What Is Your Favorite Four-Album Run by Dream Theater?

[pg1067]

The question says it all.  Have at it.

I'm torn between I&W through SFAM (three of my top four albums and one of my bottom four) and SFAM through 8VM (two of my top 4 and two from the mid-tier).  Gonna have to give this some thought before voting myself.

Which two are mid-tier? Octavarium and?

My top 4 DT albums are typically:

1. SFAM
2. I&W
3. SDOIT
4. Awake

8VM and TOT show up somewhere in the next group of four, and FII is probably in the #12 spot (ahead of only SC and TA).

[hefdaddy42]

Option 2 has my top 3 DT albums, so this was easy for me.

[fadetoblackdude7]

SFAM - 8vm by far.

SFAM, SDOIT and 8vm are my top 3 DT albums

[Wim Kruithof]

a Real difficult question.

Scenes, Six Degrees, Train of Thought and Octavarium or
Systematic Chaos, Black Clouds, Dramaticus Turn and Dream Theater 12.

To me, I really can't choose. Those aight albums are all that much of wonderful, that I really can't choose. Dream and Day Unite and Awake will be as pretty as they are as well, but I somehow can't adore Falling into Infinity as much as the others...

[nick_z]

Given my DT album rankings,, this is pretty easy for me...

I would be the WDADU, I&W, Awake, FII run

(My favorite 4 DT albums are I&W -> Awake -> WDADU -> FII)

[Fritzinger]

SFAM, SDOIT, TOT, 8VM

Scenes and Octavarium are probably my favorite albums by the band and ToT and Six Degrees are in the upper half as well. I absolutely love Black Clouds, so it was tough not to include that, but it still only took me about 4 seconds to make this decision 

[wolfking]

SFAM - 8VM

[ReaperKK]

SDOIT -> SC, 8VM is the real weak point here but SDOIT, TOT, and SC carry it for me.

[pg1067]

It's interesting to see some of the outlier voting here:

WDADU through FII -- 3 votes:  Three people prefer WDADU to SFAM!

SDOIT through SC -- 4 votes:  I've literally never heard anyone say SC is better than SFAM.

TOT through BC&SL -- 1 vote:  This means SC and BC&SL over SFAM and SDOIT.

SC through DT12 -- 0 votes:  This is surprising (to me, of course) when you compare it to the grouping of BC&SL through TA, which got two votes.  I'm not surprised that folks like TA better than SC, but I am a bit surprised that no one who likes the three album run of BC&SL through DT12 prefers SC over TA.

[Lonk]

Not sure about anyone else, but for me it wasn't about one album being better than the other, and more about the run between all albums.

I voted for Awake-SDOIT, yet I rank I&W higher than SDOIT on my list. It's hard to explain my reasoning behind it but I think Awake-SDOIT feels more satisfying If I were to listen to all 4 albums back to back. That's just me though.

[geeeemo]

Not sure about anyone else, but for me it wasn't about one album being better than the other, and more about the run between all albums.

I voted for Awake-SDOIT, yet I rank I&W higher than SDOIT on my list. It's hard to explain my reasoning behind it but I think Awake-SDOIT feels more satisfying If I were to listen to all 4 albums back to back. That's just me though.

I agree with this, but voted for SFAM - 8VM because of the song Octavarium. I don't like the album as much as say FII ( I go by how many songs I like on the album, but it is sometimes hard to do this when one song makes the whole album )

[nick_z]

It's interesting to see some of the outlier voting here:

WDADU through FII -- 3 votes:  Three people prefer WDADU to SFAM!

One would be me!  (as I stated elsewhere, I really like SFAM - just not to the same high, stone-cold-classic degree as most fans. And I absolutely LOVE WDADU, #3 DT for me)

[ReaperKK]

SDOIT through SC -- 4 votes:  I've literally never heard anyone say SC is better than SFAM.

SC is better than SFAM, there I said it

I don't know if it's significantly better but I listen to songs from SC a lot more than SFAM.

[DTiwbwMP]

I&W, Awake, FII, SFAM