I figured out exactly what it is that makes Awake one of my least favorites...

[snapple]

i think youre getting a little too passionate over sound clips. they are there for a reason. some of the clips more than others but everything in the song is to paint the picture of a man so alone that he fell in love with a girl in a magazine

that's deep brah

[TheGreatPretender]

i think youre getting a little too passionate over sound clips. they are there for a reason. some of the clips more than others but everything in the song is to paint the picture of a man so alone that he fell in love with a girl in a magazine

Mostly it's that last set of sound clips that annoys me. Conan O'Brien? Ugh... I mean, it could have something to do with the fact that I don't like Conan in general. And to hear his voice in the middle of what in terms of composition is one of DT's most beautiful songs, it's dreadful.

And yes, I understand that they're there to pain the picture, but I think the song would be infinitely better without those samples.

[chrisbDTM]

in houston they say that ?

[robwebster]

I actually don't have a problem with the synths for the most part. My problem with Awake is that most of the songs are just awkward as fuck to listen to. All the vocal melodies sound out of place, the riffs are awkward, and nothing on the album seems to mesh with anything else. It's probably my least favorite DT album overall.

That's definitely my issue with Scarred - and a little with Voices, which has the proportionally longest third act in Dream Theater history, but I don't get much of that on the whole. I think, for me, my only issue is that I find it a slightly "worthy" album, if that makes sense? It's quite claustrophobic, very refined and grandiose without any real sense of fun - there's no excitement, sense of exhilaration. Even Erotomania, which I've always quite liked, I only really "got" when I saw it live, in a room full of people jumping to the beat, chanting, the riffs sprawling out of the guitar like living beings.

My least favourite Dream Theater songs are the ones, generally, that are more earnest. I find it a little... well, a little tedious, to be honest. Even the average songs on their later albums are good, clean fun - Forsaken, Panic Attack, A Rite of Passage; all you need do is crank up the volume and you're already having a good time. Great riffs, great melodies, great little packets of energy. The more average songs on their earlier albums - Lifting Shadows off a Dream, The Ones Who Help to Set the Sun, Innocence Faded... they're all so dry. That's the word I've been searching for for the entire post, actually. It's why I get almost nothing out of a song like Lines in the Sand (shame on me) but could happily listen to an entire album of Just Let Me Breathes. Why Voices is far and away my least favourite part of A Mind Beside Itself - the other two movements are absolute gems. Why Octavarium beats Six Degrees beats A Change of Seasons. Why I'd rather spend 9:30 listening to Misunderstood than Metropolis, every single time.

I recently worked out which songs would be in my top fifty - not to post it, (not least because the new album would be out by the time it was my turn and I'd have to do it again anyway,) but because I was interested in how I'd go about choosing them. And I took note everything - I've got a big text document where I logged every idle thought as I whittled the songs away. Never realised quite how unconventional it'd turn out to be. If that document ever leaked - well, I'd be chased out of here with pitchforks. Probably pitchforks with feces on the prongs, just for luck. To offer a glimpse - The Answer Lies Within made the cut, and Voices very emphatically didn't.

Dear me. This sounds like I hate their back catalogue. I don't, far from it. I'd only managed to cut eighteen songs before I was staring at the screen going "these are all brilliant, I can't possibly file this down to just fifty." The only song in this post I'd consider bad by any stretch of the imagination is The Ones Who Help to Set the Sun. It's all good. Awake's just... less good than many of the others. Also better than a fair handful. Rather more average album than most - plenty of very good songs, very few truly great ones - but it's a pleasant listen. Nice moment in DT history.

[Scorpion]

Rob, can you please, please post your Top 50? I think that I wouldn't be alone in wanting to see that (especially your write-ups).

[Lowdz]

I'm there with TAC. I&W was never going to be easy to follow and I had a very hard time with Awake for years. Some very good tracks but I struggled with half of it.
It wasn't the keys for me but the guitars. I hate the seven string. Hate it. The guitar should not be that far down. Nothing good comes of it. After the shimmery beauty of I&W guitars these low down growly beasts were in their place.
And JLB's voice doesn't fit right.

