GREATEST HIT (...AND 21 OTHER PRETTY COOL SONGS)

This is what you get when you infuse a relatively non-commercial band with an incredibly profit-based compilation. Dream Theater is a band where the concept of a Best Of compilation would receive flak and criticism regardless of how effective the compilation actually was at encapsulating the work ... Read moreof this band's great career. However, the compilators fail so greatly at doing the band justice, this disc should not, and cannot get more then one star.

Dream Theaters fanbase is quite hardcore in nature, and devoted. Therefore, naturally everyone would have differing opinions about which songs are worthy of being 'the best.' Obviously in accordance with the disc's title, Dream Theaters single hit 'Pull Me Under' would definately need to be in here somewhere. But where are the songs that are widely considered to be their true greats? Songs such as 'Ytse Jam,' 'Metropolis Pt. I,' and 'Learning to Live' should be here. Are they? Nope.

What you get is a smattering of Dream Theater's most commercial songs. In my personal opinion, as far as the song choice goes, alot of these are ironically some of their worst songs. If theres enough room to put remixes and radio edits (radio edit, haha!) on the two discs, I'm sure they could have found a way to put some of the longer, more memorable tracks on here.

Instead of selling out and shamelessly fulfilling uninspired contracts, they could have put their most brilliant, loved moments onto some CDs and gained alot of fresh fans in the process.

In the matter of 30 seconds, I could have made a Dream Theater compilation that I'm sure could widely be considered much, much better than the official release, and much more representative of Dream Theater's actual talent.

For a group as amazing and creative as Dream Theater, I think a much better compilation should have been made. There was definate potential; Mike Portnoy even stated that there was going to be a 3rd disc called 'the Epic Side' consisting of the band's progressive material. However, what we are truly left with is a halfhearted attempt to gain more fans, and make money off of those so attached to the band as to buy whatever this band releases. Shameless.

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