The 4 MM-era albums VS The Last 4 MP-era albums

[Volante99]

Option A easily;

TOT and 8VM are primo, ALMOST top of their game Dream Theater.

BC&SL is a fine album. Cheesy as hell, but fun. Nightmare is fun, Tuscany is fun, Best of Times is fun. Very prog. Yes, it’s not their finest artistic achievement but I don’t think this album is as offensively terrible as some others seems to think.

SC is weak but Constant Motion is probably one of the best straight rockers they’ve ever done.

On the other hand we have option B; ADTOE, great album, contains their best ballads and BAI, and great instrumental interludes
D12- extremely weak, Surrender to Reason is okay, Along for the Ride is easily their worst song they’ve ever done, terrible production
TA- maybe 20 minutes of decent music rendered unlistenable buried in a silly concept, bad lyrics
D/T- some good moments, but very short, haven’t fully digested it yet but not digging it as much most fans



 

[Herrick]

This is a really good question. I can't decide right now. I'll have to think about it and perhaps listen to all those albums black to black

[Dreamer]

Hands down the last 4 DT albums have been the best of their career for me. ADTOE got me back into the band like never before.

[Max Kuehnau]

It always seemed to me that the band were "running out of fuel" as it were during the end of the MP era in some ways. Not ever since MM came on board.  (btw: the tour for TOT was the last of the MP era tours I attended back in the day, the first tour I attended after he left was the DT12 tour, for this exact reason.) And yes, ADTOE was a great restart for me as well. My favourite DT album to date.

[jayvee3]

MM by a country mile.

I love all 4 MM albums and still a big fan of TA, which I can’t really believe divided people so much. So what if it’s long - in the day and age of playlists, there is pretty easy solution. There is so much great music amongst it. DT (self-titled) is heavily underrated too, and aged well for me - with better dynamics, would be really great. ADTOE and D/T are fantastic.

The other 4 are not in the same class IMO. TOT is fine, but to be honest, with age I only listen to AIA and ITNOG. 8V is incredibly overrated in my book, and I honestly feel people give a pass to it as they like the title track. There is so much filler on this one, and while I quite like SS and the title track (although not as much as others), I don’t think I’ve actively gone out of my way to listen to anything else from it for ages. SC was ok, but BCASL was their biggest misfire I believe. I think these last 3 albums all suffer from the same issue- one big decent epic, with a whole bunch of filler to make up the rest. Some nice moments of course, but some big misses such as repentance and MP’s increasing vocals...

[TAC]

big fan of TA,which I can’t really believe divided people so much. So what if it’s long - in the day and age of playlists, pretty easy solution. There is so much great music amongst it.

Exactly. My 68 minute Astonishing Abridged is as good as anything in their catalog.

[Dream Team]

I’m actually shocked that the MP albums are doing that well, I thought it’d be 5-1 or so.

[TheGreatPretender]

I'm probably one of the only people who'll say that the strongest pull towards the MP albums (from this selection) for me is Systematic Chaos, which I think is one of their best albums.
Octavarium has quite a few gems on it too, well, all the albums have their gems. But on the whole, MM era albums are a lot more consistent for me overall.
BC&SL is what really brings the MP era down for me, and the fact that it's the last one they released with him, at that point, I was a little concerned about where the band was going musically, so every album they released since has been a comforting reassurance.

[lovethedrake]

I love Portnoy but The MM albums are better than the final 4 Portnoy IMO. I think D/T is by far the best of the 8 and the TA is next in line.   

[Cool Chris]

But on the whole, MM era albums are a lot more consistent for me overall.
BC&SL is what really brings the MP era down for me, and the fact that it's the last one they released with him, at that point, I was a little concerned about where the band was going musically...

Mike put some completely unnecessary hype and expectations on BC&SL. While it has some great moments, that's what it is: an album of moments and not one of great songs. I was still a huge fan at the time, and saw them put on an amazing club show during their tour with Maiden. But I also wondered where the band was going from there, and how much I would enjoy being along for that journey.

[TAC]

I saw that tour in Worcester, and I noted that the band looked really happy.

[Nachtmerrie]

MP: one top-tier album (TOT), three very inconsistent albums with some great songs (8VM, SS, TW, ITPOE, Forsaken, TMOLS, TCOT)
MM: one top tier album (DoT), one very good and consistent album (ADTOE) and one really weak album (DT). TA doesn't click with me but has a few songs I really enjoy.

In the end MP wins mainly because of the higher highs (individual songs).

