DT album ranking

[Art]

I´m gonna wait at least a few weeks or a month to rank the new album.

[Thematt202]

I'm pretty sure The Astonishing will be battling Scenes for first place.  It may not win, but second place is a massive achievement in itself.

[bosk1]

It will be at least a few months before I take any TA rankings seriously, probably more. It's always interesting seeing how the ratings change after a year or two.

Yup.  Same here.  But that said, I couldn't help wrestling with it a bit this morning.  I am pretty confident in my top 4, so I think it will likely not manage to crack that group of stellar albums (6 Degrees, SFAM, ADTOE, DT12).  I mean, it could.  But that group is pretty solid.  At the same time, I think it may likely beat I&W in the long run and come in at #5.  It feels like a strong album that should sit in the upper 1/2 to 1/3, but not up near the very top, so #5 feels about right.  But, yeah, too early.

[RoeDent]

I've started to think about where to put TA in my album ranking now. DT12 was in the middle for me. Great songs, and I really enjoy it when I listen, but not many of those truly awesome moments that give me goosebumps. The Astonishing, however, has plenty of those. So right now I'm putting it at No. 3, behind ADTOE and I&W. I think the only thing stopping it from being higher is the mental investment required for listening to a 130-minute album. After this initial burst of getting familiar with it, it might not be in the regular rotation as much.

[Tumdace]

TA easily gets #3 on my list at this point, it may climb or fall in the coming months but right now I am sitting at:

I&W
AWAKE
TA
SDOIT
SFAM

[breaktheprisonwall]

Right now, I'd have to say that my list would be as follows:

Scenes
Six Degrees
Octavarium
A Dramatic Turn of Events
Images and Words
Black Clouds
The Astonishing
Train of Thought
Systematic Chaos
Dream Theater
Falling Into Infinity
Awake
When Dream And Day Unite


The Astonishing is too new to REALLY place it fairly, but this is what I'm feeling at the moment. It has great potential to rise in the list, but right now it's literally smack-dab in the middle for me.

[oceanic156]

Hi everyone! This is my first post

Too early to tell with The Astonishing ranking-wise, but here's where things are sitting now:

Top tier:
1. Awake
2. Images & Words

Solid tier (these are all very close):
3. SFAM
4. The Astonishing
5. DT12
6. Train of Thought
7. ADToE
8. Six Degrees

Meh tier:
9. Falling Into Infinity

Bleh tier:
10. Black Clouds
11. Octavarium
12. Systematic Chaos

Awake is untouchable for me. The only record of theirs that I feel intensity and raw urgency through. For all of the effort that went into the 'AA suite', MP already nailed the horror of addiction in The Mirror. Kevin Moore gave Space-Dye Vest a bleak, mournful atmosphere that was never really repeated. Lifting Shadows is surely JM's shining moment. And I wish JP could still throw out songs like Voices and Scarred...

The stretch of albums Ocata-Black Clouds are the only ones that I would say I dislike. I think Systematic Chaos was their nadir; it really had all of the band's worst tendencies on display- it was overwrought, underwritten, and just goofy in its lyricism and composition.

The Astonishing has its issues (mostly related to its concept and length), but as a whole it is an extremely strong and beautifully composed record. Memorable melodies are everywhere. I also like that it's a bold and provocative record, even if its lyrics are a little clumsy.

I've never listened through all of WDaDU.

[Kotowboy]

I have all the albums except Systematic Chaos.

I looked online and even on amazon it's still full price if not more

[lovethedrake]

As of now I have The Astonishing at #4. 

SFAM
I&W
SDOIT
TA
Awake
FII


IMO those are the classics.  I always had a gap between SDOIT and Awake and as of now TA fills the gap.  First album since SDOIT that I would consider a DT classic.   

These rankings are of course subject to change upon repeat listens.

I also just want to give a shout out to Awake.... this album literally grows on me EVERY SINGLE year.   I hated it when I first heard it and it continues to floor me with each listen. 

