The Astonishing Abridged

[phospheneSOI]

I'm loving the album, I’m so happy the band have put out something where they've actually experimented and taken some risks, and when the album hits it's some of the best stuff they've ever done... but it’s just. too. long.

I want to make an Abridged Version for my Ipod, a “single disc” version that’s easier to digest, especially when it comes to sharing the album with all of my friends who used to love Dream Theater but stopped liking them around Octavarium. All y’alls input would be great.

Despite having listened several times I still feel like I don’t fully know which track is which, or which has song has a particular section or solo I like. Saying that, some songs have sunk in quicker than others. Here’s my abridged versions so far!

01. Descent Of The NOMACS
02. Dystopian Overture
03. The Gift Of Music
04. The Answer
05. A Better Life
06. Lord Nafaryus
07. A Savior In The Square
08. Three Days
09. Brother, Can You Hear Me?
10. The X Aspect
11. A New Beginning
12. Moment Of Betrayal
11. The Path That Divides
12. Our New World
13. Power Down
14. Astonishing

What I'm actually going to do is concentrate on all the tracks that aren't mentioned above for a few days, and see what else makes the cut!

[Ben_Jamin]

But you miss the epic battle and the high point of the story without The Walking Shadow till Our New Wolrd.

[phospheneSOI]

But you miss the epic battle and the high point of the story without The Walking Shadow till Our New Wolrd.

I love the song with the sword fight! Like I said it's been hard to take it all in, and I've inadvertently given more time to disc 1 than 2, so this is a work in progress.

[BelichickFan]

This is doomed to failure because there's too much good stuff.

For example I could never leave off The Road to Revolution or Losing Faythe, two of my favorites.  But, despite a fine tracklist, you don't have them.

[erwinrafael]

Are you trying to make an abridged version with the complete story or just an amazing collection of songs? My own abridged version goes like this this:

The Gift of Music
Lord Nafaryus
Savior in the Square
When Your Time Has Come
Act of Faythe
Three Days
A Life Left Behind
Ravenskill
A Tempting Offer
A New Beginning
Moment of Betrayal
The Path That Divides
The Walking Shadow
My Last Farewell
Hymn of a Thousand Voices
Our New World

1 hour 17 minutes

[phospheneSOI]

Are you trying to make an abridged version with the complete story or just an amazing collection of songs?

Yeah I'm not considering the story at all, just trying to figure out what would make a great one-disc album (if you ignore the lyrics).

[erwinrafael]

Are you trying to make an abridged version with the complete story or just an amazing collection of songs?

Yeah I'm not considering the story at all, just trying to figure out what would make a great one-disc album (if you ignore the lyrics).

You may try mine, it fits one disc perfectly. Hope you would enjoy it.

[DarkLord_Lalinc]

The beautiful thing about this thread is that, ironically, right now I can't think of any song I'd remove from the package. Everything fits like a glove to the grand scheme of things.

[phospheneSOI]

The beautiful thing about this thread is that, ironically, right now I can't think of any song I'd remove from the package. Everything fits like a glove to the grand scheme of things.

Don't get me wrong, I love it all. I just don't have enough time to really be able to take in the whole 2 hours and 10 experience ALL THE TIME.

Ps. Is that Ragdoll from the Secret Six in your avatar?

[ariich]

Here's a go at a 1-disc version that still has all the key narrative and (in my opinion) best songs:

1. The Gift of Music
2. A Better Life
3. Lord Nafaryus
4. A Savior in the Square
5. When Your Time Has Come
6. Three Days
7. A Life Left Behind
8. Ravenskill
9. A Tempting Offer
10. The X Aspect
11. A New Beginning
12. Moment of Betrayal
13. The Path That Divides
14. The Walking Shadow
15. My Last Farewell
16. Whispers on the Wind
17. Hymn of a Thousand Voices
18. Our New World

It clocks in at 79:48.

EDIT: Swapped out Losing Faith for When Your Time Has Come so that the segue works.

[Dreamer]

I agree, its way too long. Twice as long as it needs to be. I want to make a 1CD version too.

[The Curious Orange]

Gobsmacked no one has included "Chosen" or "Begin Again" - 2 of my early favourites for best song on the album...

[DragonAttack]

I do enjoy seeing others playing 'producer'.  I'll use these listings later to guide me on my next listen(s).

I've chopped 1-3 tracks off of every DT album other than 'Octavarium', though I hardly listen to the title track when I start listening at song 1.

So, for TA, I think I'm just going to treat it as six album sides (songs 1-5,6-10,11-16, 17-20, 1-6, 7-14).  Listen to 'side 1' 4-5x before moving on.  Develop favorite 'sides' from that.  Kind of like The Beatles White Album.  99% of the time, I'll spin side one or side three.  And those are only 20 minutes each.  It'll be interesting to compare my favorites to those listed here later on.

