Dream Theater Survivor 2021 - The Finals - Round 25

[The Letter M]

The Finals
Learning To Live
Metropolis Part 1: The Miracle And The Sleeper
A Change Of Seasons

Round 24's Tie-Breaker's Results:
Metropolis Part 1: The Miracle And The Sleeper 15 (42.9%)
Octavarium 20 (57.1%)
Total Members Voted: 35

04. Octavarium
05. Scarred
06. Voices
07. Breaking All Illusions
08. Home
09. Trial Of Tears
10. Six Degrees Of Inner Turbulence
11. Finally Free
12. Strange Déjà Vu
13. In The Name Of God
14. The Glass Prison
15. The Mirror
16. The Count Of Tuscany
17. Take The Time
18. Lines In The Sand
19. In The Presence Of Enemies (Parts I & II)
20. Stream Of Consciousness
21. Bridges In The Sky
22. Blind Faith
23. The Root Of All Evil
24. At Wit's End
25. A View From The Top Of The World
26. The Killing Hand
27. A Nightmare To Remember
      Illumination Theory
29. The Ministry Of Lost Souls
      Barstool Warrior
31. The Bigger Picture
32. A Fortune In Lies
      The Gift Of Music
      Awaken The Master
35. Raise The Knife
36. The Path That Divides
37. Moment Of Betrayal
      A Life Left Behind
39. Another Won
40. A Vision

With five more votes than "Metropolis", the title track to their 8th album lands in 4th place as we reach the penultimate round of these Finals!

-Marc.

[Adami]

Metropolis.

[Shalev Amir]

Absolutely disgusting.
LtL

[hefdaddy42]

Metropolis.

[pg1067]

Met1

Absolutely disgusting.
LtL

Huh?  I think LTL is a really good song.

[CharlesPL]

ACoS

[Destiny Of Chaos]

My Ranking

1. (1) In the Presence of Enemies
2. (2)
3. (3) A Nightmare to Remember
4. (4) Illumination Theory
5. (5)
6. (8) Octavarium
7. (10) Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence
8. (11) The Ministry of Lost Souls
9. (12) Home
10. (14) Voices
11. (15) The Glass Prison
12. (18) Finally Free
13. (19) In the Name of God
14. (20) The Mirror
15. (21) Breaking All Illusions
16. (23) Take the Time
17. (25) Bridges in the Sky
18. (27) Strange Déjà vu
19. (30) The Count of Tuscany
20. (34) At Wit’s End
21. (35) Learning to Live
22. (40) The Killing Hand
23. (41) Barstool Warrior 
24. (43) Scarred
25. (44) A View From the Top of the World
26. (46) The Root of All Evil
27. (52) The Path That Divides
28. (57) A Fortune in Lies
29. (59) Stream of Consciousness
30. (62) Moment of Betrayal
31. (63) The Gift of Music
32. (64) Lines in the Sand
33. (84) Raise the Knife
34. (87) The Bigger Picture
35. (89) A Life Left Behind
36. (90) Awaken the Master
37. (99) Trial of Tears
38. (119) Blind Faith 
39. (N/A) Another Won
40. (N/A) A Vision

[TheCountOfNYC]

Absolutely disgusting.
LtL

Octavarium is their magnum opus. How it didn’t at least podium is beyond me.

Learning to Live.

[425]

How that happened is that people overrate A Change of Seasons.

[romdrums]

Depends on when you became a fan of DT.  For those of us old schoolers, I would imagine most of us prefer ACOS to 8V. 

[Dream Team]

Depends on when you became a fan of DT.  For those of us old schoolers, I would imagine most of us prefer ACOS to 8V.

Yes, and importantly ACOS is about something meaningful.

[pg1067]

We're seriously verging into the world of WildRanger the fallacy that there is something objective about all this.

"Overrated" simply means that others like it more than you do.  It's not some objectively wrong thing to prefer ACOS to 8VM (or prefer any song over any other).

[hefdaddy42]

We're seriously verging into the world of WildRanger the fallacy that there is something objective about all this.

"Overrated" simply means that others like it more than you do.  It's not some objectively wrong thing to prefer ACOS to 8VM (or prefer any song over any other).

Agreed.

[425]

We're seriously verging into the world of WildRanger the fallacy that there is something objective about all this.

"Overrated" simply means that others like it more than you do.  It's not some objectively wrong thing to prefer ACOS to 8VM (or prefer any song over any other).

Of course; I don't think my post should be read to mean that there is something is objective about my opinion. It's typical in these threads that people express their opinions in strong terms, which is what I was doing.

[Shalev Amir]

Met1

Absolutely disgusting.
LtL

Huh?  I think LTL is a really good song.

Disgusting that 8VM got eliminated, not LTL

[Eldomm]

ACoS

[Eldomm]

Depends on when you became a fan of DT.  For those of us old schoolers, I would imagine most of us prefer ACOS to 8V.

Exactly.

[Setlist Scotty]

Met1

Absolutely disgusting.
LtL

Huh?  I think LTL is a really good song.

Disgusting that 8VM got eliminated, not LTL

Last time I checked, the last poll was between Metropolis and 8v, not LtL! 

As it stands, LtL is the best of them all - yes, even better than ACoS in my book! 

[pg1067]

Disgusting is a truly odd word to use when talking about the ordering of four incredible pieces of music.

[425]

Yeah, even with my slightly harsh comments about ACOS, I think these are all top 20 DT songs, and I definitely understand how anyone could have these in any order.

[Shalev Amir]

Last time I checked, the last poll was between Metropolis and 8v, not LtL! 

Disgusting is a truly odd word to use when talking about the ordering of four incredible pieces of music.

