Images & Words or SFAM?

hard to choose - love both - Metropolis by a whisker

Images & Words

I enjoy I&W wayyy more.  Scenes from a Memory doesn't come close. That's not to say its bad though, just kind of lost interest in it

Images and Words for sure. One of my top 10 albums. I've got no problem with Scenes from a Memory whatsoever, though. I just don't think it's as good by comparison.

Scenes has it's moments (Overture/Strange Deja Vu, Home, Finally Free) but I find it to be about a 3.5/5 album. It gets bogged down in the repetition of themes, lame balladry, and lack of texture. It's funny because I actually like the ballads on Images and Words and even of Falling into Infinity. Maybe it's just that I find the soulful, gospel side of things bland in some way.

There's just a ton of layers to Images and Words, which may be chalked up to cheesiness in retrospect, but consider the sheer variety of keyboard and guitar sounds on that album. There's a lot going on, and I think Dream Theater never again made an album of songs that were composed so well for their length. They hold my attention for 8, 9, 10, 12 minutes, always offering something new the next minute.

I'm not a big fan of concept albums anyway.

Images and Words, classic DT, still one of my faves (though I was blown away by A Dramatic turn of Events).

This one is so close for me... But I think it has to be Scenes From a Memory.

jude111 wrote: Sumdeus wrote: jude111 wrote: The one with Comfortably Numb on it. is this a real thing? they actually covered it? I was joking

As a matter of fact, DT did cover Comfortably Numb. It is included on their Official Bootleg of the Whole Dark Side of the Moon (which is, or was, available through Portnoy's web page "Ytse Jam Records"). The album is a cover from the whole Dark Side album, plus an extra CD with several covers from other Floyd songs (including Sheep, the first half of Echoes, Hey You, and I don't remember, some other songs). The Comfortably Numb song is played by both Dream Theater and Queensryche together (if I remember which the other band was correctly). However, I must say they could have done a better job with the cover. First, Queensryches vocalist does Waters parts, while LaBrie does Gilmour's, while I feel the other way around would have worked much better. Then, given that they are metal bands, they might have taken the idea from "Delicate Sound of Thunder" version of the song, in which the first part is played somewhat heavier, and I feel it would have sounded pretty nice to include some even more metally riffs for that part in this version. And then, in the end, once again they might have taken Gilmour's lead on his live versions of the song, and make the final solo longer and go all whacky with Petrucci's fast guitar playing. In the end, I guess they could have done something more interesting than what they actually did. But it's been the same story with just about all the covers DT did, they didn't make the songs their own, they just made faithful covers.

Images & Words, without a doubt. But SFAM is the best thing they've done w/ JR, IMO.

jude111 wrote: I was joking

not funny man, I just had a flashback to when I first heard Korn's cover of Another Brick In The Wall and it was not pleasant! :P