[robwebster]

Rob, can you please, please post your Top 50? I think that I wouldn't be alone in wanting to see that (especially your write-ups).

Hahahaha. As I said - fecal pitchforks!

No, alright, as you asked nicely, and as I've just done it in the last week anyway. I've not written any blurbs or sorted out a ranking - and frankly I don't intend to, whichever of these I'm listening to at the time is my favourite; the difference between a "23." and a "22." for instance is so minuscule that it'd change from second to second, let alone week to week - but here are the songs that made the cut:

- A Fortune in Lies
- Ytse Jam
- Only a Matter of Time

- Pull Me Under
- Take the Time
- Surrounded
- Under a Glass Moon
- Wait for Sleep
- Learning to Live
- Don't Look Past Me

- 6:00
- Caught in a Web
- Erotomania
- The Silent Man
- Lie
- Space-Dye Vest

- Raise the Knife
- The Way it Used to Be
- Peruvian Skies
- Trial of Tears
- Cover My Eyes
- Hollow Years
- Speak to Me

- Fatal Tragedy
- The Spirit Carries On

- Blind Faith
- Misunderstood
- The Great Debate
- Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence

- Stream of Consciousness
- In the Name of God

- The Root of All Evil
- The Answer Lies Within
- These Walls
- I Walk Beside You
- Panic Attack
- Sacrificed Sons
- Octavarium

- In the Presence of Enemies pt. 1
- Forsaken
- Constant Motion
- The Dark Eternal Night

- Wither
- The Count of Tuscany

- On the Backs of Angels
- Build Me Up, Break Me Down
- This is the Life
- Bridges in the Sky
- Breaking All Illusions
- Beneath the Surface

Rank-wise, I know Six Degrees is #50 because it only scraped in by the skin of its teeth. Among the top ten are Fatal Tragedy, The Root of All Evil, Octavarium, Beneath the Surface, The Dark Eternal Night, Peruvian Skies and Blind Faith, for certain - though they're not necessarily the top six. Outside of that? Eh, it's all good. The Count of Tuscany and The Great Debate are probably fairly low, Learning to Live and Stream of Consciousness are very very high (probably in the top ten most days, too)... I could probably come out with rough shapes. Tiers, definitely. But hey, it's all good. Getting the list anywhere shorter than eighty is "hard mode" - cutting the Mirror hurt, cutting Beyond This Life hurt, cutting A Change of Seasons hurt. (And it was the last one I did cut, #51, I left it in as long as I could - although more out of a sense of duty than anything else.) Hell, I obliterated Train of Thought, and I love that album to bits!

Anyway. Yes! Sorry for that little interlude, Awake fans. As we were.

[rumborak]

On an overall comparison of sound evolution of the different keyboard players, I find DS has made the least progress and KM the most. I totally love what he does on OSI.

rumborak

[DebraKadabra]

awake rules. every song except for Space-Dye Vest

FTFM

how dare you?!?!
my opinion was an undeniable fact

Because my opinion trumps yours.

[seasonsinthesky]

some of KM's keyboard patches do annoy me a bit, but i think the problem wasn't the actual keyboard sounds themselves, but rather the overall production of Awake. it's perhaps best described as 'five guys playing music in a decently large tin can stuffed with insulation, except the snare drum, which is in some bizarre canyon whose reverb suddenly cuts off after half a second' — sir Porntoy's arms would've needed to be enormously long to achieve that! it's DT's equivalent to ...And Justice for All: a lacking, overly complicated, and poorly-mixed followup to a classic album.

i also echo the sentiment about some parts blatantly being 'phoned in.' i think it's a major reason why i find the first three songs so lackluster and meh compared with the rest (all well-written, including "Lifting Shadows" and "Erotomania!").

and seriously: Awake being the band's best production? have you never listened to SDOIT or BCSL?!

