I have another controversial opinion. Awake aged much better than IaW. I rarely listen to IaW now and when I do, I still enjoy it but with the awareness that it sounds so much like a late 80s early 90s record. It wears the timestamp of its era. LtL in particular sounds so dated, it's very much a product of its time.
Maybe the album itself yeah, definitely has a distinct 90s sound, as it's mixed and mastered and all that. But the songs themselves, I think aged much better than on Awake. For example, hearing them live, they don't sound any more dated than anything on Awake. Metropolis, I would say has stood the test of time better than any other DT song from the 90s.
Metropolis is indeed one song that does not sound dated yet. But songs like Another Day, Take The Time, and the DTF-popular Learning to Live sound so dated that i half expect to see Dennis Franz, Jimmy Smits and Lou Diamond Phillips to appear on my TV screen while I listen to these songs.
The much ballyhooed catchy bass line of JM in LtL, for example, has a very late 1980s feel to it.
Anyway, I grew up on cassette tapes. I collected DT in tapes up to ToT, so I grew accsutomed to listening to whole albums at a time, not on a per song basis. So when I said I&W sounded dated compared to Awake, I am talking about listening to the album as a whole.
What's the problem with the keys on 6:00? The only "weak" portion I can think of is the chorus, but I think it's more of the function of the chorus being the weak portion of the song. The keys in the intro are great, jived sonwell with the groove set by MP.
I just find them annoying. The composition is okay, and if anything, I like the organs on the Chorus, it's the opening riff where they keys are just grating.
Personally, I found the unique keys in Awake as very appropriate in the context of the songs. That is why I stated that they are the best use of keys in the album, because they fit the songs. For example, the "grating" intro key riff in 6:00 fits so well because it is about KM waking up, feeling irritated that he has to go through this thing that he does not want to do anymore.
"Six o'clock the siren kicks him from a dream
Tries to shake it off but it just won't stop
Can't find the strength but he's got promises to keep
And wood to chop before he sleeps...
He's in the parking lot and he's just sitting in his car
It's nine o'clock but he can't get out
He lights a cigarette
And turns the music down
But just can't seem to shake that sound"
The "grating" riff really makes you feel that! That freaking siren, that sound you can not shake off.
The keys in the album play like that. It's uplifting when it needs to (Lifting Shadows). It's enveloping, fluid, aggressive (Caught In A Web). It's a parody (Erotomania). It's haunting (Mirror), mocking (Lie), lethargic (Space Dye Vest). It's depressed, hurt, angry, trying to move on (Scarred). Surely it would not sound like Images and Words, that saccharinely bright and hopeful record.