums up the band's brilliance, but I can completely understand people who aren't too keen on it. Quite honestly for about 10 years after the album's release I didn't think all that highly of it either, and it's only in the last few years I've come to love it and consider it their best song.
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I wonder if there's an age gap, i.e. younger fans find it fresh and interesting while older fans find it too derivative of other works?
But I can see it working the other way as well, older fans appreciating the props and younger fans not getting the references?
Regardless, it's a top 5-10 song for me.
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No, and I never have. I think it is completely overrated, derivative of other bands (that one section that doesn't just capture the vibe of Kansas, but literally is THE SAME PASSAGE as a Kansas song took me over the edge), and pointless.
I try to be positive these days about Dream Theater, but Octavarium is everything that was wrong about the band at that point and forward for awhile, for me.
Which Kansas song?
Not as a whole but Razors Edge sure is
I watched a medley and they played Razor's Edge (where Portnoy does the "Wah-haaaaaa!!!!) and I thought it was amazing. I hadn't listened to Octavarium since it came out and that video made me go back to the album and the title track. I've cum to love that song but yeah, I'm kinda waiting for Razor's Edge when listening to the song. The buildup (forgot what it's called) to Razor's Edge is also really fucking good.
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No for me.
Personally, I'll take Panic Attack over Octavarium any day.
And I used to get those all the time in real life - the song is way more fun, trust me! ;D
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I'm going to say "yes". It's one of those songs where when I haven't heard it in a while I don't think much of it. Then when I do hear it, I'm like "oh yeah, this song is really awesome."
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Nope. Most of the individual parts are great but switching between different topics of full circle-ness kind of ruins the mood and then the section called Full Circle just about kills it.
I mean they reference the replacement singer in Judas Priest along with Owen Wilson. Honestly really weird and off putting.
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I get that. I think he was going for an early Genesis/Peter Gabriel vibe where he would use pop culture references and really goofy lyrics. Or knowing Portnoy, he thought it was clever. Who knows.
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I wonder if there's an age gap, i.e. younger fans find it fresh and interesting while older fans find it too derivative of other works?
But I can see it working the other way as well, older fans appreciating the props and younger fans not getting the references?
Regardless, it's a top 5-10 song for me.
For the bolded, it could be that it's not as much as not getting the classic songs references as it is not really caring about those references. For me, as a younger fan, I'm like, "Yeah, that's cool that they devoted a section to that, but I don't know if it fits the song or if I really care about that as much as those that likes those "nuggets" and stuff."
Octavarium is a good song and an important song for the DT lore, but I wouldn't want to say it's one of my faves or something I want to listen to too often. If I wanted to listen to a DT epic, I would prefer Illumination Theory or even The Count of Tuscany (wacky lyrics and "LET ME INTRODUCE, MY BROTHER" aside) or if it counts, I would just listen to the entire A Mind Beside Itself trilogy.
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I think the section with references all in the lyrics is amazing, but that's just me. One of my favorite DT sections ever.
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I think the references are kind of cringeworthy, but the section works so well in the song, it's easy to get past it.
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I think the references are kind of cringeworthy, but the section works so well in the song, it's easy to get past it.
It's only cringeworthy if you try and take it too seriously. Which I don't think was the intention. It's such a fun section.
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Yeah, 8V is my 2nd all time favorite DT song, so I don't take it to seriously. MP had his cringeworthy moments, but that never stopped me from loving him.
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I think the references are kind of cringeworthy, but the section works so well in the song, it's easy to get past it.
It's only cringeworthy if you try and take it too seriously. Which I don't think was the intention. It's such a fun section.
Kinda hard to not take it seriously after two beautiful sections.
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What's up with the Wilson Philips line?
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It’s my all time favorite song.
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Kinda hard to not take it seriously after two beautiful sections.
Well, those sections were slow and melodic, as the music changes its intensity, so does the mood. It makes the epic all the more awesome.