[KevShmev]

and seriously: Awake being the band's best production? have you never listened to SDOIT or BCSL?!

Yes.  Have you ever listened to Awake ?  On a good stereo, and not on just your iPod or computer speakers?

[Ħ]

Me? Yes.

[SeRoX]

It's funny how Awake's production is described "bad" now. Well it's one of their best.

[Progmetty]

Awake sounds awful on everything IMO, it's the worst sounding DT album in any setting I've tried. CD in car, CD in high end stereo sound system or 320kb/s mp3s on iPod. I wish they'd do a remix and remaster.
That has nothing to do with how good the songs on there is of course.

[TheGreatPretender]

Awake sounds awful on everything IMO, it's the worst sounding DT album in any setting I've tried. CD in car, CD in high end stereo sound system or 320kb/s mp3s on iPod. I wish they'd do a remix and remaster.
That has nothing to do with how good the songs on there is of course.

I don't think it sounds awful, but I do with they'd do a remix of it. It's certainly not the BEST sounding.

[Pols Voice]

Awake sounds awful on everything IMO, it's the worst sounding DT album in any setting I've tried.

So it sounds worse than WDADU?

[DebraKadabra]

Awake sounds awful on everything IMO, it's the worst sounding DT album in any setting I've tried. CD in car, CD in high end stereo sound system or 320kb/s mp3s on iPod. I wish they'd do a remix and remaster.
That has nothing to do with how good the songs on there is of course.

Awake ripped in FLAC format sounds just fine to me.

[Progmetty]

Awake sounds awful on everything IMO, it's the worst sounding DT album in any setting I've tried.

So it sounds worse than WDADU?

I didn't say that! I don't really listen to WDADU so it doesn't occur to me to compare.
At least 5 Awake songs are on my regular DT playlist so I tend to notice it more. I think AMBI and The Mirror sound better on LSFNY and that's a live CD! The bass is clearer and the keyboard blends in better, it's just how I hear it.

[KevShmev]

Awake sounds awful on everything IMO, it's the worst sounding DT album in any setting I've tried. CD in car, CD in high end stereo sound system or 320kb/s mp3s on iPod. I wish they'd do a remix and remaster.
That has nothing to do with how good the songs on there is of course.

I don't think it sounds awful, but I do with they'd do a remix of it. It's certainly not the BEST sounding.

It is easily among the top 4 when talking strictly about "sound."  WDADU, Scenes and everything from Train of Thought through A Dramatic Turn of Events are not in the same ballpark sound-wise as I&W, Awake, FII and 6DOIT.

[TheGreatPretender]

It is easily among the top 4 when talking strictly about "sound."  WDADU, Scenes and everything from Train of Thought through A Dramatic Turn of Events are not in the same ballpark sound-wise as I&W, Awake, FII and 6DOIT.

It's got a very gritty, grungy sound to the way it's mixed, though. I don't like that. It almost sounds unpolished. Not quite as bad as a demo, but still, very raw. And frankly, I prefer a more polished, cleaner sound of albums like FII, 6 Degrees, etc.

[Progmetty]

Awake sounds awful on everything IMO, it's the worst sounding DT album in any setting I've tried. CD in car, CD in high end stereo sound system or 320kb/s mp3s on iPod. I wish they'd do a remix and remaster.
That has nothing to do with how good the songs on there is of course.

I don't think it sounds awful, but I do with they'd do a remix of it. It's certainly not the BEST sounding.

It is easily among the top 4 when talking strictly about "sound."  WDADU, Scenes and everything from Train of Thought through A Dramatic Turn of Events are not in the same ballpark sound-wise as I&W, Awake, FII and 6DOIT.

Don't you think you might be overlooking a technological factor?

[KevShmev]

Nope.

[MoraWintersoul]

Nope.

