Yesterday at school, we learned about sociological food problems.
Or at least, my peers did. I busied myself for two hours analyzing which album was potentially the greatest. I basically compiled three categories: good, meh, and bad. At first, I thought the album with the crown was going to either be IaW or SDOIT. IaW only had one bad song, two meh songs, and five good songs. SDOIT had two bad, no meh, and four good songs (including a 42 minute song). In the end, I went for SDOIT, simply because of the 2:1 good to bad ratio.
Then I came to ToT. I started categorizing the songs, and, to my surprise, there were NO bad songs. Only two recieved a meh rating, and FIVE recieved a good rating. That gives us a 5:2 good to meh ratio, which is much better than a 2:1 good to bad ratio.
It was then that I knew in my heart that ToT was going to come out on top.
From cover to cover, this album does not hold back. There is so much energy and power behind each and every song. After thinking about it a bit, I realized that ToT is basically a heavy IaW. You open up with a semi-mainstream sounding song, with real grungy riffs that make you slowly bob your head. You close with a song that builds up, reaches a peak, has a final chorus, and ends with a vocal fadeout (sort of, in ItNoG's case).
Not only that, but the mixing is incredible. I believe it was Reapsta that brought up the point that JMX brings a lot of strength to the compositions because his bass is so loud. HTF was the example given.
The three most common favorite albums I've seen have been IaW, Awake, and SFAM. I do feel that those albums have a degree of nostalgia with them, but they don't really feel fresh anymore. Yet even after 8 years, ToT still feels fresh.
Oooooo, I love this album.
Here's the ranking I came up with, by the way, if anyone's interested. It's weird because up until yesterday, I would have placed Awake at the top on instinct, but on closer analysis, it really didn't fare too well.
ToT
SDoiT
IaW
SFaM
BCaSL
FII
Awake
Octavarium
SC
WDaDU