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Can someone verify this with me? When Dream Theater acquired Jordan Rudess, did they take on a more cinematic, and sometimes "broadway show-tunes" feel in their music? Kevin Moore seemed more to be in what Neil Peart called a "rigid mathmatical confinement".

Whats your pick for the worst DT album to date?

The Master of Puppets tribute album.
I can't stand the vocals on it. The rest was quality though.

Train of Thought? There was an interactive CD-ROM with that album. I watched it and they recorded that album in 6 weeks...wrote and recorded.
It was a let down. Octavarium, was a nice follow up.

The best DT/Jordan CD (in my opinion) is "Scenes from a Memory". "Octavarium" and the others have good tracks here and there. The worst has got to be "Falling into Infinity". I've kinda lost interest in DT. I've been listening more to Kevin Moore's OSI (w/ Mike Portnoy on drums & Jim Matheos - Fates Warning - on guitar) and Neal Morse.

I personally prefer JR to Kevin Moore or Derek Sherinian. I would say that my least favorite album is Falling Into Infinity, but it definitely still has a few great songs.

Favorite DT album has to be Images and Words

i would say metropolis part 2 is their crown jewel.they are by far the most amazing musicians ever assembled in the same band.they should win grammys every year,but thanks to modern trends that will never happen

Andragon wrote:The Master of Puppets tribute album.
I can't stand the vocals on it. The rest was quality though.

HERE,HERE!

Out of the studio albums, I'd consider Falling Into Infinity the biggest disappointment to date (now, I know another DT fan who will say Train of Thought, but I actually liked quite a bit of that album, despite the lack of keyboards).

Now, that said, Dream Theater's disappointments are still pretty darn good. I love three songs off that album: New Millennium, Hell's Kitchen/Lines in the Sand, and Trial of Tears.

My brother in law (who is also a DT fan) and I often talk about how good Falling Into Infinity could have been had DT put the goods songs off Cleaning Out The Closet (like Raise the Knife, To Live Forever, etc.). Raise the Knife was supposed to be on Falling Into Infinity anyway... darn it.

As for Rudess - I think DT really evolved once Rudess came into the band. It was like, before Rudess they were a great prog band with great musicians. And after Rudess, they became a great songwriters and composers, which just added to their greatness. Everything became better - more elaborate, more thematic, more sophisticated. And I think Scenes from a Memory, Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence, and Octavarium bear that out.

Falling Into Infinity was probably not their best work, but still had a few decent tunes on it.
Rudess did take the band in a different direction. Towards a heavier sound with crazy synths, because he is an amazing musician. They really are a progressive band; constantly changing and developing different music, with no one size fits all description. I can see what you mean by the Broadway sound, kind of evident in albums like S.D.O.I.T. where it tells a sort of story over the course of scenes and degrees.
But they really cease to disappoint, great musicians that are very creative with their work. No matter what they throw out, it's usually worth a listen.

it doesn't get much better than "as i am"

yes, it does. "Never Enough", "Metropolis pt. 1", "6:00", ....

Images And Words, but evrything I have heard of theirs is great, I have a special edition dvd of theirs that I just love it is called;
Metropolis 2000 Scenes From New York it has some bonus tracks like A Mind Beside Itself, Erotomania II, Voices III, The Silent Man, Learning To Live (kicks arse), Change Of Seasons, the audio quality on this dvd is very high and thats one of the reasons I like this one the most I have most of their dvd's but the audio quality on most of them is not as good.

DT really is Petrucci.... in terms of the songs. Infinity was probably not their greatest effort but lets face it.... their worst is better than most bands best. You know what I mean by "most" so please don't rant. Kevin is an asshole no matter how good of a player he is. Jordan is a far more important member than Kevin ever was. DT is amazing and I have been listening to them for 18 years.

One of my son's has been listening to them his whole life. Check out his Erotomania solo: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rMetv1WkuIo here is his other stuff: http://www.myspace.com/theomerta http://www.myspace.com/joeyariemma

Oh and one more thing, John Myung is the monster that rarely gets any credit. He wouldn't say sh*t if he had a mouthful but he is the most incredible groove machine ever.

Peace.

Kevin is an asshole no matter how good of a player he is. Jordan is a far more important member than Kevin ever was.

In your opinion. But you can't judge a band on how one of the members is an asshole or not. There are many of them out there... Gene Simmons, Phil Collins, Yngwie Malmsteen,... (all of whom I admire despite their egos).

Personally, I prefer the Kevin-era DT, as well as Kevin's other projects: Chroma Key and OSI.