Well if that isn't the best response ever 

[BlobVanDam]

Awake sounds awful on everything IMO, it's the worst sounding DT album in any setting I've tried. CD in car, CD in high end stereo sound system or 320kb/s mp3s on iPod. I wish they'd do a remix and remaster.
That has nothing to do with how good the songs on there is of course.

Awake ripped in FLAC format sounds just fine to me.

It sounds fine to me too (FLAC, through new audiophile soundcard, through studio monitor headphones), although not close to their very best in sound quality. I'd probably put it 4th, behind FII, SDOIT, and IaW. And I'd put a couple more well ahead of it if it weren't for compression too. It has always sounded a bit lifeless and flat to me. And that's not because it's an "older" album. Most of my favourite sounding albums are from that same era, or older.

[snapple]

Awake sounds awful on everything IMO, it's the worst sounding DT album in any setting I've tried. CD in car, CD in high end stereo sound system or 320kb/s mp3s on iPod. I wish they'd do a remix and remaster.

[MoraWintersoul]

On an overall comparison of sound evolution of the different keyboard players, I find DS has made the least progress and KM the most. I totally love what he does on OSI.

rumborak

[seasonsinthesky]

indeed, no change in listening habitat makes Awake touch the glory of SDOIT or BCSL — even SC, blasted to the ceiling as it is, has a much higher production value than Awake.

• ridiculous snare. come on now. listen to "The Mirror" reprise at the end of "Lie" — that snare fill that ends the song is absolutely godawful because of the poor reverb choice. there's a reason gated reverb died with the '80s (and grunge)!
• speaking of grunge, DT has nothing to do with it. the "we can battle Nirvana!" attempt at rawer/darker/whatever was a poor decision. it's part of what makes Awake sound dated, while I&W is less dated (besides the triggered snare) even though it has more of the '80s production tricks.
• they murdered Petrucci's tone! all the rhythm guitars are beefy but hollowed out in all the wrong places. in addition to not being a grunge band, DT were not Pantera. (this is where my comparison to AJFA comes from: hollow guitars, ridiculously thin sound, drum heavy mix.)

ACOS fixed all of these issues-that-weren't-issues-until-they-tried-to-make-Awake-sound-like-grunge-Pantera, and then their production quality went beyond I&W with FII and onward.

[KevShmev]

Nope.

Well if that isn't the best response ever 

There was no need to elaborate.

[MetropolisWatches]

I've pumped Awake through great sound systems (many, many times) and it sounds farking incredible.

[Ħ]

It is easily among the top 4 when talking strictly about "sound."  WDADU, Scenes and everything from Train of Thought through A Dramatic Turn of Events are not in the same ballpark sound-wise as I&W, Awake, FII and 6DOIT.

It's got a very gritty, grungy sound to the way it's mixed, though. I don't like that. It almost sounds unpolished. Not quite as bad as a demo, but still, very raw. And frankly, I prefer a more polished, cleaner sound of albums like FII, 6 Degrees, etc.

I have to agree with you there. That polished sound really started with FII.

[TheGreatPretender]

I have to agree with you there. That polished sound really started with FII.

Images and Words still sounded very clean, so that was good. But I would have liked to hear Images and Words (as well as Awake) mixed the way FII was.

[CrimsonSunrise]

My problem with Awake is...... oh wait... it's their best album!!! 

A very well rounded album.

[MetropolisWatches]

My problem with Awake is...... oh wait... it's their best album!!! 

Exactly. 

[Progmetty]

I think the sound difference is a 100% technological and there's no strong or felt presence to the "polished" problem to that extent. Also the difference between the 90's sound and the 00's sound in DT albums is a matter of personal taste, nothing is better than another to be stated in a fact form.

[CodyWanKenobi]

It's the keyboard tones!

I agree. And to be honest, I'm not a huge fan of the keyboard sounds DS had either. I think Jordan is a wiz (no pun intended) at finding the best sounding tones and samples.