[MirrorMask]

I think too in the future I will make a slight abridged version, so that I could listen to it for the 90-95 minutes it takes me to do the roundtrip each day to and back from work.  But the first times I'll listen it all until I will have figured out all the songs 

[Enigmachine]

I made a 'Dystopian Edition' than keeps the more high energy songs for my dad to listen to and came up with:

1. Dystopian Overture
2. The Gift of Music
3. A Better Life
4. Lord Nafaryus
5. Three Days
6. A Life Left Behind
7. A Tempting Offer
8. A New Beginning
9. 2285 Entr'acte
10. Moment of Betreyal
11. The Path That Divides
12. The Walking Shadow
13. My Last Farewell

Length: 58:57

I would personally also add 'A Savior in the Square / When Your Time Has Come', 'Ravenskill' and 'Whispers on the Wind' to bring it to 16 tracks and 75:07 (a normal DT album length), as well as having a downer ending where Gabriel loses his voice and Faythe dies rather than the Deus Ex Machina of 'Hymn of a Thousand Voices' where the music brings her to life... because reasons.

[KevShmev]

Being someone who makes CDs for my car, there is no way all of this will make it on to my newer one.  DT is one of the few artists that I need two CDs for (mp3 CDs where you get 700 MB), and the two of them are already filled up, so when I update them here shortly, I will likely pick the best 15 songs or so from this to put on there.  The NOMAC songs have no shot. 

[Rickharris1011]

I made a 'Dystopian Edition' than keeps the more high energy songs for my dad to listen to and came up with:

1. Dystopian Overture
2. The Gift of Music
3. A Better Life
4. Lord Nafaryus
5. Three Days
6. A Life Left Behind
7. A Tempting Offer
8. A New Beginning
9. 2285 Entr'acte
10. Moment of Betreyal
11. The Path That Divides
12. The Walking Shadow
13. My Last Farewell

Length: 58:57

I would add the second half of Heaven's Cove right before Path that Divides.  When james kicks in with "under the glow"... possibly  the ballsiest part of the whole record. 

[Enigmachine]

I made a 'Dystopian Edition' than keeps the more high energy songs for my dad to listen to

This didn't work, unfortunately. He still doesn't like it.

[JRuless]

The best would be to cut it down to the different passages, not a plain song divider.
You'll be able to make compacter songs without losing the essence.

Would be fun to have the different record tracks as we had with BC&SL.
Someone could work it out to a flawless 1 CD synopsis of TA.

[RuRoRul]

Playing around with creating an abridged version myself, here is what I arrived at - trying to balance keeping the best stuff (in my opinion) with preserving the most crucial plot points from the songs and a decent flow. I haven't tried listening to it in this form yet (it has been hard enough to fit in a few listens of the full album) so I'm not sure if there are any stupid song transitions in it:

1. Descent Of The Nomacs
2. Dystopian Overture
3. The Gift Of Music
4. The Answer
5. A Better Life
6. Lord Nafaryus
7. Savior In The Square
8. Three Days
9. A Life Left Behind
10. Ravenskill
11. A Tempting Offer
12. A New Beginning
13. The Road To Revolution
14. Moment Of Betrayal
15. The Path That Divides
16. The Walking Shadow
17. My Last Farewell
18. Hymn Of A Thousand Voices
19. Our New World

Length: 82 minutes

The run of songs up to Lord Nafaryus works well, some of the best material on the album and introduces most of the characters. Descent Of The Nomacs is kept (the sole Nomacs track that is, all others are cut) as it serves as a nice introduction and keeps the flavour of the Nomacs - it could be cut easily enough though.

A Savior In The Square remains, which contains the crucial meeting. My experience was that following on from Savior In The Square, after the great start to the album, things got a little dull - When Your Time Has Come, despite containing the crucial lines ("When you're facing the path that divides...") isn't one of the strongest songs imo, and following it up with Act Of Faythe, while it does a good job of character introduction really slows things down a bit too much. Transfer a little of the content from WYTHC to SITS, and maybe some of Act Of Faythe's to A Life Left Behind, and this part of the album can be done without losing all the pacing (and saving more time for the good stuff).

In my version we go straight from A Savior In The Square to Three Days which is one of the absolute highlights of the album imo. Brother Can You Hear Me is a nice moment, but it is perhaps a bit obvious that Ahrys and the rebels will back Gabriel so I don't think it justifies quite a lengthy track that is perhaps a little boring, imo. Also, since we have cut Act Of Faythe, we now essentially leave the rebels and go back and follow the empire characters after SITS / Three Days. A Life Left Behind is actually not one of my favourite songs on this so far, but it contains too crucial plot points for me to cut in this version, and now serves as our proper introduction to Faythe's POV as well.

Then we move onto Ravenskill and A Tempting Offer, which are key songs for the story and pretty good imo. I like Chosen and The X Aspect, but not quite enough to justify the extra pure character introspection in reaction to Ravenskill and A Tempting Offer.

A New Beginning is a given from quality and plot point of view, while The Road To Revolution and its roundup of character conflicts helps make up for a couple of the cut songs. No need for a recapping instrumental in this version so it's cut, and we jump straight into Moment Of Betrayal. The scene is set well enough at the beginning of The Path That Divides, so unfortunately we lose Heaven's Cove. Begin Again is probably the worst offender on the album for not really adding anything storywise so it is an easy decision to cut, so we now have a run with a lot of momentum coming up to the climactic moment with Moment Of Betrayal - The Path That Divides - The Walking Shadow.

