Dream Theater is a progressive metal band from Boston whose albums we have been told to rank, and let us tell you, we sure as shit are not going to listen to all 16 of them. Huh uh. Not gonna happen. Here’s a chronological ranking of their discography so we can technically say we did the job that was assigned to us. Sorry if you were expecting something different.
- “When Dream and Day Unite” – 1989
Coming in at Number 1 is their debut. What more can we say about this album other than the fact that it’s the first one they released, and therefore fully deserving of the top spot in our ranking?
- “Images and Words” – 1992
This one has “Pull Me Under”, which might honestly be the only Dream Theater song we’ve ever listened to. That should count for something, right? We believe it should, so it gets the silver medal!
- “Awake” – 1994
Jesus, that cover art looks like a high school Algebra textbook or some bullshit. There’s no way this band has actual fans.
- “Falling Into Infinity” – 1997
Dream Theater’s fourth album, chronologically, is the only one to feature keyboardist Derek Sherinian, according to Wikipedia. Do you find that interesting? Neither do we. Ugh, we have like 12 more of these to go.
- “Metropolis Pt. 2: Scenes from a Memory” – 1999
Just typing that album title pissed us off. Do us a favor and complain in the comments that we should write more about punk, and hopefully our editors will notice.
- “Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence” – 2002
Whoa, did they know it was their sixth album when they named it that? This is honestly the least uninterested we’ve been since we started the article.
- “Train of Thought” – 2003
Let us know if you’ve heard this one and it had long, wanky instrumental interludes that put you to sleep, not that we give a shit. Would’ve served you right for listening to them in the first place.
- “Octavarium” – 2005
Seriously, what’s with Dream Theater and the high school math textbook-ass album art? What’s their record label, McDougal Littell?
- “Systematic Chaos” – 2007
Now that’s a Megadeth-sounding title if we’ve ever heard one. God, we wish we had been assigned a “Rust in Peace” album review or something.
- “Black Clouds and Silver Linings” – 2009
We’d look up the meanings of these covers if we cared, but we couldn’t be less interested in what an elephant standing on a stack of books in space is symbolism for.
- “A Dramatic Turn of Events” – 2011
Only five more to go after this, thank Christ.
- “Dream Theater” – 2013
Sooooo edgy for them to finally have a self-titled 12 albums in, right? We bet they patted themselves on the back with a lengthy, over-produced keyboard solo.
- “The Astonishing” – 2016
Oh, fuck all the way off with that title.
- “Distance Over Time” – 2018
That’s actually kind of a cool album cover, or maybe our dispositions are just starting to brighten knowing we’re almost finished with this goddamn list.
- “A View From the Top of the World” – 2021
Coming in at Number 15 is this album whose title we’re not even going to bother to type out again because we’re so checked out!
- “Parasomnia” – 2025
You know what? We’re actually going to listen to this to celebrate the end of the article. It probably sucks so—you know what? This isn’t that bad. Fuck. Maybe we should go back and rank these albums for real. Sorry we’ve been so negative this whole time.
