Quality over quantity

In a December update to the last post, I did some analysis on the total length of Distance over Time. I’ve decided to spin that off into its own post, and while I’m here I thought I would try to identify whether there truly is a relationship between album length and album quality.

Distance over… how much time?

Distance over Time’s track list has raised a few eyebrows - mostly on account of its length. The album is perceived to be very short. I’ve produced a couple more graphs, looking at how it fits into the rest of DT’s discography - both by average and total track length.

Album length 2019.png
Mins per track 2019.png

In general, people are right to be surprised! Even with the bonus track, Distance over Time will be their shortest album since Images and Words. If you buy the standard edition, you’ll be buying their shortest record in three decades, and their second-shortest overall. The next shortest (Dream Theater) is a full 12 minutes longer than the vanilla DoT - roughly equivalent to another two tracks!

Average track length is still interesting, but a less salacious headline. This album will feature their shortest tracks since… well, the last album. Distance over Time is still an outlier, but it’s one of many. Other albums with similar track lengths include Awake, Scenes from a Memory and Images & Words; pretty respectable company by any measure.

I understand why some people are disappointed - we all want more Dream Theater music! But after The Astonishing, I am very ready for a more concise statement.

Quality vs. Quantity

The next big question is - does this matter? I appreciate lots of people want longer albums, but is there any reason to believe we’ll enjoy it more?

To work this out, I’ve taken the ratings on ProgArchives.com as a relatively neutral data-set. As it’s not a dedicated Dream Theater website, we’re less likely to be oversampling a particular “type” of fan; there should be a decent mix of “casual” and dedicated listeners.

(NB: I’ve converted the numbers to percentages, so I can potentially include other rating sites in the future. Although it’s not possible to enter a zero score on ProgArchives, I’ve treated 1 as 20% and 5 as 100% for the time being.)

DT long albums.png

To quickly run through the numbers:

  • Their three longest albums are The Astonishing, Six Degrees and Systematic Chaos. Of these, Six Degrees ranks highly (3rd favourite), whereas The Astonishing and Systematic Chaos are in the bottom half. (9th & 11th out of 13, respectively).

  • Their three shortest albums have a similar split. When Dream & Day Unite is their shortest album, and also their least popular with a 64% rating. Dream Theater is their second shortest, and ranks 12 out of 13 for popularity. Only Images & Words gets a high placing, as the second most popular overall.

Since there’s a non-trivial drop between The Astonishing and Falling into Infinity, and a big drop from Awake to Dramatic Turn, let’s call the bottom four the “unpopular” albums, the top four the “popular” ones, and the rest are somewhere in the middle.

Meanwhile, Train of Thought is the longest “short” album, at 69 minutes. There’s no good cut-off for long albums, but let’s be generous and say anything over 77 minutes gets in. (This just about allows Dramatic Turn into the club!) Six Degrees and The Astonishing will get their own category.

album groups.png

The results are “conclusively inconclusive.” There really is no pattern whatsoever - the albums are very evenly spread across all the categories, and the only 2s appear in overpopulated length categories.

There are no truly unpopular mega-length albums, but The Astonishing was right on the threshold. It’s true that there’s a little bump in the “short and unpopular” category - but with four short albums and only three popularity categories, there’s got to be a bump somewhere! That could be signal in the noise - or it could just be random chance.

In short, it’s good news for Distance over Time: there’s not yet any evidence of a relationship between album length and album quality.

Albums by length

Mega-Length:

  • The Astonishing (130 minutes)

  • Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence (96)

Long:

  • Systematic Chaos (79)

  • Black Clouds & Silver Linings (75)

  • Scenes from a Memory (77)

  • A Dramatic Turn of Events (77)

Medium:

  • Octavarium (76)

  • Awake (75)

  • Falling into Infinity (75)

Short:

  • Train of Thought (69)

  • Dream Theater (68)

  • Images & Words (57)

  • When Dream & Day Unite (51)

Albums by popularity

Popular:

  • Scenes (86%)

  • Images & Words (86)

  • Six Degrees (83)

  • Awake (82)

Medium:

  • A Dramatic Turn of Events (77)

  • Octavarium (73)

  • Train of Thought (72)

  • Black Clouds & Silver Linings (69)

  • The Astonishing (69)

Unpopular:

  • Falling into Infinity (66)

  • Systematic Chaos (66)

  • Dream Theater (66)

  • When Dream & Day Unite (64)

Data TheaterRob WebsterDistance over Time