Top 100 Dream Theater songs countdown (Top 2 revealed!!)

[KevShmev]

Well said, bosk1!

As I said before, I did it exactly that way last week and found that getting it down to 100 works well, too.  Say you do your list of each album and assorted tracks and have 107 songs.  You then eyeball it and decide which 7 are your least favorite and those are out. 

[DragonAttack]

Just looked at the revised list ('thank you') and heard the 'Gladiator Theme' for the first time.  Nice <understatement>

Made me realize that the covers from BC&SL were not listed.  The Queen medley has a soft spot in my heart, so I'd like to add that track to my list, as well as 'Odyssey' and 'To Tame A Land'.

And then there's 'Xanadu'. 

[Lonk]

Sent!

This was fun to do 

[KevShmev]

Just looked at the revised list ('thank you') and heard the 'Gladiator Theme' for the first time.  Nice <understatement>

Made me realize that the covers from BC&SL were not listed.  The Queen medley has a soft spot in my heart, so I'd like to add that track to my list, as well as 'Odyssey' and 'To Tame A Land'.

And then there's 'Xanadu'.

Covers are not allowed.  This list is for DT originals. 

[Ben_Jamin]

I got it sorted and am giving it an entire listen to really see if the songs hold where they stand. Then I'll revise it again, then I will send it over. I may just go up until the deadline to submit it, because I want to get it sort of finalized...

I will say though, the list will vastly change with the inclusion of A View from the Top songs.

[bosk1]

I will say though, the list will vastly change with the inclusion of A View from the Top songs.

Same.  I agree with Kev that it's too early to include them in a ranking.  I wouldn't possibly be able to accurately rank them within a top 100.  But that said, I am fairly confident that at least a majority of them (if not all) would make the top 100 list.  In fact, looking at my list, I would rank them all above my bottom 7.

[geeeemo]

I have started to listen to several records where I wasn't sure of my order for each. For a while now, I have mostly been listening to Epics, live music, DoT and View. .....But I was reminded of something....There is no bad Dream Theater. I thoroughly enjoyed songs I wouldnt have chosen to listen to, and I think 6 Degrees just became my number 3. What fun!

[KevShmev]

I will say though, the list will vastly change with the inclusion of A View from the Top songs.

Same.  I agree with Kev that it's too early to include them in a ranking.  I wouldn't possibly be able to accurately rank them within a top 100.  But that said, I am fairly confident that at least a majority of them (if not all) would make the top 100 list.  In fact, looking at my list, I would rank them all above my bottom 7.

I am not sure how many would make my top 100 right now, but I would have no clue where to put any of them right now.  The new car smell is still too fresh.

I have started to listen to several records where I wasn't sure of my order for each. For a while now, I have mostly been listening to Epics, live music, DoT and View. .....But I was reminded of something....There is no bad Dream Theater. I thoroughly enjoyed songs I wouldnt have chosen to listen to, and I think 6 Degrees just became my number 3. What fun!

Nice!  This is one of the intended side benefits of this, as it will get some fans here listening to the band more as the tour approaches (hopefully). 

[Ben_Jamin]

I will say though, the list will vastly change with the inclusion of A View from the Top songs.

Same.  I agree with Kev that it's too early to include them in a ranking.  I wouldn't possibly be able to accurately rank them within a top 100.  But that said, I am fairly confident that at least a majority of them (if not all) would make the top 100 list.  In fact, looking at my list, I would rank them all above my bottom 7.

I agree as well...The album does have that new release bias still. I usually give it a year. Sometimes, they'll hold up and other times they'll drop immensely. This depends on my mentality though, because when in a certain state of mind, certain songs become heightened more. A song I didn't really like, I will suddenly enjoy.

This is why I find it a bit complicated to rank songs definitively. Meaning, my lists are not set in stone. There have been songs released that came close to taking over that number one spot. But that song holds a special place for me and it's just a song that perfectly is in tune with me.

[Dream Team]

I submitted mine. I must say it's pretty tough at 51-100; probably a lot of those songs I don't listen to that often. Probably any subsection of 10 songs from 31-100 are fairly interchangeable.

[jammindude]

I know I’m late to the party, but this actually sounds like a lot of fun. I am in. I will start compiling it today.