Alright, I'll paraphrase:

It's a shame that Octavarium was eliminated because, while the other three songs are great, Octavarium is my favourite by a landslide. I like it so much that I would have jokingly used an unnecessarily strong word, such as disgusting, to convey my disagreement with it getting fourth place. I won't, though, as someone could think I was calling LtL, the song I'm voting for, disgusting. And if I did, I'd make sure to clarify I'm not calling LtL itself disgusting but Octavarium's recent elimination. I would also make sure that said clarification is worded in a way that couldn't make one think I'm "disgusted" by the fact that Octavarium was eliminated INSTEAD of LtL, as I'm aware the tie-breaker was between Metropolis and Octavarium, rather that I'm "disgusted" by the fact that Octavarium was eliminated AT ALL, AND that I was not calling LtL disgusting.


On an unrelated note, I'm voting LtL this round.

[MirrorMask]

The way your heart beats

[The Letter M]

For those curious, or who weren't even here when I did the survivor last time in 2017, the Top 4 Songs remained the same, but "Octavarium" reigned supreme and placed first back then.

What a surprise that it dropped three spots this time around, but I guess it couldn't be the winner every time. Maybe it'll have better luck when I run this survivor again, maybe in 2024 or 2025!

-Marc.

[425]

I wonder if it can be explained by a change in the voter base. I think romdrums was right in suggesting that Octavarium seems to be more popular among newer fans, and I could imagine fewer young fans participating in forums versus reddit and social media as compared to 2017.

[The Letter M]

I wonder if it can be explained by a change in the voter base. I think romdrums was right in suggesting that Octavarium seems to be more popular among newer fans, and I could imagine fewer young fans participating in forums versus reddit and social media as compared to 2017.

That's possible. Looking at some of the 2017 Finals' closing rounds, it looks like we had about 38 voters on average, so it's not far off from the numbers we've gotten this go around. I'm sure there are several forum members voting now who didn't last time, and some from last time who just aren't around now.

Looking at the third-to-last round from 2017, it ended with 39 votes, and "Learning To Live" got four more votes than "Octavarium". I think what happened was that votes have shifted from "Learning To Live" or "Metropolis", which in turn made it tie "Octavarium", giving LTL a chance to continue and forcing "Octavarium" out during the tie-breaker. Had LTL gotten four last votes in 2017, it would've tied with 8VM and possibly pushed it out of the Top Three, giving us the same top three we have now.

At the end of the day, i think all four songs are worthy of the Top Four spots, and seeing them all together here again kind of proves that point, I think. Now, it'll be interseting to see if ACOS beats out the two IAW songs like last time, or if the IAW fans will come out and support their favorite album's epics.

-Marc.

[Dream Team]

For those curious, or who weren't even here when I did the survivor last time in 2017, the Top 4 Songs remained the same, but "Octavarium" reigned supreme and placed first back then.

What a surprise that it dropped three spots this time around, but I guess it couldn't be the winner every time. Maybe it'll have better luck when I run this survivor again, maybe in 2024 or 2025!

-Marc.

It’s inevitable that the newest song of the 4 would have the most recency bias. Thankfully the years since have gotten cooler heads to prevail.

[Dublagent66]

Disgusting is a truly odd word to use when talking about the ordering of four incredible pieces of music.

You're right.  The truly disgusting part is SDOIT at #10. 

[425]

For those curious, or who weren't even here when I did the survivor last time in 2017, the Top 4 Songs remained the same, but "Octavarium" reigned supreme and placed first back then.

What a surprise that it dropped three spots this time around, but I guess it couldn't be the winner every time. Maybe it'll have better luck when I run this survivor again, maybe in 2024 or 2025!

-Marc.

It’s inevitable that the newest song of the 4 would have the most recency bias. Thankfully the years since have gotten cooler heads to prevail.

I don't get the emphasis on recency bias when to me it's pretty clear that the strongest bias at work in music discussions is nostalgia bias.

[Lonk]

For the record, the top 10 here are the same top 10 in Kev's top 100 thread (Except for Finally Free, which came out at 11 here and SDOIT took its place).

Top 100:

01 Learning to Live
02 A Change of Seasons
03 Octavarium
04 Metropolis Part 1: The Miracle and the Sleeper
05 Voices
06 Breaking All Illusions
07 Trial of Tears
08 Home
09 Scarred
10 Finally Free

[TheCountOfNYC]

For those curious, or who weren't even here when I did the survivor last time in 2017, the Top 4 Songs remained the same, but "Octavarium" reigned supreme and placed first back then.

What a surprise that it dropped three spots this time around, but I guess it couldn't be the winner every time. Maybe it'll have better luck when I run this survivor again, maybe in 2024 or 2025!

-Marc.

It’s inevitable that the newest song of the 4 would have the most recency bias. Thankfully the years since have gotten cooler heads to prevail.

I don’t think recency bias applies when all four songs were over a decade old the LAST time this was run and now are all even older. I think romdrums nailed it. Newer fans prefer Octavarium while older fans prefer A Change of Seasons. It’s similar to the Kevin Moore vs Jordan Rudess debate.

[jammindude]

For the record, I’ve been a fan since 92 (actually just slightly before the video broke the band) and I think Octavarium is their finest achievement as both an album and a song. Shame to see the best one out this early.

Met 1 by miles.

[425]

I also don't think you can apply recency bias when two things are equally recent from the perspective of the person getting into the artist. Like, I got into Dream Theater in 2012, so ACoS and Octavarium came into my life around the same time. Neither is markedly more "recent" than the other from my perspective. (For the record, I believe I heard Octavarium first, but listened to ACoS ten times before I listened to Octavarium twice.)