Huh. Well, I guess they are long enough to be standalone albums. I still think that the two discs of SDOIT are much more connected than the two discs of The Incident.
I think, in the case of SDOIT, the album was only one 2 discs because the medium upon which the music was put onto only allowed for a maximum of 75-79 minutes of music per single disc. Had the album been released during the apex of audio cassette technology, you can bet the band would have made the album fit onto one single cassette tape.
And because the title track of SDOIT was always listed as "Track 6", there was never any doubt that the two discs should have been seen as separate, but just a continuation because of the way the medium allowed the music to be listened. If there were CDs that could hold 100 minutes of music, the album would have been a single disc. Some albums, over two discs, are sometimes not meant to be viewed as 2 entities of the album, such as the case with SDOIT, but in the case of
The Incident, the separation was done on purpose. So obviously, SDOIT's discs are meant to be a cohesive whole, while with PT's album, it's a bit more blurred.
Sure there might be some lyrical or musical connections, but it doesn't mean they are meant to be part of the album's main song-cycle, but they are still part of the same album, whether or not you like the tracks. In fact, the DVD-A version of
The Incident features ALL 18 tracks, run in the same order as the two CDs have them. Heck, with a DVD-A, you could fit all of SDOIT onto one disc - then there wouldn't be these stupid debates about "SDOIT - Disc 1 VS Disc 2".
-Marc.