[DTwwbwMP]

Can't do it without separating SDOIT songs , and including new album. BUT, looking forward to seeing people's picks.

[KevShmev]

I know I’m late to the party, but this actually sounds like a lot of fun. I am in. I will start compiling it today.

 

[Elite]

Does it have to be 100? Or can I send you a top 50 as well and you just don't count those?

[KevShmev]

Does it have to be 100? Or can I send you a top 50 as well and you just don't count those?

Has to be 100.  No more, no less.

[Laughingplace56]

I will join, sounds fun!

I think an easy way to do this is to copy and paste the list of songs earlier in the thread into this website (https://rankingengine.pubmeeple.com/). Just click “Music” as your category, paste the full list of songs in one shot, and it will separate them all into individual choices. Then it randomly puts 2 songs at a time for you to choose from and will automatically rank them for you based on your responses.

[Elite]

I will join, sounds fun!

I think an easy way to do this is to copy and paste the list of songs earlier in the thread into this website (https://rankingengine.pubmeeple.com/). Just click “Music” as your category, paste the full list of songs in one shot, and it will separate them all into individual choices. Then it randomly puts 2 songs at a time for you to choose from and will automatically rank them for you based on your responses.

WOW! This is amazing, thank you!

[Setlist Scotty]

Can't do it without separating SDOIT songs , and including new album. BUT, looking forward to seeing people's picks.

You can do it. Just gauge your overall rating of the entire song (remember, it's a song, not songs) and place it within the overall song listing. That's what I did. Of course, in comparison to the majority of the rest of their catalog, it didn't make the cut, but I digress.

I've got my top 100. Just gotta try to figure out the exact order which is really really hard, since what I prefer in many cases depends on my mood.

[TAC]

The entire song wouldn’t make my Top 100. Solitary Shell on its own would make the Top 50.

[Wim Kruithof]

I am curious to see where this would end. Me being miserable with ranking, would have a tremendous hard time to do so. Heck, I possibly can't even have a top 10 list, without changing it in a month or so.

Probably 'cause I only knew about Dream Theater since 4 years now. Maybe that's why every single album has so much to offer still, I can't devide one from another at this point. It's all too darn good.

[KevShmev]

10 entrees so far!

Eight more days for anyone to submit a list. 

[TAC]

Seven more days to allow the new album.

[jammindude]

I used that ranking engine posted earlier and I found it EXTREMELY helpful.

I might run it through a second time just to see if I get similar results or if I want to tweak anything.

Even though it was requested to not share our personal top 100 here, I hope we have an opportunity to post ours later for all to see. I would be fascinated to see a few.

[KevShmev]

Once the countdown is done, I'd be fine with posting all of the top 100s or if everyone who participates wants to post them themselves, that is fine as well. 

[Revenge319]

Rather than post my Top 100 list here, I'd want to do one of those "Top 50 Dream Theater songs" threads like people used to do a few years back. Maybe I'd even go a little higher than 50. I'd have to do all the writeups, but if that's something we can still do here, I'd be very interested in making one of those threads.

[TAC]

Rather than post my Top 100 list here, I'd want to do one of those "Top 50 Dream Theater songs" threads like people used to do a few years back. Maybe I'd even go a little higher than 50. I'd have to do all the writeups, but if that's something we can still do here, I'd be very interested in making one of those threads.

Go for it!!

[Wim Kruithof]

Seven more days to allow the new album.

I'm in if they would.

[hefdaddy42]

10 entrees so far!

Eight more days for anyone to submit a list. 

I'm gonna do my best to get one in.

[erciccio]

Done and sent! I've used the engine posted above, it's the perfect tool to accomplish this task.

Keeping out AVFTTOTW is not a big issue for me, only Sleeping Giant would be in the top 50 and only The Alien, Invisible Monster and Answering the Call would be in the 100

Mine is a very I&W -centric list...

[jammindude]

I’ve run all the songs through that ranking engine twice and I have come up with some very different results. But the top six and bottom two are always identical. I’m not sure if I want to just go through it and do some tweaking and adjusting, or maybe even just run it through the engine a third time and see what I come up with.

