Time to give me $0.02.
Awake ranks #1 as my favorite album of all time. There are obvious reasons for this:
1.) It's the only album that I have never gotten tired of listening to. At all. I've listened to it more than I&W, SFAM and other non-Dream Theater records. It has yet to lose it's charm to me.
2.) I get chills listening to parts. I still connect with the songs. I still salivate over riffs, drum fills, vocal melodies and bass lines (keys are a "meh" factor to me on any album).
Those are completely personal opinions. While reading this thread, I decided to look into those reasons for loving Awake. But, before I go into that, I need to address a few things with these "haters":
1.) What makes a 5 minute song less bombastic than a 20 minute song?
2.) What makes a 5 minute song less progressive than a 20 minute song?
3.) It's already been addressed. How does failure to look into a song's meaning, beyond surface level, warrant an opinion of "just because it is cryptic doesn't mean it is good"?
My points are NOT aimed at any individual posters.
I have been a Dream Theater fan since 2005. My first song was Panic Attack. The first album I got was SFAM. The next album was I&W. After that, I bought them all (yes, in one shopping trip. Oh to be a teenager with income like that again). One thing became VERY clear to me with Dream Theater after listening to every album up until that point. And now, it is more drastically clear. While I love the newer stuff, it doesn't hold a candle to the old. There is literally a song like "As I Am" on every album from Train of Thought on. The album structures are the same. Again, while I enjoy the music, it feels incredibly formulaic. Black Clouds definitely follows the routine, but not as closely. A Nightmare to Remember was saved by the killer intro and "Beautiful Agony". The music of "The Count of Tuscany" was magnificent.
But what saved Black Clouds was the solo section of The Count of Tuscany. No 1,000,000,000,000 notes per second. Not that I don't mind those solos. But for God's sake, A Rite of Passage was horrendously ruined by the solos. The breakdown section was fine. But the solos were like "well shit, this is typical Dream Theater.". I don't even mean that in a negative way. Just in a "I wish they would break the mould" way. I could go back to every album post-SFAM and point out every flaw with them. I won't. I don't want to give off the impression that I don't enjoy the albums. I do. There are cringe worthy moments on them, however.
So what does this have to do with Awake?
Like the perfect solo section for The Count of Tuscany, Awake carries a feeling of everything fitting in place with the album. All Dream Theater albums sound like one coherent album. To me, however, Awake sounds the most like one work of art. Not several pieces put together, but one piece.
The metal head in me is probably drawn to Awake for its heaviness. But, it also has some of the softest Dream Theater moments, too. It also has most of the sad moments, happy moments and contemplative moments. I get why people have opinions and won't agree with me on this. But, to me, this album has it all. The guitar work on The Silent Man is more memorable than anything JP has done from SDOIT and on (yeah, I'm not a huge fan of SDOIT). JMX actually feels like he is part of the band on this album. His bass is alive and well. James' voice, while when aggressive sounds wonderful, for me, really shines on The Silent Man and Lifting Shadows.
And when I was thinking of all of this, it's when it all hit me. I can relate to everything on the album. When the lyrics point to an aggressive or angry time, the music on ALL levels reflects it. Pick any emotion any song on Awake is trying to convey. Vocally and instrumentally the emotion is conveyed. It isn't one of these "I really like the words and can relate to them!" It is "Everything about this song speaks to me right now".
Then I was thinking; "okay, so people will probably understand my point on this stuff. But, prog heads will be like "blah blah least proggy etc". I have to say, this album is progressive in nature. They were pressured by their label to make another Pull Me Under (which was a last minute song for I&W). So what did they do? They created heavy songs that were infinitely more musical than Pull Me Under.
What about the bombast-"ary" of the album? Voices. Scarred. Lifting Shadows. If you haven't listened to those songs, I get why you would miss it.
In conclusion, I will say this;
Even when Dream Theater absolutely bores me, when music bores me, Awake never does. This post is coming from a COMPLETELY biased poster. I was just trying to say why it is #1 to me. I was taking some of the negative things about it (to other posters) and explaining where I see these things as positives to me. I have no intention of debating.