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Octavarium is heavily influenced by Pink Floyd, esp. the first part.
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Musically, yes. But the lyrics of Full Circle really dampens my enjoyment.
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Love it! My favorite DT song! :metal
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I get that Full Circle's lyrics aren't supposed to be taken too seriously, and its got some fun wordplay there, but it does still sound real silly taken out of that context. I wouldn't go so far as to call it cringeworthy, but since it follows directly after two more somber and serious moments on the song, it just strikes me as a bit tone deaf and takes me out of the immersion of the song that the previous sections so compellingly achieved, if not just a little bit.
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I do not get what you are all saying about the Full Circle section. The character in the song is coming out and going back into a coma and in his mind these images are going through him as he fades away. These are from the era that Mike grew up and as well as this character in the song. I look at is as a kid who went into a coma, comes out a middle age man with the mental capacity of a teen. That's a serious section.
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I do not get what you are all saying about the Full Circle section. The character in the song is coming out and going back into a coma and in his mind these images are going through him as he fades away. These are from the era that Mike grew up and as well as this character in the song. I look at is as a kid who went into a coma, comes out a middle age man with the mental capacity of a teen. That's a serious section.
Bingo... Lots of the comments about it here have just baffled me. Nailed it!
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Just listened to it the other day after a good year or so without having listened to it.....and man.....this is such a good song. Having that 'time away' from it and then giving it a good listen really amplifies just how good a song it is.
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The problem with a lot of Mike's lyrics is that they only make sense if you imagine you are Mike Portnoy himself as they are too attached to his personal experience. Full Circle makes sense for him. But to the listener?
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The problem with a lot of Mike's lyrics is that they only make sense if you imagine you are Mike Portnoy himself as they are too attached to his personal experience. Full Circle makes sense for him. But to the listener?
Other than The Best of Times, I don't find this to be true at all.
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You don't have any imagination to figure our the references are from a certain era? What's wrong with that? Why does an artist have to paint a picture that you can understand? An artist makes music first on what pleases them. You can be along with it an interpret it however you can? Some are literal, others are more ethereal, some are opaque.
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You don't have any imagination to figure our the references are from a certain era? What's wrong with that? Why does an artist have to paint a picture that you can understand? An artist makes music first on what pleases them. You can be along with it an interpret it however you can? Some are literal, others are more ethereal, some are opaque.
But that's it exactly. I can not interpret it because all those references in Full Circle only make sense to me when explained.
I guess I just tend to compare with James LaBrie's lyrics, which almost always resonate with me even though when I get to read his explanation of where the lyrics are coming from, it's different from what I imagined it to be.
Does an artist have to paint a picture that I can understand? Of course, it doesn't. But it must at least resonate. Full Circle really just did not resonate with me at any level. Unlike "Someone Like Him"
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But, just to push back a little - that section is not meant to 'resonate' at least not in that way. It's part of the concept of the song. It's not supposed to be an emotional set of lyrics like Someone Like Him, and not a pensive observation on life like The Razor's Edge is. It's supposed to be a chaotic yet methodically organized set of thoughts rushing through the character's head. Not liking it is something I'm totally respectful of and understand, but I don't think that everything HAS to resonate emotionally in order to work. There's more to a set of lyrics than simply having that emotional connection. Context! King nailed it imo.
Again, not at all saying you're wrong or that anybody is wrong about this, but I think that section definitely deserves more credit than it gets.
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Which is precisely my point. The lyrics only make sense from a very specific context, and unfortunately, it is a context that I only got when it was explained to me because I can not get it during my pre-DT Forum days. I did not grow up during the time of Portnoy's music fandom, so it really felt like just a bunch of gibberish like somebody pretending to be John Lennon making lyrics on the fly before I got an explanation of what Mike was doing.