[Kyo]

While it has some great moments, that's what it is: an album of moments and not one of great songs.

That's basically my problem with those four late Portnoy-era albums in a nutshell. They all have really great moments, but what they don't have all that often is complete songs that are overall as enjoyable as these moments (the Octavarium album with its more concise, poppy approach fares best). This is why I never agreed with the "they've run out of steam" comments - they still had great ideas, after all. I just feel that the way those were shaped into songs wasn't as successful as earlier. For various reasons I've long felt that this kind of mis-direction was mostly Portnoy's doing and the Mangini-era albums certainly seem to support my interpretation. I may not like every song they wrote since, but I can't remember the last time I felt that some section of a song was amazing and worth listening to while I didn't really like the song as a whole, whereas this was becoming the norm after Six Degrees.

[ThatOneGuy2112]

big fan of TA,which I can’t really believe divided people so much. So what if it’s long - in the day and age of playlists, pretty easy solution. There is so much great music amongst it.

Exactly. My 68 minute Astonishing Abridged is as good as anything in their catalog.

That's just it though. If you have to abridge the full album by essentially trimming it down by half, is the full experience really that great?

I don't say this to attack or demean anyone who enjoys the album, but I'd like to know your take on that. Even as my least favorite DT album, I can admit it has its moments. To me there's perhaps 30 or 40 minutes of decent DT material in there. But the full album experience (which I would venture the band intended for it to be listened to in that way) is so incredibly lackluster to me, that despite it's good moments, I simply can't ignore the fact that the remaining hour or so exists.

[1neeto]

MP: one top-tier album (TOT), three very inconsistent albums with some great songs (8VM, SS, TW, ITPOE, Forsaken, TMOLS, TCOT)
MM: one top tier album (DoT), one very good and consistent album (ADTOE) and one really weak album (DT). TA doesn't click with me but has a few songs I really enjoy.

In the end MP wins mainly because of the higher highs (individual songs).

I agree. There’s more memorable songs in MP’s last 4 than MM’s.

[TAC]

big fan of TA,which I can’t really believe divided people so much. So what if it’s long - in the day and age of playlists, pretty easy solution. There is so much great music amongst it.

Exactly. My 68 minute Astonishing Abridged is as good as anything in their catalog.

That's just it though. If you have to abridge the full album by essentially trimming it down by half, is the full experience really that great?

I don't say this to attack or demean anyone who enjoys the album, but I'd like to know your take on that. Even as my least favorite DT album, I can admit it has its moments. To me there's perhaps 30 or 40 minutes of decent DT material in there. But the full album experience (which I would venture the band intended for it to be listened to in that way) is so incredibly lackluster to me, that despite it's good moments, I simply can't ignore the fact that the remaining hour or so exists.

Well, look, Dream Theater is my favorite band of all time, but honestly, only half of 6D's, BC&SL, and DT12 really interest me, with less than half of 8V and FII doing the same.

Trimming the fat doesn't necessarily demean the album.


Not being able to listen to TA has less to do with the quality than it does to it's length. I love the album. And like every album I have ever heard, I like some songs better than others. There's no song on TA that I dislike.

[ThatOneGuy2112]

Not being able to listen to TA has less to do with the quality than it does to it's length. I love the album. And like every album I have ever heard, I like some songs better than others. There's no song on TA that I dislike.

Gotcha. In that case I can see where you're coming from. Closest I could relate is with an album like Soundtracks for the Blind, a pretty lengthy album that I enjoy almost all of, just that I seldom have the time to listen to the entire thing.

[TAC]

Soundtracks For The Blind?

[The Letter M]

Soundtracks For The Blind?

Soundtracks For The Blind

-Marc.

[TAC]

Ok, thanks Marc.

[TheGreatPretender]

Mike put some completely unnecessary hype and expectations on BC&SL. While it has some great moments, that's what it is: an album of moments and not one of great songs. I was still a huge fan at the time, and saw them put on an amazing club show during their tour with Maiden. But I also wondered where the band was going from there, and how much I would enjoy being along for that journey.

I actually was a little out of the loop when it came out, I had already considered them my favorite band at the time, but I was just in the process of properly discovering them, so I was like, "Wait, DT released a new album this year?" So I saw none of that Portnoy hype. For me, the hype came purely from DT being DT, and like I said, the fact that I really loved Systematic Chaos.