My impression of the album is that once it gets to The Walking Shadow, it seems to have a quite drawn out ending section with a lot of quite similar songs and not that much new added or happening in the story. Cutting Losing Faythe and Whsipers On The Wind alleviates this a bit - we now have My Last Farewell immediately followed by Hymn Of A Thousand Voices where the people rally to Gabriel and help him save Faythe. Out of Our New World and Astonishing, I think Our New World is slightly stronger as the closer so it finishes the album.

Obviously keeping individual songs as they are isn't the ideal way to shorten it, and it'd be better trimming or rearranging certain parts. This was my best effort at preserving the full story and as much of the good music as possible, as well as improving the pacing from my perspective, and getting it almost down to single CD length. I'd do it quite differently if I just wanted to make an album out of my favourite songs without regards to the story.

[MirrorMask]

I heard the album only once so it's hard to see if I agree with you or not, but I appreciate to see like-minded people who like to analyze the music and think long about it when certain choices have to be made! (I find myself doing these kind of long discussions with myself while organizing compilations that I listen in my trip to and from work, I always organize them like if they were setlists of shows, I swear there must be some bands that put less efforts in their actual setlists than me while I create compilations for myself  )

[IDontNotDoThings]

ACT I
01. Dystopian Overture
02. The Gift Of Music
03. A Better Life
04. Lord Lafaryus
05. A Savior In The Square / When Your Time Has Come
06. Three Days
07. A Life Left Behind
08. Ravenskill
09. A New Beginning
10. A Tempting Offer
ACT II
11. Moment Of Betrayal
12. The Path That Divides
13. The Walking Shadow / My Last Farewell
14. Hymn Of A Thousand Voices
15. Our New World

Total: 79 minutes

[pcs90]

While I will definitely not be doing this, I will say that for the people who have audio editing software, I recommend cutting parts out of songs instead, rather than just cutting all of a song. For example if you don't want Heaven's Cove on there because of the long intro, just cut most of it so it goes straight into the vocal section. You can shorten that song by several minutes. Same goes for many others.

[KevShmev]

I haven't heard a single song I would want to edit.

[pcs90]

I haven't heard a single song I would want to edit.

Agreed, I love the whole thing. In fact, I wish it was longer if anything. But it seems like if someone wanted to shorten it, that would be the best way to do it.

[Mebert78]

I noticed that some of your abridged versions ended with "Our New World," and I happen to be listening to that song right now. It makes a great closing track.

[Bertie_Wooster]

I would keep "The Astonishing" just the way it is.
The only album edits I would do is take the best songs out of Black clouds and sytematic chaos and combine them into an awesome album.

1.  In the presence of enemies 1
2   Ministry of lost souls
3.  In the presence of enemies 2
4.  Wither
5.  A rite of passage
6.  The best of times
7.  The count of Tuscany.

[JoeMLennon]

How about cutting down to a listenable chunk in one sitting by lead character...  More of a mix approach from a character's POV...  Still add in a couple of the other narrator led songs to help the story still kinda make sense

This could be a Gabriel point of view.....
1. Dystopian Overture
2. Gift of Music
3. The Answer
4. A Savior in the Square
4a. When Your Time Has Come
5. Brother Can you Hear Me?
6. Ravenskill
7. Chosen
8. Road to Revolution
9. Moment of Betrayel
10. Heaven's Cove (cause I like this one)
11. Path that Divides
12. My Last Farewell
13. Whispers on the Wind
14. Hymn of 1000 Voices
15. Our New World

total: 68 minutes

You could similar for the Empire, Faythe, Rebels, Narrator driven storylines and they all clock in around 70 to 80 minutes and can vary on what you leave in vs. take out

[BlobVanDam]

Eventually I'm probably going to crop the album to the songs I like (I don't care about story), which at the moment would be this-


When Your Time Has Come is mostly only included because it's connected to A Saviour in the Square. The Answer is mostly included because I like everything around it so it can tag along with that big beautiful chunk of music. And I'd keep one Nomac track just because the BLORP makes a cool setup for Dystopian Overture.

That's a bit over 57 minutes. It's a shame that's less than half of the complete album, because if this was the entire thing, it would rank up there with ToT and Octavarium, and ahead of everything since.

[Progmetty]

I'm one of the people that thought this album should have had a third CD so there's nothing I'd take out of the 2 we have.

[ariich]

I don't understand you, Blob.

[BlobVanDam]

I don't understand you, Blob.

Nobody does, Rich. Nobody does.   

[ariich]

I don't understand you, Blob.

Nobody does, Rich. Nobody does.   

That doesn't mean I love you any less.

[The Curious Orange]

I understand you perfectly, Blob.  What I think of as "side one" - that is everything through to Three Days - is actually pretty good. After that, less so. My abridged version would be the same as yours, only I'd add A Life Left Behind, Moment of Betrayal and Begin Again, and probably ditch Road to Revolution.

[Bertielee]

In other words, guys, you're turning TA into a concept album (length-wise). Honestly, I could also do without songs such as Brother Can You Hear Me? or Act of Faythe to name a few.

B.Lee