The Astonishing Revised

[lovethedrake]

Was thinking about The Astonishing and the reaction to it.  Some love it but it's mostly now considered Dream Theater's "Kilroy was here" or some complete misfire.   I loved it when it came out but I have mixed feelings on it now.

I feel like there is a good 12 song album within The Astonishing and they really did themselves a disservice by making it 34 songs.  At the time I loved the idea of so much music but there is so much bloat that should have been cut.

How does the below album look?  I wonder how the reactions would have been if it was the below tracklist:

Dystopian Overture
Gift of Music
Lord Nafaryus
Savior in the Square
Three Days
A life left behind
Ravenskill
A New Beginning
Moment of Betrayal
Path that Divides
Walking Shadow
Our New World


This topic probably took place in some form when it came out but I revisited it and was thinking about what the album could have been.

[goo-goo]

This is my playlist I created for the Astonishing. Mine was based on the music and not so on the lyrics/story of the album.

Gift of music
A better life
A savior in the square
When your time has come
Three days
Ravenskill
A tempting offer
A new beginning
Moment of betrayal
Heavens cove
Path.that divides
Walking shadow
My last farewell
Our new world
Astonishing

[CraftyCaleb2483]

My first reaction is to ask for this to be merged into the Astonishing thread 

[Revenge319]

How does the below album look?  I wonder how the reactions would have been if it was the below tracklist:

Dystopian Overture
Gift of Music
Lord Nafaryus
Savior in the Square
Three Days
A life left behind
Ravenskill
A New Beginning
Moment of Betrayal
Path that Divides
Walking Shadow
Our New World

Speaking purely about the music, I think that's good, but I think there's a couple important story moments that are completely missed with that selection. If I were to make an abridged version, it would look like this but include When Your Time Has Come, A Tempting Offer, and Hymn of a Thousand Voices.

[lovethedrake]

I guess I'm more just curious if yall think that it would still have had the negative reaction it ended up getting or if it was 12-15 songs of some of the strongest stuff it would just be considered a solid DT album.

I'm trying to think of another album that has SOOOO much good music but ultimately got trashed by fans because of product as a whole.

Sandanista by the Clash is an album that has amazing stuff but too much bloat if anyone has heard that.  Although I think that is generally well received compared to TA.

[TAC]

My Astonishing Abridged....which I would put up against any album in their catalog.
https://open.spotify.com/playlist/1vESXL238jGArSrka94iLx?si=5f2e7cb1c93e4983

This Gift Of Music
Lord Nefaryus
A Savior In The Square
When Your Time Has Come
Act Of Faythe
Three Days
Ravenskill
A Tempting Offer
The X Aspect
A New Beginning
Moment Of Betrayal
Heaven's Cove
The Path That Divides
The Walking Shadow
My Last Farewell
Hymn Of A Thousand Voices

[Revenge319]

I guess I'm more just curious if yall think that it would still have had the negative reaction it ended up getting or if it was 12-15 songs of some of the strongest stuff it would just be considered a solid DT album.

Hard to say. I think the people who disliked it on first listen would have more willing to revisit it if it was shorter, but I don't know if its reputation would be that much better overall.

In my case, I love the album as-is, so I'm pretty content with how the track list turned out myself.

[Northern Lion]

I do have a shorter playlist that I listen to, but I also enjoy listening to it in it's entirety.  It's one of my favorite albums.  And although the story/lyrics fall a little short, the music is some of the best DT has ever done.

[Pettor]

I recently listened to TA to see what I thought. One thing that came to mind is that some songs feel more like full compositions, while others seem somewhat scaled down. I understand that some lean more towards an acoustic style, but the overall feel is noticeably different. The singles were clearly more production-heavy compared to some of the other tracks. For example, The Gift of Music transitions into the lovely The Answer, and the contrast is quite stark — they just feel different. Almost like they were recorded for different albums.

Anyway, my overall feeling remains similar to before. There are tons of great melodies and excellent singing by James, but for me, it needs to be trimmed down to be fully enjoyable. Personally, I would go with a playlist similar to TAC, maybe with a couple more songs.

I enjoy the use of brass and the more texture-oriented keyboard tracks, like Ravenskill. The Path That Divides is the most standout track on the album for me—that ending melody is amazing! Also, A New Beginning reminds me (in the best possible way) of Dig a Little Deeper from Disney's The Princess and the Frog 😁

Overall, it's an interesting album. I know this might be sacrilegious to some, but I would have loved to inject some parts of the album with some Parasomnia energy and riffing. I also think the story is quite weak overall and not much happens over the duration of the album. The album didn't need to be this long to tell the story and I have a feeling there's a lot of repetition. They created a cool setting for the story to take place so maybe exploring that a bit more and having more events would have been nice.