[SleeperAwake]

D/T has rekindled my interest in DT and is for me their best/most consistent album since Octavarium, but the ones in between vary greatly in quality, with DT12 being my least favourite. If I were to arrange them in tiers it would look something like this:


TOT
8VM
D/T
--------
SC
BC&SL
ADTOE
TA
--------
DT12


So the MP albums win.

[jayvee3]

big fan of TA,which I can’t really believe divided people so much. So what if it’s long - in the day and age of playlists, pretty easy solution. There is so much great music amongst it.

Exactly. My 68 minute Astonishing Abridged is as good as anything in their catalog.

That's just it though. If you have to abridge the full album by essentially trimming it down by half, is the full experience really that great?

I don't say this to attack or demean anyone who enjoys the album, but I'd like to know your take on that. Even as my least favorite DT album, I can admit it has its moments. To me there's perhaps 30 or 40 minutes of decent DT material in there. But the full album experience (which I would venture the band intended for it to be listened to in that way) is so incredibly lackluster to me, that despite it's good moments, I simply can't ignore the fact that the remaining hour or so exists.

I agree with TAC that it can just be due to length, as I like pretty much most of the album too. But it can also be the fact that as by now we know the story, I don’t need things like the nomad tracks, whispers on the wind etc. to piece the story together - I can actually go more to the songs I enjoy the most - which for me is stil over a solid hour of music, and actually longer than D/T. That’s not to diminish the quality of D/T as I love it, but just to suggest there is a heap of music to listen to for me on TA, even trimming the fat a bit. It’s also probably why I struggled with BCASL bar the Count and the Beautiful Agony section of ANTR - with only 6 songs, there wasn’t much wiggle room of some of those songs didn’t resonate.

[Herrick]

It always seemed to me that the band were "running out of fuel" as it were during the end of the MP era in some ways. Not ever since MM came on board.  (btw: the tour for TOT was the last of the MP era tours I attended back in the day, the first tour I attended after he left was the DT12 tour, for this exact reason.) And yes, ADTOE was a great restart for me as well. My favourite DT album to date.

Other than The Astonishing (which I've warmed up to a lot more since it came out) I really enjoy the post Portnoy albums. So for me it wasn't the band running out of steam but perhaps it was Portnoy himself who was running out of steam.

I love all 4 MM albums and still a big fan of TA,which I can’t really believe divided people so much. So what if it’s long - in the day and age of playlists, pretty easy solution. There is so much great music amongst it.

From what I've seen, the length of the album did not divide the fan base. It was the music. Any fan can put together a 2-hour playlist of Dream Theater songs and be perfectly happy.

[Dedalus]

It always seemed to me that the band were "running out of fuel" as it were during the end of the MP era in some ways. Not ever since MM came on board.  (btw: the tour for TOT was the last of the MP era tours I attended back in the day, the first tour I attended after he left was the DT12 tour, for this exact reason.) And yes, ADTOE was a great restart for me as well. My favourite DT album to date.

Other than The Astonishing (which I've warmed up to a lot more since it came out) I really enjoy the post Portnoy albums. So for me it wasn't the band running out of steam but perhaps it was Portnoy himself who was running out of steam.

I love all 4 MM albums and still a big fan of TA,which I can’t really believe divided people so much. So what if it’s long - in the day and age of playlists, pretty easy solution. There is so much great music amongst it.

From what I've seen, the length of the album did not divide the fan base. It was the music. Any fan can put together a 2-hour playlist of Dream Theater songs and be perfectly happy.

Sure.

It's an album full of disney-like/musical-like/ballads for a bunch of metalheads.

If there's one thing I've learned in the world of Heavy Metal is that ballads are our enemies. 

It doesn't work.

[Herrick]

Sure.

It's an album full of disney-like/musical-like/ballads for a bunch of metalheads.

If there's one thing I've learned in the world of Heavy Metal is that ballads are our enemies. 

It doesn't work.

I do not know if you are serious or if you are joking.

[SwedishGoose]

Mangini era easily..... it has my favorite album of theirs and the others are good too, nothing that I would skip if it came up.
Portnoy era has one of my favorite songs, Octavarium, but taken as a whole does not hold a candle to the MM era. There are quite a few songs from that era that I don't really care for and might reach for the skip button.

[jayvee3]

I love all 4 MM albums and still a big fan of TA,which I can’t really believe divided people so much. So what if it’s long - in the day and age of playlists, pretty easy solution. There is so much great music amongst it.

