Official Dream Theater studio albums countdown thread! (number 1 revealed!)

[KevShmev]

Okay, time for something a little different, and a lot less taxing on me, the thread-runner. 

We will do a countdown of the 15 Dream Theater studio albums.  No live albums or EPs (A Change of Seasons) will be included.

I will count down the 15 albums in order, and they will be taken from lists of anyone who wants to send me theirs via PM. Do not post them on the forum here. Send them to me via PM.  I will take all of the lists and come up with the cumulative list and do the countdown from 15 to 1.

The rules:
-Albums must be listed from 15 to 1 in order (in reverse order), with no ties.  No having three albums at number 4 or anything like that.  DO NOT list your albums with the points total. List them in your order (I will figure out the points on my end).  Any list submitted with the albums not numbered will be ignored.
-All 15 studio albums must be ranked with no ties. Any list that lists more or less than 15 albums will be ignored.
-Anyone wanting to submit a list must do so by the end of day, Tuesday, September 20th.  I will then begin the countdown shortly thereafter.  This should give anyone and everyone time to listen to all or most of the albums.
-The list will be tallied numerically in a simple way. On each list, whatever album is at number 1 gets 15 points, number 2 gets 14 points, number 3 gets 13 points, etc.
-PROOFREAD YOUR LISTS BEFORE SENDING THEM.  Any list with the same album mentioned twice will be not be counted. And given how few choices there are in this one, I reserve the right in this thread to shame anyone who sends a list with an album listed twice or with a live album or EP listed. 

Feel free to post in this thread as well that you have PM'd me, if for no other reason than to bump this back up for others who may want to participate who may not have seen the thread yet.

This ranking engine link below works great if you have too much difficulty making one on your own. You can input all of the albums, and then you pick your favorite of every 1 on 1 matchup and then it spits out your list.

https://rankingengine.pubmeeple.com/

Studio albums to be ranked:

When Dream and Day Unite
Images and Words
Awake
Falling into Infinity
Scenes from a Memory
Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence
Train of Thought
Octavarium
Systematic Chaos
Black Clouds and Silver Linings
A Dramatic Turn of Events
Dream Theater
The Astonishing
Distance over Time
A View from the Top of the World

[TAC]

This is going to be tough. I definitely need the ranker.

[Cool Chris]

The Top 4 and the bottom 4 are easy. Came out through the ranker as I anticipated. Looking at the middle 7, I am going to have to spend some time evaluating those.

[Adami]

Sounds fun! Haven’t done one of these before but this one feels doable.

[TAC]

At least we can include AVFTTOTW in this countdown!

[Cool Chris]

Six Degrees and The Astonishing are always the two that give me the most difficulty when thinking about this. Six Degrees because I rank two of the songs in my Top 20, another two in the Top 40, and the entire second disc falls out of the Top 100. And TA is just... TA.

[KevShmev]

At least we can include AVFTTOTW in this countdown!

Yeah, I will be curious to see where that lands.  I didn't think doing the songs again this soon made sense as it was less than a year and the results would likely be extremely similar, just with some of the View... songs being dropped in, but doing the albums seemed like it could be fun.

[mariner]

PM'd you my list.

[geeeemo]

I always find this hard. How does an album rank when it has a song or songs in the top 5 or 10 of all songs, but some of the songs on the same album you just cant get into. Octavarium being a prime example.

Also. With our list, can we make any comments, or is it just 15-1.

[jammindude]

List sent!

[Cool Chris]

Also. With our list, can we make any comments, or is it just 15-1.

Just send the list. We can all comment on each album when it's revealed in the countdown. And then at the end we all usually post our own lists for discussion/comparison.

[TAC]

List is sent!!!

[Trav86]

Ah shit…here we go!

PM sent

[wolfking]

At least we can include AVFTTOTW in this countdown!

Might be better if we still leave it off. 

[wolfking]

How long til we can send?

[KevShmev]

Tuesday the 20th. I meant to put that in the title of the thread (it's there now).

[jammindude]

This one’s going to be dead easy. I can’t imagine a lot of people needing that much time. Unlike the other song ranking threads, we commonly had to put over 100 songs through that ranking engine which invited over 400 comparisons which was a process that (while fun) took HOURS. For the Iron Maiden and the Dream Theater and the Rush threads I had to book out two or three hours of time just to compile my list. This one was infinitely easier. You plug those 15 albums into the ranking engine and it just invites 35 comparisons. I was done in 20 minutes.

[wolfking]

Tuesday the 20th. I meant to put that in the title of the thread (it's there now).

Heaps of time.  Yeah won't take long.  Might be a nice excuse to revisit this fantastic band once again.

Keeping it open for this long means we hopefully we get as many lists as possible.

[Adami]

PM sent.

[The Letter M]

Submitted my list via PM earlier. I'm excited to see how this all shakes down!

-Marc.

[KevShmev]

12 lists already in a day! 

[ReaperKK]

List sent!

[geeeemo]

I need (am looking forward to) listening to all the albums. Already I have a fresh take on one I don't go to often. I am still fresh enough into this that I could have some shifting, although number one will always remain. How fun!

[Cool Chris]

I gotta give TA a solid listen before submitting. I haven't listened to it in years other than in the car or while working. I want to just listen to it with the cd booklet and nothing else on my mind.

[TheCountOfNYC]

Sent mine!

[Metro]

Sent!

[Stadler]

Also. With our list, can we make any comments, or is it just 15-1.

Just send the list. We can all comment on each album when it's revealed in the countdown. And then at the end we all usually post our own lists for discussion/comparison.

If the previous rankings are any indication, there will be PLENTY of commentary. 

I'm just excited to see what this thread's "Blaze/Promised Land" topic will be!   (Sorry, Kev, I'm just having some fun).

[KevShmev]

I'm just excited to see what this thread's "Blaze/Promised Land" topic will be!   (Sorry, Kev, I'm just having some fun).

LOL. My honest guess (and I am making this without giving anything away about the lists so far, most of which I have glossed over quickly when inputting them, so I don't have a feel for this, so I am not giving anything away in saying this) is that Octavarium will be that, as I see that being an album that I expect to finish near the top of a lot of lists and near the bottom of quite a few as well.

[Cool Chris]

I feel totally confident what "that" album is going to be. And I'm not looking forward to that discussion.

[Dream Team]

List submitted. Hardest part was how to order the Top 5, all amazing records IMO.

[bosk1]

The middle was the hardest for me.  Top 5 and bottom 4 are easy and haven't really changed in awhile.  The stuff in between I find to be really challenging to rank.  What makes it so hard to me is that every single album has stuff I really like and is really good, and there are so many factors that go into why I like certain albums.  It's hard to compare an album that has a few really strong songs and a few really weak songs (my personal taste, obviously) with, for example, an album where the individual songs are mostly middle of the road, but the album itself has an overall vibe that makes it greater than the sum of its parts. 

[pg1067]

This will be pretty easy, but I'm going to need to spend a bit more time with View and give DOT a fresh listen.

I expect the most commentary/debate will center on FII, TA, and maybe a bit on ADTOE (as the first post-MP album).

[hefdaddy42]

Sent.

[Dublagent66]

Submitted 9/6.

[Samsara]

Submitted 9/6, Kev.

That was easier than I thought it would be.