[WilliamMunny]

Yeah, I'm all for a trimmed playlist.

In fact, once I did the legwork and made 'my' 14 song version a few years ago, this quietly became one of my most listened to DT releases.

Either a shorter track listing or a 'JP Solo album' billing would've likely worked wonders for this fan.

That said, I respect their balls on this one. The record was NOT for me, but I'm happy they saw their vision through.

After all, that's what playlists are for.

[NoFred]

I've gone with this, just over an hour:

The gift of music
A better life
Lord nafaryus
A savior in the square
Three days
A life left behind
The x aspect
A new beginning
Moment of betrayal
Heavens cove
The path that divides
The walking shadow
Hymn of a thousand voices
Our new world

 Used to have the starting and ending nomacs (they're well composed in context of the album) tracks, but those don't work when listening at random.

[Trav]

This is the version I made when I feel like putting it on. It's trimmed to 1 hour and 19 minutes.

The Gift of Music
A Better Life
Lord Nefaryus
A Savior in the Square
When Your Time Has Come
Three Days
A Life Left Behind
Ravenskill
Chosen
A Tempting Offer
A New Beginning
Moment of Betrayal
The Path That Divides
The Walking Shadow
My Last Farewell
Hymn of a Thousand Voices
Our New World

[Herrick]

Was thinking about The Astonishing and the reaction to it.  Some love it but it's mostly now considered Dream Theater's "Kilroy was here" or some complete misfire.   I loved it when it came out but I have mixed feelings on it now.

The Killroy thing was vaguely familiar to me but I had to look it up and read about it. How does it relate to The Astonishing?

[goo-goo]

In fact, once I did the legwork and made 'my' 14 song version a few years ago, this quietly became one of my most listened to DT releases.


That said, I respect their balls on this one. The record was NOT for me, but I'm happy they saw their vision through.

+1 on both sentiments. That is the way I feel about my playlist. It does rank way higher than as a full album. And as a playlist, it also sounds closer to a classic Dream Theater sound like FII.

[jayvee3]

This is the version I made when I feel like putting it on. It's trimmed to 1 hour and 19 minutes.

The Gift of Music
A Better Life
Lord Nefaryus
A Savior in the Square
When Your Time Has Come
Three Days
A Life Left Behind
Ravenskill
Chosen
A Tempting Offer
A New Beginning
Moment of Betrayal
The Path That Divides
The Walking Shadow
My Last Farewell
Hymn of a Thousand Voices
Our New World

This is pretty good in my book. I would just add "The Answer", which is short and pretty, but also has some nice themes to recur, as well as probably "The Astonishing" to round things out. Also "The X Aspect", as I think it's just a great tune. I would keep "A Life Left behind" in there, only if they expanded on it from the excellent opening into something more than just kind of going nowhere...

I actually love the Astonishing. probably even more now with the release of albums like Parasomnia. Don't get me wrong, Parasomnia is fine in its own way, but with the Astonishing, I find it still has me discovering things when I listen to it. And the beauty about creating lists such as this? In this day and age, we can do it in 2 seconds via a playlist. I'd rather have too much music with a couple of clunkers I can trim out, than an album of just a few songs, that if I don't love the direction, there's not much wiggle room...

[Architeuthis]

I like The Astonishing the way it is. Otherwise, at least Trav has the best list as he didn't omit Chosen.

[lovethedrake]

The Killroy thing was vaguely familiar to me but I had to look it up and read about it. How does it relate to The Astonishing?

An over ambitious rock opera where the general consensus is that it was a huge embarrassment to the band and should have never been made.  It basically ended Styx... thankfully Dream Theater powered through.

I really like TA so don't mistake this as my opinion, I'm so happy they made TA.

[MetropolisWatches]

Dystopian Overture
The Gift of Music
A Better Life
Lord Nefaryus
A Savior in the Square
When Your Time Has Come
Three Days
A Life Left Behind
Ravenskill
Chosen
A Tempting Offer
The X Aspect
A New Beginning
Moment of Betrayal
The Path That Divides
The Walking Shadow
My Last Farewell
Hymn of a Thousand Voices
Our New World

[hefdaddy42]

Philosophically, I object to "revisions" of an artist's work by fans after the fact.

Of course, in practice, when listening to The Astonishing, I often skip multiple songs.

Of course, any such revision that omits Chosen is a non-starter for me.

[skydivingninja]

I did something similar after it was released and my verdict was that yes, the album was better. Maybe better than the self-titled in that form, but still one of the worst/mediocre projects they'd ever done.