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Is that necessarily a bad thing, though? I feel myself about to launch into a diatribe about the 'mystique' of music prior to Internet access and being able to collect all the information about all these nuggets in a band's music. Before I ever thought that section actually meant something (by researching it), I just thought it was a bizarre set of lyrics that seemed to be connected in some way that matched the overall theme of the song. Does something have to make sense in order to be considered 'good'? I think that's the crux of this discussion. For me, not always. This is also a peculiar section of the song in that the lyrics aren't like anything else in their catalog, so I don't think it's easy to compare them to others (insofar as 'making sense' goes). I don't think they're inherently bad just because they're bizarre.
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Oh, I don't think it's bad. It just detracted from my overall enjoyment of the song because the other parts are so immersive, then suddenly comes a section that doesn't make much sense to me.
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I wouldn't want the same style of lyrics from a band. Variety is the spice of life and in DT's case, that's what they strive for.
erwinradael, that would be like me complaining about CSN and their song OHIO. It was a protest song about violence that happened at Kent State when I was 2 years old. It's topical to that day but I got to understand the storylines and the implications. Mike just used something relevant in his life to express this characters mindset while going back into a coma.
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Different perspectives are so interesting. Good stuff :corn
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I wouldn't want the same style of lyrics from a band. Variety is the spice of life and in DT's case, that's what they strive for.
erwinradael, that would be like me complaining about CSN and their song OHIO. It was a protest song about violence that happened at Kent State when I was 2 years old. It's topical to that day but I got to understand the storylines and the implications. Mike just used something relevant in his life to express this characters mindset while going back into a coma.
I wouldn't complain about Ohio. The lyrics themselves already have enough narrative content to give you a sense of what Crosby, Stills and Nash was writing about.
Context specific lyrics sometimes work, especially when it references something that is relatively widely known. Like Room 137 by Mike Mangini, which only really makes sense when you know Wolfgang Pauli's story. The lyrics of Full Circle, for me, was too specific about MP's personal context that I never got it, and during those days, I hardly know anything about the band member's lives because all we ever had access here are CDs. No magazines. Nothing.
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You can still enjoy the lyrics to Room 137 without understanding them. You can also look up the meaning if you like to get an understanding. That's the beauty of lyrics.
Over-analyzing takes away the joy of the song.
Different perspectives are so interesting. Good stuff :corn
And that to me is the crux of this conversation. Lyrics can have many perspectives even though they might mean something specific.
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Octavarium is OK, maybe top 20-30... It's no "A Nightmare to Remember"
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Octavarium is OK, maybe top 20-30... It's no "A Nightmare to Remember"
??? :facepalm: ??? :| ??? :eek
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I really enjoy the lyrics in Full Circle, from the first listen I thought they were pretty cool, didn't understand a thing but it sounded cool. Later when I learned the motivation, I enjoyed them even more.
As I say before, probably my favorite DT song.
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It's no "A Nightmare to Remember"
Thank God
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I'm thinking some of the voters may have misunderstood the question. 8VM doesn't need to be a top 10 song to be one of their best. With more than 150 songs in DT's catalog, I would consider a top 50 song "ONE" of their best.
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Octavarium is OK, maybe top 20-30... It's no "A Nightmare to Remember"
This post will survive.
ROOOOOOAAAARRRRRR!!!!
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I feel comfortable saying Octavarium is not a top 5 song for me. It might well sneak into the top 10, and if not there it's definitely in the top 15.
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Nope, perhaps if it was 12-15 minutes long. And it didn't contain that final lisp-ish "this Octavarium" scream. It's certainly one of their best songs if we don't factor in the albums before, though.
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Nope, perhaps if it was 12-15 minutes long. And it didn't contain that final lisp-ish "this Octavarium" scream. It's certainly one of their best songs if we don't factor in the albums before, though.
:lol It’s great if you ignore all of the better stuff.
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Not really.
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No, good song but they have many better songs. It takes too long before it gets interesting
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I consider it to be the best song they've ever made. It tops my list.