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

[Ben_Jamin]

The “reveal party” afterwards is going to be so much fun!!

Just to touch on this a little, once I start the countdown, as I list each song, I do plan to list how many top 100s it made, who ranked it the highest and where, top 10 finishes, etc.  Just fun little facts like that should make it a bit more interesting hopefully, rather than just listing the song and moving on. 

Now that sounds intriguing...

[Wim Kruithof]

I keep coming back to this thread 'cause I am so curious were it would go. By Christmas '22 a View would be counted in and I probably shall give it a ferm shot. But 'till then I am looking forward to see the top 100 of you'll...

[TAC]

I keep coming back to this thread 'cause I am so curious were it would go. By Christmas '22 a View would be counted in and I probably shall give it a ferm shot. But 'till then I am looking forward to see the top 100 of you'll...

I counted it in my countdown. I'm pretty confident in its standings. And I also broke up 6 D's. But since Kev won't allow them, I'll back them out and add in the ones that actually missed out on the list.

[Wim Kruithof]

I keep coming back to this thread 'cause I am so curious were it would go. By Christmas '22 a View would be counted in and I probably shall give it a ferm shot. But 'till then I am looking forward to see the top 100 of you'll...

I counted it in my countdown. I'm pretty confident in its standings. And I also broke up 6 D's. But since Kev won't allow them, I'll back them out and add in the ones that actually missed out on the list.

Now you got me thinking I might give it a shot this eve’.

[Elite]

I used the ranking tool shared a couple of pages back and while the top 25 or so wasn’t surprising to me, some of the lower rankings are quite … curious, I suppose. But I settled with it, because ultimately when I looked at it, I thought it was pretty accurate nonetheless.

[Dream Team]

The “reveal party” afterwards is going to be so much fun!!

Just to touch on this a little, once I start the countdown, as I list each song, I do plan to list how many top 100s it made, who ranked it the highest and where, top 10 finishes, etc.  Just fun little facts like that should make it a bit more interesting hopefully, rather than just listing the song and moving on. 

Now that sounds intriguing...

Wow going the extra mile! Looking forward to getting teased for my eclectic picks  .

[KevShmev]

It's a small sample size obviously, but some of the results so far, just by eye balling them, are a bit surprising to me.  No spoilers yet, but there is a song that has been no worse than a top 20-25 DT song in my eyes for nearly 25 years now and it might have a hard time even making the top 100 here.  That is just shocking to me.

[Elite]

Curious to know which song that is!

[TAC]

Sent!

I had 5 View songs plus Solitary Shell listed, but I removed them, bumped everything else up, and added #101-106 to the list.

I ran the Ranker twice.

[Wim Kruithof]

me too. Probably on Falling Into Infinity, I would say.

[NoFred]

In. Used an Elo ranker too, with A View and 6D songs, then substituted them out as requested.

The ranking tool gave me some surprises, a few things I wouldn’t expect especially outside the top 20.

[KevShmev]

Just a reminder to anyone submitting last minute ones today to please number them 100-1 or 1-100 when you PM me, that way I do not lose my count when transferring your picks to Excel.

[Wim Kruithof]

Just pm'ed you my list. Still being new in the Dream Theater world I would probably change the list on several places if you would ask me a couple of months later, but for now I feel it does the job fine. I might give the Astonishing a little more credits than I would in a couple of years or so, but that's for being deep in the novel and all, at this moment.

Only the top 4 would be craft in concrete and probably stand there forever. But beneath those, there will be a variety at any given moment.

[wolfking]

Did anyone else not use the ranker thing?  I literally just went through and listed songs 1-100.  Not much got altered on the way through either.

[Ben_Jamin]

Did anyone else not use the ranker thing?  I literally just went through and listed songs 1-100.  Not much got altered on the way through either.

I didn't use it.

[Cool Chris]

I used the ranking engine. Afterward I reviewed the top 20 and decided a couple songs could be switched up a small bit, but overall it looked pretty solid. A quick scan of 26-100 looked alright aside from a few songs that seemed out of place. For someone who doesn't enjoy ranking anything, that engine was a fun exercise.

[geeeemo]

Just sent mine.

It was fun to listen to some songs/albums that I haven't listened to in a while. Biggest take aways.
The Astonishing is still great.
I should listen to 6 Degrees more.
Falling into Infinity I enjoy more overall than SC, Images, Awake, ToT and DT.
They need to make more Christmas music.

[Cool Chris]

Some of those songs were hard to rank when viewed in a vacuum. Vacant wouldn't rank that high for me, but it is the perfect song in the perfect place on ToT, for example.

[jammindude]

I think I can safely say that the album that benefited the most from a re-listen was TA. But the song that benefited the most was TMOLS. I generally think that SC is pretty terrible, so I almost never spin it. But when pitting “song vs. song” I had to go back and re-listen to things I hadn’t heard in ages. And I actually really enjoyed TMOLS quite a bit! So it shot up in my ranking a lot.

[TAC]

I think I can safely say that the album that benefited the most from a re-listen was TA. But the song that benefited the most was TMOLS. I generally think that SC is pretty terrible, so I almost never spin it. But when pitting “song vs. song” I had to go back and re-listen to things I hadn’t heard in ages. And I actually really enjoyed TMOLS quite a bit! So it shot up in my ranking a lot.

Good on both!