In a few months when I revisit my rankings I wouldn't be surprised if both TA and Awake moved up.  Have been a fan since 99'

[pdurbin22]

Man, I feel like this changes from time to time and The Astonishing is still so new, but for now I'd say it's as follows:

THE BIG TWO (unlikely to ever change)
01. Awake
02. Scenes From A Memory

THE REST
03. Falling Into Infinity
04. Images & Words
05. The Astonishing
06. Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence
07. A Dramatic Turn of Events
08. Octavarium
09. Train of Thought
10. Dream Theater
11. Black Clouds & Silver Linings
12. When Dream & Day Unite
13. Systematic Chaos

[lovethedrake]

Man, I feel like this changes from time to time and The Astonishing is still so new, but for now I'd say it's as follows:

THE BIG TWO (unlikely to ever change)
01. Awake
02. Scenes From A Memory

THE REST
03. Falling Into Infinity
04. Images & Words
05. The Astonishing
06. Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence
07. A Dramatic Turn of Events
08. Octavarium
09. Train of Thought
10. Dream Theater
11. Black Clouds & Silver Linings
12. When Dream & Day Unite
13. Systematic Chaos

I think you are the first person I have seen on this board that shares the same Top 6 as me.    I have always felt like the magic kind of left after SDOIT and it has returned with The Astonishing.   Not to say they haven't made anything good since SDOIT.  It just wasn't quite as good as the classic era, until now

[pdurbin22]

Man, I feel like this changes from time to time and The Astonishing is still so new, but for now I'd say it's as follows:

THE BIG TWO (unlikely to ever change)
01. Awake
02. Scenes From A Memory

THE REST
03. Falling Into Infinity
04. Images & Words
05. The Astonishing
06. Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence
07. A Dramatic Turn of Events
08. Octavarium
09. Train of Thought
10. Dream Theater
11. Black Clouds & Silver Linings
12. When Dream & Day Unite
13. Systematic Chaos

I think you are the first person I have seen on this board that shares the same Top 6 as me.    I have always felt like the magic kind of left after SDOIT and it has returned with The Astonishing.   Not to say they haven't made anything good since SDOIT.  It just wasn't quite as good as the classic era, until now

Nice man! Yeah, I certainly don't think DT "sucked" after SDOIT by any means. I've remained a huge fan and some of my favorite songs of theirs are from 2003-2013 (Bridges in the Sky, As I Am, These Walls, Behind the Veil, among others), but the albums as a whole didn't continue to hold up after the initial "new album high" wore off. It's way too early to say that won't also happen with "The Astonishing," but this album is so incredibly unique that it's hard to imagine it slipping very far.

[vazquez]

Hi everyone! This is my first post

Too early to tell with The Astonishing ranking-wise, but here's where things are sitting now:
[...]

I think Systematic Chaos was their nadir; it really had all of the band's worst tendencies on display- it was overwrought, underwritten, and just goofy in its lyricism and composition.

A really great first post, in my opinion!   

[BlobVanDam]

While it's still too early for me to rank TA properly, I'm unsure of how to even rank it.
On one hand, there's almost an hour of music that I love on the album, and think is some of DT's best work in a long time. On the other hand, there's still more than 50% of the album I find uninteresting or don't like at all, and the story is not great. If the album only consisted of the tracks I love, it could rank pretty highly. But if I'm judging it on consistency or how the albums works as a whole for me, I could only rank it low for the moment.

If I had to rank it right now, I'd say around 10th. Everything is better than WDADU at the very least, and it's much better than the last two albums. If the album were more consistent or if the rest of the album were to grow on me, it could top the rest of the RR albums up to 8th. I don't know where Awake fits among these.

That's not bad though. I don't expect anything they do to top the classic run of IaW - Octavarium (excluding Awake) at this point.

[FlyingBIZKIT]

In the past few days I've listened to all the DT albums again. I've only listened to The Astonishing once and I'm obviously not even going to include that in my rankings anyway since it's so early.

Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence - 5/5
Scenes From A Memory - 5/5

Falling Into Infinity - 4.5/5
Awake - 4.5/5
A Dramatic Turn of Events - 4.5/5

Train of Thought - 4/5
Images and Words - 4/5

Octavarium - 3.5/5
When Dream and Day Unite - 3.5/5

Black Clouds and Silver Linings - 3/5
Systematic Chaos - 3/5

Dream Theater - 2.5/5

[krands85]

I'll come back to this in a while once I've totally got to grips with TA. But on another note, does anyone else get annoyed at themselves for not liking a particular album as much as other people seem to?  I see SDOIT near the top of so many people's lists, but I've just never been a fan of it. Obviously that sort of thing is normal and we can't all like the same things, but damn, I wish I loved that album as much as most others seem to 

[FlyingBIZKIT]

I know what you mean. I always see Images and Words at the top and while I still find it incredible, I can't ever see myself putting it above anything from Awake - TOT and ADTOE. ADTOE is a surprise, though.

[pantsofeternity]

Let me introduce you all to a philosophy that will change your lives when you adopt it:

Never rank.  Always tier.

That said, here is my DT album tiering pre-Astonishment:

TIER I
I&W, SFAM, SDOIT

TIER II
Awake, 8V, DT12

TIER III
FII, TOT, SC

TIER IV
WDADU, ADTOE

...

TIER LAST
BCASL

I suspect that upon a revisit in a year's time, TA will find itself in Tier II... though I would bet on Tier I before I'd bet on Tier III.

[ToT-147]

Anyone with an MP album created between 2005-2010 in the top 5 has an incorrect opinion

1- Train of Thought
2- Black Clouds & Silver Linings
3- Octavarium
4- Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence
5- Systematic Chaos

I guess my opinion sucks then..

Let me introduce you all to a philosophy that will change your lives when you adopt it:

Never rank.  Always tier.

Let me introduce you to a philosophy that will change your live when you adopt it:

Never write that kind of things without reading the thread before.  Always read the thread before.

[pantsofeternity]

Let me introduce you all to a philosophy that will change your lives when you adopt it:

Never rank.  Always tier.

Let me introduce you to a philosophy that will change your live when you adopt it:

Never write that kind of things without reading the thread before.  Always read the thread before.

What exactly did I miss?  I know plenty of people used tiers.  I don't think I'm the first person to come up with tiers.  I'm just reminding everyone that your life will be better once you stop ranking forever and start tiering every time!

Otherwise, I don't know what you're getting at.  I'm honestly not going to read THIRTY pages back, so feel free to enlighten me.

[The Presence of Frenemies]

Tentatively, my rankings look something like this:

TIER 1:
Images and Words
Scenes From a Memory
Systematic Chaos
The Astonishing

TIER 2:
Train of Thought
Falling Into Infinity
Black Clouds & Silver Linings

TIER 3:
Awake
Octavarium
Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence

TIER 4:
Dream Theater
A Dramatic Turn of Events
When Dream And Day Unite

Only individual rankings that really stay static are that ToT is always the first album of tier 2 and that ADTOE/WDADU are clearly the two worst. Almost considered putting DT12 in its own tier.

[ThatOneGuy2112]

What exactly did I miss?  I know plenty of people used tiers.  I don't think I'm the first person to come up with tiers.  I'm just reminding everyone that your life will be better once you stop ranking forever and start tiering every time!

Honestly, if you absolutely have to fulfill some insane obsession with ranking for-goddamn-everything, tiering is the way to go.

It at least gives you the option to put the entries into specific groups, instead of being too specific in needlessly mulling over which particular two you prefer, especially when a numbered ranking is likely to change over time.

[lovethedrake]

It honestly kills me sometimes when I rank things... yet I do it all the time and I go back and forth and what started as a fun project becomes mentally draining.   I think a tiered approach would be a huge relief! 

If I tiered them out they would look like this.... in no order for each tier.

Tier 1 (The Absolute Classics)   

SFAM, I&W, SDOIT, TA, Awake 

Tier 2 (Still Fantastic but not up to par with the classics)
FII

Huge Huge Huge Dropoff Here

Tier 3 (Very Good)   
TOT,DT

Tier 4 (Some great stuff but ultimately disappointing)
BC & SL  and WDADU

Tier 5 (Not my style)
ADTOE, Octavarium, SC

[darkshade]

I think beyond your top 3, ranking the albums is meaningless.

