Awake
by Dream Theater

Album
Awake by Dream Theater
Year: 1994
Release date: 1994-10-04
Overall rank: 3,434th   Overall chart history
Average Rating: 
76/100 (from 218 votes)
  Ratings distribution   Average rating history
Accolades:
Award Top albums of 1994 (73rd)
Award Top albums of of the 1990s (561st)
Award Best albums of all time (3,434th)

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Dream Theater bestography

Awake is ranked 7th best out of 42 albums by Dream Theater on BestEverAlbums.com.

The best album by Dream Theater is Metropolis Pt. 2: Scenes From A Memory which is ranked number 807 in the list of all-time albums with a total rank score of 2,143.

Dream Theater album bestography « Higher ranked (2,730th)
Black Clouds & Silver Linings This album (3,434th)
Awake Lower ranked (4,720th) »
A Change Of Seasons

(N.B. Bestographies include all albums by an artist (and their variations), but do not include albums ranked outside the top 100,000).

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Awake rankings

Awake rankings summary
Overall rank: 3,434th | 1990s rank: 561st | 1994 rank: 73rd  Overall chart history
Calculated from aggregate positions across 60,000 charts (2 million album rankings).Help Click to see how the rankings are calculated (Last updated: 7 hours ago)

Awake collection

Awake ratings

Average Rating: 
76/100 (from 218 votes)
  Ratings distribution Help Average Rating = (n ÷ (n + m)) × av + (m ÷ (n + m)) × AV
where:
av = trimmed mean average rating an item has currently received.
n = number of ratings an item has currently received.
m = minimum number of ratings required for an item to appear in a 'top-rated' chart (currently 10).
AV = the site mean average rating.

Showing latest 3 ratings for this album.  | Show all 218 ratings for this album.

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RatingDate updatedMemberAlbum ratingsAvg. album rating
 
85/100
 !		19 hours ago FrancK  Ratings distribution  56483/100
 
90/100
 !		10/10/2026 15:51 Artem  Ratings distribution  87277/100
 
70/100
 !		07/23/2026 17:13 mizzle  Ratings distribution  1,57382/100

Rating metrics: Help Outliers can be removed when calculating a mean average to dampen the effects of ratings outside the normal distribution. This figure is provided as the trimmed mean. A high standard deviation can be legitimate, but can sometimes indicate 'gaming' is occurring. Consider a simplified example* of an item receiving ratings of 100, 50, & 0. The mean average rating would be 50. However, ratings of 55, 50 & 45 could also result in the same average. The second average might be more trusted because there is more consensus around a particular rating (a lower deviation).
(*In practice, some albums can have several thousand ratings)
This album is rated in the top 4% of all albums on BestEverAlbums.com. This album has a Bayesian average rating of 76.3/100, a mean average of 74.6/100, and a trimmed mean (excluding outliers) of 76.5/100. The standard deviation for this album is 19.2.


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Awake favourites

Showing latest 10 members who have added this album as a favourite  | Show all 25 members

Gammarus1979
mickilennial
SethGunde
svk4ever
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gas1994
spoon836
Kangoroo
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Ghostface5

Awake forum mentions

This album has been referenced 14 times on the forums, Explore the wider forum discussion to see what members have said about it.
From BestEverAlbums 09/03/2026 08:00 in Chart of the day (#5424): By fabm0
“Today's chart of the day Top 100 Music Albums of the 1990s by fabm0 () 1. by by (1992) 3. by (1999) 4. by by (1991) 8. by by (1994) 10. by (1997) 12. by (1992) 13. by (1995) 15. by by (1993) 18. by (1990) 20. by (1996) 21. by (1998) 22. by (1992) 24. by (1991) 25. by (1995) 26. by (1993) 28. by by…”
(2 mentions across Chart of the Day topics)
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From svk4ever 03/31/2026 16:00 in What album are you listening to? (cont.)
“What album are you listening to? (cont.)”
View topic (3 mentions) →

From Mercury 06/03/2023 00:46 in Rank 'Em: The Beach Boys
“I'd have to think hard. I recieved Mercury's message about a Top 100 of Metal so I'm going to work on that. In the meantime I think I've narrowed things down pretty well, so my ten would probably look like: look if you GEEZERS were calling Rush "metal" in the 80s then i find that funny and…”
View topic (2 mentions) →

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Awake comments

Showing all 5 comments |
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Rating:  
85/100
From 08/28/2012 05:17 | #49351 | TOP COMMENT Help Vote up your preferred comments and the comments with the most votes will be flagged.
This is where the first signs of "Quantity over Quality" started to appear in Dream Theater's work. Don't get me wrong - they're still one of my favorite bands - but what keeps them from being -my- favorite is that they don't trim the fat. This album, and most of the succeeding ones - clocks in at nearly 80 minutes. That's twice as long as a typical Rush or Queen album! None of the songs are truly bad, but I feel some of the ideas could've been trimmed and/or combined into suites. It just feels like it runs a bit too long.
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Rating:  
80/100
From 04/18/2013 14:15 | #73718 | TOP COMMENT Help Vote up your preferred comments and the comments with the most votes will be flagged.
An album released by a still young band and full of fresh ideas in 1994. But this was the first DT album with a full CD length (almost 80min). The next of their carrer will show that long albums filled by ten-minutes progressive songs can be really enjoyable. But a 75 min album with an average of 6 minutes a song can be disturbing.
Nevertheless, Awake is a solid album, although it is not as relevant as Images and Words.
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Rating:  
70/100
From 02/18/2021 21:32 | #266487 | TOP COMMENT Help Vote up your preferred comments and the comments with the most votes will be flagged.
Great album. Agree with the previous comments, bit lengthy and some songs could of been shortened but overall it's gotten more enjoyable each listen. Best tracks for me are: 'The Mirror' & 'Lie'.
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Rating:  
75/100
From 07/12/2025 17:03 | #310079 | TOP COMMENT Help Vote up your preferred comments and the comments with the most votes will be flagged.
Some very high moment like space dye vest, lie and lifting shadow of a dream but overall felt a litte bit too lenghty compared to my favourite DT albums (Edited)
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Rating:  
70/100
From 04/03/2022 20:00 | #283781 | TOP COMMENT Help Vote up your preferred comments and the comments with the most votes will be flagged.
Lifting Shadows off a Dream. Space-Dye Vest. Two best tracks. Prefer the progressive elements to the metal moments.
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4. Weezer (Blue Album) by Weezer
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