[TheCountOfNYC]

I ran all of the songs through the ranking engine, and there’s definitely some discrepancies. The biggest one is that based on my voting, Voices placed higher than Scarred, but I definitely like Scarred more. My top 10 however is 100% accurate.

[Setlist Scotty]

Other than Nomac tracks that I cut out of The Astonishing, here is the breakdown of how many did NOT make the cut from each album:

Reading through this thread again, I saw this post from Bosk and decided to figure out the balance from my list, too. It ended up as
-WDADU:  1
-I&W:  2
-Awake:  4
-FII:  5
-SFAM:  4
-6 Degrees:  1
-TOT:  2
-8VM:  1
-SC:  2
-BCSL:  0
-ADTOE:  3
-DT12:  2
-TA:  23
-D/T:  3
-non-album tracks:  13

Aside from TA, I think it ended up pretty balanced, too - more than I anticipated.

BTW, Bosk in your post you listed non-album tracks as just 1 that didn't make the cut - did you really mean that you only picked 1 non-album track, or did you actually include 24 of the 25 in your list? methinks you probably only picked 1.

[jammindude]

One of the things I discovered in putting this list together was how much I enjoyed some of the individual pieces from the astonishing more than I remember.

I’ve always had trouble digesting the massive scope of the astonishing and by the end of 100 minutes it’s all starting to sound a bit blended and same-y.

But when I was going through the ranking engine, I had my music playing program up in another window and I would be constantly referring back to certain tracks thinking, “which one was that again?” and subsequently thinking, “Wow! That’s a lot cooler than I remember.”

I’ve probably gone back-and-forth on the astonishing more than any other album in their catalog. When it first came out I absolutely loved the bravado of the project. But then it didn’t age well because I didn’t think that the individual pieces felt incomplete. But now that I’m getting more familiar with the individual pieces and seeing how they fit into the bigger picture (no pun intended) i’m getting a new appreciation for it again. Still think it’s a lower tier album though

[bosk1]

BTW, Bosk in your post you listed non-album tracks as just 1 that didn't make the cut - did you really mean that you only picked 1 non-album track, or did you actually include 24 of the 25 in your list? methinks you probably only picked 1.

Yeah, now that you mention it, that was a mistake on my part.  I think I pared down my initial list to include only 4 or so non-album tracks, and of those that I left on there to be ranked, only 1 didn't make the cut.  Sorry for the confusion.  I misspoke.

[425]

One of the things I discovered in putting this list together was how much I enjoyed some of the individual pieces from the astonishing more than I remember.

I’ve always had trouble digesting the massive scope of the astonishing and by the end of 100 minutes it’s all starting to sound a bit blended and same-y.

But when I was going through the ranking engine, I had my music playing program up in another window and I would be constantly referring back to certain tracks thinking, “which one was that again?” and subsequently thinking, “Wow! That’s a lot cooler than I remember.”

I’ve probably gone back-and-forth on the astonishing more than any other album in their catalog. When it first came out I absolutely loved the bravado of the project. But then it didn’t age well because I didn’t think that the individual pieces felt incomplete. But now that I’m getting more familiar with the individual pieces and seeing how they fit into the bigger picture (no pun intended) i’m getting a new appreciation for it again. Still think it’s a lower tier album though

I had a very similar experience. I went back through The Astonishing because it's the only Dream Theater album that I can't rank off the top of my head, in part because it has some many songs, but also because the songs really do combine into a unified whole more than on any other album. My view going into it had been that I probably wouldn't have many TA songs high on my list because they're weaker individually, so I was surprised by how many I just found to be really good songs on their own.

I've been in what seems to be an unusual camp: Neither a hater nor a lover of The Astonishing. I've also gone back and forth on it, liking aspects of it while disliking others. I think going back through it with the mindset of trying to find my favorite individual pieces has finally turned me into an Astonishing fan. It's never going to be among my favorite DT albums, but I definitely have a very positive view of it now.

I also arrived at the conclusion that the story is better than people typically give it credit for being. It has its problems, but it features a cast of characters who grapple with important choices in a dramatic way, and it brings all the storylines together into a climactic scene. It's also pretty clear what's happening the whole time, which is more than can be said for many rock operas. I'd give it around a B+ as concept album storylines go.