[KevShmev]

I don't think SC is terrible, but it's definitely the least best of the bunch.  I originally had 3 from it in my top 100, but redid it this weekend by using that ranking engine and ended up with just 1 in there now (at 92 ).

I guess in my own mind I underrated Disappear and Ravenskill. Both of those made big jumps in the rankings engine.

[TAC]

Disappear and Ravenskill are great tunes.

I personally feel that the 6D's album is brutally overrated.

[Cool Chris]

I personally feel that the 6D's album is brutally overrated.

Based on a quick check:

6D has 3 songs in my Top 20, another in the Top 40, and 2 that didn't make the Top 100. 

SC has 2 songs in my Top 20, another 2 in the top 50, and 3 that didn't make the Top 100.

I don't know if any other album has songs that high and low on the spectrum as those two albums do.

[Wim Kruithof]

I think I can safely say that the album that benefited the most from a re-listen was TA. But the song that benefited the most was TMOLS.

The Ministry of Lost Souls is my favorite of Systematic Chaos, I ranked it at 17 in my top 100. Beautiful piece that is.

[Wim Kruithof]

I've made the top 100 only from official studio albums and the EP. Simply because all those other beauties like Eve or Another Won and so on, didn't digest properly enough. There is just too much Dream Theater to discover in just a few years. A quick sum-up of the songs that made it to the list, in album order...

When Dream and Day Unite - 6
Images & Words - 6
Awake  - all 11 are listed
A Change of Seasons - 1
Falling Into Infinity - 6
Scenes From a Memory - 8
Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence - 5
Train of Thought - all 7 are listed
Octavarium - 7
Systematic Chaos - 6
Black Clouds & Silver Linings - 5
A Dramatic Turn of Events - 5
Dream Theater - 6
The Astonishing - 15
Distance Over Time - 6

Only with Awake and Train of Thought they all made it into my list. My top 10 is filled with Awake (twice) / A Dramatic Turn / Train of Thought / Six Degrees (twice) / Black Clouds / Change of Seasons / Dream Theater and Octavarium.

[425]

I personally feel that the 6D's album is brutally overrated.

I've been singing this tune for years. It's a good album, but it's definitely bottom half of their discography. People praise it for being experimental, but many of the experiments do not work, IMO. I included a lot of the songs, but the majority of them are in the bottom of half of my list.

I just finalized and submitted my list, hopefully right under the wire. Doing some album-count stats seems interesting, so I'll toss mine out there:

WDADU: 5 (out of 8)
IAW: 8 (out of 8)
Awake: 10 (out of 11)
FII: 6 (out of 11)
SFAM: 10 (out of 12)
SDOIT: 5 (out of 6)
ToT: 6 (out of 7)
8VM: 5 (out of 8)
SC: 4 (out of 7)
BC&SL: 4 (out of 6)
ADTOE: 8 (out of 9)
DT12: 5 (out of 9)
TA: 16 (out of 29 non-NOMAC)
DOT: 4 (out of 9)
Non-album: 4

Ranking these by percentages is interesting. It approximately matches up with how I'd rank the albums in consistency, as you'd expect, while overrating some albums (SDOIT) and underrating others (FII) in terms of how I'd rank them in overall preference:
1. IAW: 100%
2. Awake: 91%
3. ADTOE: 89%
4. ToT: 86%
5. SFAM: 83%
5. SDOIT: 83%
7. BC&SL: 67%
8. WDADU: 63%
8. 8VM: 63%
10. SC: 57%
11. DT12: 56%
12. TA: 55%
13. FII: 55%
14. DOT: 44%

[Wim Kruithof]

People praise it for being experimental, but many of the experiments do not work, IMO.

I would have loved it if they released the Six Degrees piece as an EP. Than it would be at the top of my list for sure. But five total individual tracks (at this album at least) including the Twelve Step suite-opener... and then a masterpiece like Six Degrees, it doesn't work for me, in a way.

[Elite]

I’m pretty sure that I have all the songs from Images & Words, Awake and SDOIT on my list and only the obvious ones from SFAM (Regression and Through My Words) are missing.

[KevShmev]

Thanks again to everyone who participated and send their top 100s. 

No more submissions will be allowed.

I will now begin the arduous task of tallying them all up.  

I suspect I should be able to start the countdown by Thursday.

[Elite]

Thanks in advance

[geeeemo]

Thank you for doing this!

[hefdaddy42]

Shit

[jammindude]

 

[HOF]

I used the ranking engine, and that worked pretty well except it somehow spit out Lines in the Sand at like 30 something. I ended up ranking it number 2. I think I just had a brain fart and picked something else over it by mistake at some point. I feel pretty certain about my top 10 being the top 10, but I'm not sure I'd give you the same order if you asked me again next week. Could probably say the same for the next 15 songs or so.

Also, I bet I'm the only person with The Way It Used to Be in their top 10, but it's one of the DT songs I listen to most often these days, really.

[425]

The “reveal party” afterwards is going to be so much fun!!

Just to touch on this a little, once I start the countdown, as I list each song, I do plan to list how many top 100s it made, who ranked it the highest and where, top 10 finishes, etc.  Just fun little facts like that should make it a bit more interesting hopefully, rather than just listing the song and moving on. 

I forgot to say in my last post that I think this should be really interesting. I have five songs where I think I'm a reasonable contender for highest placement (not including my #1, because it's a given that I would be at least tied for that, and it's a fairly popular choice). I'm looking forward to seeing how many of those pan out, and what other songs end up unusually high on some people's lists.