Kind of a shame their first huge swing for the fences since Train of Thought was such a dud. I applaud their audacity and ambition even if I don't applaud the music or story.

[Kyo]

I enjoy this abridged version a lot:

The Gift of Music
The Answer
Lord Nafaryus
A Savior in the Square
When Your Time Has Come
Three Days
A Life Left Behind
Ravenskill
Chosen
A Tempting Offer
The X Aspect
A New Beginning
Moment of Betrayal
Heaven's Cove
The Path That Divides
The Walking Shadow
My Last Farewell
Losing Faythe (I should really edit out the fake crying at the start, though...)
Whispers on the Wind
Hymn of a Thousand Voices
Our New World


I got rid of all the tracks I found unnecessary, underwhelming or plain annoying (I really cannot stand "Brother, Can You Hear Me?" for some reason). There's about an hour and a half left, so it still wouldn't quite fit on a single disc, but I think this selection has a better flow and is just generally easier to get through in one or two listening sessions than the original 130 minute release.

[Awaken]

Philosophically, I object to "revisions" of an artist's work by fans after the fact.

Of course, in practice, when listening to The Astonishing, I often skip multiple songs.

Of course, any such revision that omits Chosen is a non-starter for me.

Totally agree.  Really surprised to see so many lists that don't have Chosen included.

[WilliamMunny]

I enjoy this abridged version a lot:

The Gift of Music
The Answer
Lord Nafaryus
A Savior in the Square
When Your Time Has Come
Three Days
A Life Left Behind
Ravenskill
Chosen
A Tempting Offer
The X Aspect
A New Beginning
Moment of Betrayal
Heaven's Cove
The Path That Divides
The Walking Shadow
My Last Farewell
Losing Faythe (I should really edit out the fake crying at the start, though...)
Whispers on the Wind
Hymn of a Thousand Voices
Our New World


I got rid of all the tracks I found unnecessary, underwhelming or plain annoying (I really cannot stand "Brother, Can You Hear Me?" for some reason). There's about an hour and a half left, so it still wouldn't quite fit on a single disc, but I think this selection has a better flow and is just generally easier to get through in one or two listening sessions than the original 130 minute release.

RE: "Brother, Can You Hear Me?"– You and me both. I'm not sure what it is, but that motif really grates on me.

[emtee]

I don't have the ability/equipment to make an abridged version from my CD. I would love to give some of these versions a try though. I've given the album more than 10 attempts and I can never get through it.

[Herrick]

An over ambitious rock opera where the general consensus is that it was a huge embarrassment to the band and should have never been made.  It basically ended Styx... thankfully Dream Theater powered through.

I really like TA so don't mistake this as my opinion, I'm so happy they made TA.

Oh a Styx album. I see now. Shit right under the link for the meme on Google. If I had only looked down a little on the page.

[lovethedrake]

Totally agree.  Really surprised to see so many lists that don't have Chosen included.

Chosen is a great song but it belongs in a Disney movie and is a little tough to stomach from my favorite prog metal band when I listen back.

When it first came out I was so happy that the pendulum swung so far away from metal that I didn't mind it but now it's a little too corny for me.  When your time has come as well.

Chosen is actually good though, just not what most fans were probably looking for from DT. 

Not typical Dream Theater can be an exciting thing sometimes, but they can do it without it being cheesy. 

My two cents anyways.

[Pettor]

Chosen is the most Disney-like song — I kind of agree with that. It's a good song nevertheless. It also contains what I consider one of the cheesiest lines of lyrics ever written:

"Why have a gift
You can't embrace
When all you need is faith?"

The word "faith" in that line has a double meaning since her name is Faythe as well. It's so corny! 😁

[ariich]

Philosophically, I object to "revisions" of an artist's work by fans after the fact.

Of course, in practice, when listening to The Astonishing, I often skip multiple songs.

Of course, any such revision that omits Chosen is a non-starter for me.

Agreed in general, but this is one where I have made a slightly abridged playlist of the album. I've always liked the album, but also always found it unnecessarily drawn out. I still have the whole album in my mp3 collection though. And my playlist is still pretty substantial at around 80 mins - I wanted to keep the main narrative and some recurring themes/motifs, which I think this does quite well on the whole - but it's a much more enjoyable listen this way.

The only other album for which I've ever done a "revision" of sorts is TA's The Absolute Universe, and that was simply taking the abridged version which I generally much preferred, but adding in 3 tracks from the extended version that are missing entirely but really good.