[MetropolisWatches]

4 tiers

Images and Words
Awake
Scenes From a Memory
Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence
--
The Astonishing
A Dramatic Turn of Events
Dream Theater
--
Falling Into Infinity
Train of Thought
Octavarium
When Dream and Day Unite
--
Systematic Chaos
Black Clouds and Silver Linings

[Rickharris1011]

I like tiers.  I use them in fantasy baseball drafts (thank you talented Mr. Roto)

I have songs I love on every release and songs that I don't, which makes ranking them tough, so I put them into 4 tiers.  Tier 1 - I listen to it all the time Tier 2 - Frequently, but not as much.  Tier 3 rarely and probably only for 1 song Tier 4 WDADU (I don't own this one). 

Tier 1
SFAM
SDOIT
DT12
ADToE
Astonishing (mostly because it's new, though it could stay here.  The highs are really high on this one)

Tier 2
8VM
ToT
Awake

Tier 3
IaW* (I prefer the live versions of most of these songs, so rarely listen to it except for Take the Time)
FII*
SC
BC&SL

Tier 4
WD&DU

Side note: I think it's great to see how much variation there is in everyone's rankings.  Pretty cool to see, so I guess I'm not so surprised about the wide range of reactions to TA...it seems to be there for almost all of their records.

[BlackInk]

I never liked tiers. It's like ranking, but not bothering to finish.

[KevShmev]

I doubt TA will crack my top 4 (Awake, Scenes, I&W and 6DOIT), but I think it will probably end up nicely in the next tier alongside FII, ADTOE and DT12.

That is my early guess.

[BlobVanDam]

I never liked tiers. It's like ranking, but not bothering to finish.

So it's the blue balls of ranking?

[LCArenas]

Awake/I&W
6DoIT
SFAM
--------------
Octavarium
ADToE
Astonishing (This is pretty much based on the first impressions I had of TA compared with the first impressions from the other albums, and thus is most likely a provisional spot)
FII
---------------
ToT
SC
DT12
BC&SL
---------------
WDADU

[BlackInk]

I never liked tiers. It's like ranking, but not bothering to finish.

So it's the blue balls of ranking?

Exactly, and who likes when that happens?

[Hanz Gruber]

As of now

TIER 1

Images
Awake
Scenes
Falling to Infinity (never understood why people were down on this album)
Six Degrees

TIER 2

Octavarium (had a few clunkers but had catchy and memorable songs on it with some great melodies)
ADTOE
Cleaning out the Closet (I count this as a release because it has great quality stuff on it)
A Change of Seasons (love the song....if it had more songs on it I would rate this EP higher)

TIER 3

DT (Self Titled)
Black Clouds

TIER 4

SC
ToT
The Astonishing (Wish this was just individual songs.  Strong stuff on the album that is dragged down by writing songs around the lyrics

TIER 5

WDADU (loved the actual songs but can't get past Charlie's voice)

[Accelerando]

Like many others, I can't rank The Astonishing. I've only spun it in its entirety only three times.

My ranking currently:

1. Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence
2. Metropolis Pt. 2: Scenes From A Memory
3. Images and Words
4. Octavarium
5. Awake
6. Black Clouds and Silver Linings
7. Train of Thought
8. A Dramatic Turn of Events
9. Systematic Chaos
10. Dream Theater
11. When Dream And Day Unite
12. Falling Into Infinity

[Polarbear]

I'm not going to include The Astonishing on my list anytime soon. I have only spun it twice, and there is so much music coming out that it may take a while before i spin it again...

But this is what my list looks like without The Astonishing:

1. Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence
2. Awake
3. Images and Words
4. Scenes From a Memory

The top.4 and A Change of Seasons EP are all equally awesome, so they change places all the time.

5. Octavarium
6. Train of Thought
7. Systematic Chaos
8. Falling Into Infinity
9. A Dramatic Turn of Events
10. Black Clouds & Silver Linings
11. When Dream and Day Unite
12. Dream Theater

[Zook]

1. Images and Words
2. Awake
3. Metropolis Pt. 2: Scenes From A Memory
4. Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence
5. Train of Thought
6. Octavarium
7. Falling Into Infinity
8. The Astonishing
9. Dream Theater
10. When Dream And Day Unite
11. A Dramatic Turn of Events
12. Systematic Chaos
13. Black Clouds and Silver Linings