From what I've seen, the length of the album did not divide the fan base. It was the music. Any fan can put together a 2-hour playlist of Dream Theater songs and be perfectly happy.
[/quote]

I think the 2 biggest criticisms I heard constantly about TA were - 1. People weren't on board with the Disney/Rock Opera vocals, and 2. The album length. I have actually heard the album length bought up a fair bit, which always baffled me a little.

No dramas if people didn't like the style of music - it was definitely my cup of tea, and I felt a pretty natural progression that they may try something a little rock opera. Listening to stuff like Avantasia which is terrific, I honestly sometimes wonder what it would have sounded like with other singers to play characters. Could really have been something out of the box. However, I also understand that this is not for everyone and that's cool. But the album length thing I always felt was just a really easy solve in this day and age, and rare that I wouldn't skip something on every album in existence that I enjoy.

[Herrick]

I think the 2 biggest criticisms I heard constantly about TA were - 1. People weren't on board with the Disney/Rock Opera vocals, and 2. The album length. I have actually heard the album length bought up a fair bit, which always baffled me a little.

No dramas if people didn't like the style of music - it was definitely my cup of tea, and I felt a pretty natural progression that they may try something a little rock opera. Listening to stuff like Avantasia which is terrific, I honestly sometimes wonder what it would have sounded like with other singers to play characters. Could really have been something out of the box. However, I also understand that this is not for everyone and that's cool. But the album length thing I always felt was just a really easy solve in this day and age, and rare that I wouldn't skip something on every album in existence that I enjoy.

For me, album length is not a problem. I often go through phases where I listen to a bunch of albums from one band. If I love the music then MOAR is always a good thing.

For Dream Theater, it would be weird to put out an album with different singers after having LaBrie singing all these songs all these years. This would create ammo for people who think the band would be better off without LaBrie.

[Fritzinger]

As much as I love The Astonishing, Dramatic Turn and Distance (and like DT12), it is clearly the first option for me. Octavarium is the masterpiece that got me into DT and, following that, basically every prog album I know. So that album is very special to me.
Black Clouds also has a special place in my life, because of reasons I stated in the Black Clouds thread.

[Freko]

If someone asks me "whats the 2 best DT albums?" I would say I&W and Awake. But what do I listen to most nowdays? D/T, TA and FII.
I got into DT when Awake was relesead and I listened constantly to I&W and Awake, almost crazy much.
Great albums? yeah!
Nostalgia? sure
The only albums I never listen to is BC&SL and WDADU.
So what´s the point of this post, no idea...

[tristl]

For me it is clearly the MM Albums, even if DT12 did not stand the test of time for my ears

[The Curious Orange]

I scored each album out of 5 -

TOT - 4
8VM - 5
SC - 2
BC&SL - 1

ADTOE - 4
DT12 - 2
TA - 0
d/t - 5

That's 12 for the MP albums, and 11 for the MM albums. Which is a slight shame, because if you ignore TA, the MM albums would have a higher average score.

[Indiscipline]

MM group.

ADTOE, DT12 and TA are (with I&W and SFAM) inside my top 5 DT records, and I won't even rank D/T yet 'cause I want to just enjoy it for a couple of years before applying reason and criticism to it. 

On the other hand, to my tastes of course, TOT is a great focused album (and I suspect that's how I'm gonna consider D/T down the line), SC a pretty good funny album, Octavarium is two great songs, BC&SL my least favourite DT album.

[jayvee3]

I think the 2 biggest criticisms I heard constantly about TA were - 1. People weren't on board with the Disney/Rock Opera vocals, and 2. The album length. I have actually heard the album length bought up a fair bit, which always baffled me a little.

No dramas if people didn't like the style of music - it was definitely my cup of tea, and I felt a pretty natural progression that they may try something a little rock opera. Listening to stuff like Avantasia which is terrific, I honestly sometimes wonder what it would have sounded like with other singers to play characters. Could really have been something out of the box. However, I also understand that this is not for everyone and that's cool. But the album length thing I always felt was just a really easy solve in this day and age, and rare that I wouldn't skip something on every album in existence that I enjoy.

For me, album length is not a problem. I often go through phases where I listen to a bunch of albums from one band. If I love the music then MOAR is always a good thing.

For Dream Theater, it would be weird to put out an album with different singers after having LaBrie singing all these songs all these years. This would create ammo for people who think the band would be better off without LaBrie.

Yea, I think you’re right. Definitely would be a little odd, and I’m actually a huge James fan, really enjoying his solo works too. And I think James put in a magnificent performance. As for the ammo, I think those crew would be there regardless, just read YouTube comments haha