Anyway, my Astonishing playlist is:

1. Dystopian Overture
2. The Gift of Music
3. A Better Life
4. Lord Nafaryus
5. Three Days
6. A Life Left Behind
7. Ravenskill
8. Chosen
9. A Tempting Offer
10. The X Aspect
11. A New Beginning
12. Moment of Betrayal
13. The Path That Divides
14. The Walking Shadow
15. My Last Farewell
16. Whispers on the Wind
17. Hymn of a Thousand Voices
18. Our New World

[ZirconBlue]

Chosen is a great song but it belongs in a Disney movie and is a little tough to stomach from my favorite prog metal band when I listen back.

And this pigeonholing of what a band is allowed to include in their song-writing style is what prevents many bands from branching out and trying new things.  

Personally, I think a good song is a good song, and I don't care if it fits the prescribed parameters of a band or genre.  

[jayvee3]

And this pigeonholing of what a band is allowed to include in their song-writing style is what prevents many bands from branching out and trying new things. 

Personally, I think a good song is a good song, and I don't care if it fits the prescribed parameters of a band or genre. 

Agreed, well said. Not to mention - so what if it sounds like it's from a Disney movie... There are some seriously massive and catchy songs from Disney films over the years...

[Trav]

And this pigeonholing of what a band is allowed to include in their song-writing style is what prevents many bands from branching out and trying new things. 

Personally, I think a good song is a good song, and I don't care if it fits the prescribed parameters of a band or genre. 

100%. I may "expect" certain things from them (or any band) but when bands write something out-of-the-blue and it's good, then it's good. I think Chosen is one of the best tracks on the album. I thought it was going to be a live staple the first time I heard it. I was wrong of course.

[Ben_Jamin]

Agreed, well said. Not to mention - so what if it sounds like it's from a Disney movie... There are some seriously massive and catchy songs from Disney films over the years...

Jonathan Young agrees. He has some amazing metal versions of Disney songs. My favorite is The Bells of Notre Dame.

Also, I enjoy a lot of Disney songs such as the songs on Anastasia.

So I do not have a problem at all with the cheesy sap that's in The Astonishing. I actually think it's cool because Faythe is representative of the young teen adolescent girl who feels isolated and their only escape from it all is through the songs on their music player. The Astonishing isn't just for the prog fans.

[ariich]

And this pigeonholing of what a band is allowed to include in their song-writing style is what prevents many bands from branching out and trying new things. 

Personally, I think a good song is a good song, and I don't care if it fits the prescribed parameters of a band or genre. 

This.

Besides which, there is plenty of excellent Disney music. 

[lovethedrake]

And this pigeonholing of what a band is allowed to include in their song-writing style is what prevents many bands from branching out and trying new things. 

Personally, I think a good song is a good song, and I don't care if it fits the prescribed parameters of a band or genre. 

But you took my quote out of context.

I said I like the idea of doing something out of the box for Dream Theater and I'm glad they did but in my opinion they didn't really succeed here.  It's a corny Disney song sung by a 60 year old metal singer.  It doesn't really work.

If it works for you that's great and it's all subjective of course, but the question was "why are so many people leaving Chosen out of their playlists?" and my suspected reasoning for it is because its just too corny.  If y'all like it then go for it, I find it a little hard to stomach after time has passed and those are the types of songs that generally made fans trash the album.

Different doesn't always mean good. 

I said chosen is a "great song" to be respectful to the band and I do think it's well written but if I want to listen to Disney I'll go watch the Lion King for the hundredth time.

[lovethedrake]

Jonathan Young agrees. He has some amazing metal versions of Disney songs. My favorite is The Bells of Notre Dame.

Also, I enjoy a lot of Disney songs such as the songs on Anastasia.

So I do not have a problem at all with the cheesy sap that's in The Astonishing. I actually think it's cool because Faythe is representative of the young teen adolescent girl who feels isolated and their only escape from it all is through the songs on their music player. The Astonishing isn't just for the prog fans.

That's totally cool that you have no issue with the cheesy sap of TA but it's the main reason the album has 2 stars on Rate Your Music,  most people that would find themselves listening to Dream Theater don't enjoy that stuff.

I said before, I didn't mind it when it first came out but looking back on it now I have trouble stomaching it.

Doing something different is awesome but like I just said in my other post different doesn't mean good. 

Glass Prison was different and kicked ass, disappear is different and is gorgeous and haunting.   When your time has come, act of faythe, and hymn of a thousand words don't work as well to me.

I like Chosen but it didn't age well for me and is just too sappy.

To each their own though, I'm always happy when people love Dream Theater and I was obsessed with TA when it came out despite my above issues with some of the tracks.

I'm seeing them tomorrow in LA for my 13th time and I am so freaking excited!