Awake is still better than every other Dream Theater record

[adastra]

I just listened to the album and the thread title is still correct.

BUt c'mon, Ain't Caught In A Web  like the worst song ever!?

[aprilethereal]

I just listened to the album and the thread title is still correct.

BUt c'mon, Ain't Caught In A Web  like the worst song ever!?

no

[?]

I just listened to the album and the thread title is still correct.

BUt c'mon, Ain't Caught In A Web  like the worst song ever!?

Nope! CIAW rocks and was one of the songs that got me into DT in the first place.

[Jaffa]

Caught in a Web is my favorite song on Awake.   

[hefdaddy42]

I just listened to the album and the thread title is still correct.

BUt c'mon, Ain't Caught In A Web  like the worst song ever!?

Hell no.

[BlobVanDam]

CIAW is a great song. I've never gotten the relative dislike for CIAW or IF. I mean, if even I like them, nobody else has an excuse.

[Onno]

CIAW is a great song. I've never gotten the relative dislike for CIAW or IF. I mean, if even I like them, nobody else has an excuse.

Wise words!

[adastra]

Lol Wut, Even that horrible keyboard in the intro/ first verse???

[Onno]

Lol Wut, Even that horrible keyboard in the intro/ first verse???

Horrible? That's a great part!

[adastra]

Lol Wut, Even that horrible keyboard in the intro/ first verse???

Horrible? That's a great part!

I don't know :E IMO it sounds almost torturous xD

[GasparXR]

Lol Wut, Even that horrible keyboard in the intro/ first verse???

Horrible? That's a great part!

I don't know :E IMO it sounds almost torturous xD

Some people like torture.

[?]

Lol Wut, Even that horrible keyboard in the intro/ first verse???

Horrible? That's a great part!

I don't know :E IMO it sounds almost torturous xD

It sounds heavenly compared to the horns section in Beyond This Life and the Bebot solo in A Rite of Passage.

[adastra]

Lol Wut, Even that horrible keyboard in the intro/ first verse???

Horrible? That's a great part!

I don't know :E IMO it sounds almost torturous xD

It sounds heavenly compared to the horns section in Beyond This Life and the Bebot solo in A Rite of Passage.

I don't mind the horns in BTL  but AROP solo is the worst solo ever played by anyone

[Viking of the Sagas]

Caught in a Web is awesome, unique and extremely catchy besides.

[Lucien]

Songs on Awake I still find very forgettable/I still don't get:

Lie
The Mirror
Scarred

Meh songs:

6:00
Caught in a Web
Erotomania
The Silent Man
Innocence Faded

Amazing songs off Awake:

Voices
Lifting Shadows off a Dream
Space-Dye Vest

[wasteland]

Elaborate your not getting Scarred, please. I'm always thrilled and genuinely interested to hear why people don't consider it a timeless Dream Theater masterpiece like many others (myself included) do.

[Nearmyth]

Awake is great. It has so many redeeming qualities. The first 3 tracks with the catchy choruses and great riffs, the Mind Beside Itself suite,
The Mirror/Lie + the great follow up with Lifting Shadows, and SCARRED! Not to mention Space-Dye Vest, a unique and great album closer

Probably not my favorite album, but it's one of those albums where I find all of it to be consistently good. Wouldn't skip a track. Much like SDIOT or I&W for me. I realize many others do not share the same opinion though.

[Lucien]

Okay. I will do so in the same way I went through my Top 30: By listening to the song while writing about it.

Scarred

Cymbal work. Really cool bass work and piano work. Guitar volume swells, clearer than I generally get from DT, then it turns more into a guitar solo. Lyrics. Interesting, the vocals are really soft in the beginning. Some great melodies. (2 minutes in) 2:10. That's the one part I remember. I enjoy it. I do not know the lyrics that well, I just remember that rape was part of the subject (clarify this for me.), and they're really hard to understand. 3:34, okay, we're back here, then more aggressive lyrics from James. VERY aggressive. 4:36. Nice background vocals, more good melodies. More really soft vocals, and back to a lighter phrase, building up. at 6:00. Building up, building up. 6:27, back to the chorus, okay. 7:04 cool guitar work, then suddenly scaly guitar solo. Keyboard solo. Guitar solo. 8:54, back to the chorus. 9:30, that was a cool breakdown. Keyboards playing string melody. 10:28, this is a REALLY cool part. Oh, what, this is what it fades out of? 

Eh. It's a good song, but it's not very memorable for me. Some of my favorite Dream Theater songs are under 8 minutes, with all the catchy stuff (These Walls is my all time favorite, after all.).

I don't know what I really don't like about Scarred. It's not that I don't like it, but it just feels so... It just really hasn't clicked yet, but I don't even feel like listening to it again right now.

[Shadow Ninja 2.0]

Scarred is a song that I enjoy while I'm listening to it, but I never have much of an urge to listen to it again.

[GasparXR]

Elaborate your not getting Scarred, please. I'm always thrilled and genuinely interested to hear why people don't consider it a timeless Dream Theater masterpiece like many others (myself included) do.

[RaiseTheKnife]

From beginning to end, Awake is the most "listenable" album in its entirety.  Just works perfectly as a whole.

[Mikeyd]

I think Awake as an album is better than the sum of its parts.  As an album it's consistent and has a very good flow to it.  It's got a good mix of emotions and song types and it sounds like a band that is confident in their songwriting ability.  Taken individually, I wouldn't consider any one song off of Awake to be a top 10 DT track.  Most of the song lists that I've seen people post don't normally contain many Awake songs if any at all.  It's also possible Awake didn't hit me as hard because I got into DT much later.

Personally, I don't listen to Awake often.  If I'm in the mood for a short form DT song I may pop on 6:00 or CIAW.  Voices is great when I'm in the mood, and erotomania is a fun instrumental (although I feel the LSFNY version is the definitive version).  I began listening to DT in 2000, so Awake's production sounds a bit dated to me as well (it's the snare reverb).  I also do not like Scarred and I never have.  It's got some great individual parts like the guitar solo, the soft bridge, outro...but the vocal and instrumental melodies and progressions in the verses and choruses are tough to listen to for me.  I can totally understand why people would like it but I can also get why it might not be everyone's cup of tea.

Just my humble opinion 

[BlobVanDam]

Lol Wut, Even that horrible keyboard in the intro/ first verse???

Horrible? That's a great part!

I don't know :E IMO it sounds almost torturous xD

It sounds heavenly compared to the horns section in Beyond This Life and the Bebot solo in A Rite of Passage.

The horns in BTL are awesome. Haters gonna hate.

[Ħ]

Horns in BTL? Timestamp?

[LCArenas]

I just listened to the album and the thread title is still correct.

BUt c'mon, Ain't Caught In A Web  like the worst song ever!?

say wot m8

[?]

Horns in BTL? Timestamp?

8:26. It's just a keyboard patch, but it sounds awful IMO.

[Sketchy]

I'm with Blob on this. Ordinarily I'd hate that patch, but for me it just works with the rest of the song.

[Bolsters]

I don't have a problem with it either. It's far enough removed from an actual horn sound that I just think of it as a synth, and not as an emulation of horns. As such, that synth works for that part of the song.

[hefdaddy42]

I've never understood the hate for that section either.