10 Most Ambitious Rock Albums Ever Made

Whenever you get into a Dream Theater release, it always helps to do your musical homework. The amount of flashiness and finesse that each of these musicians has is enough to leave your head spinning after just one song. It seems that these guys could play every note known to man, but Mike Portnoy was the one who suggested they actually test that theory.

Seeing the band's album releases corresponded with an octave on a keyboard, Portnoy proposed that the band create an album that spanned the entire musical spectrum. While the actual style of the music is still pure prog, the actual execution was meticulously crafted to include every single note. Across every track, each song is in a different key, slowly ascending up the octave until we reach the resolution at the end of the album.

To compensate for the sharp and flat notes, the band had specific interludes laced throughout the runtime which cover the more unconventional note selections. For as convoluted a plan as this sounds, the band go through their entire musical vocabulary and still manage to keep the soulful element of their playing refined. Dream Theater were already known as one of the most complex collectives in hard rock, but Octavarium was where they became the wise sages of prog.