BTW, after we cover Black Bart Blues and Massacre (we aren't going over the rerecordings since we already discussed them during the first album), there will be a few days where people can catch up on any songs they missed and we can also talk about solo stuff as well as pre Maiden bands like Samson, Trust, and Gillan.
How familiar are you with the band post 80s? To be honest, I'm going into certain records Cold, so oh wouldn't be alone
I'll check them out, and I do individual albums outside of this thread, but in honesty, I don't know how many people would actually participate. Hell, my Motörhead thread is going slow, and that's a much better known band than Helstar.
Only the Good Die Young Our album's narrator ends the album on a bleak note. "Is death another birthday?", "So, until the next time, have a good sin". Are we doomed to live life over and over making the same mistakes? Is there some force (supernatural or otherwise) that's just playing with us? Only the good die young, so should you just not care and indulge your pleasures while you're alive? The prophet who appeared earlier in the album failed, so maybe humanity is doomed to repeat its mistakes. The album's outro emphasizes the idea of living again and again, but subjected to forces beyond our control. Evil lives on. Musically, I think this is the weakest track. Love how it starts out strong, and there's some nice bass work. A good song, but otherwise it's a letdown to end a classic album.
I'll be there with you. Those two, Accident and Chemical, slay all the Maiden albums in the 90's for sure, and a lot of the other ones as well. Please stick around and give honest thoughts. We're about to hit the "rough patch", but there are still gems in there. I'd rather hear everyone's negative opinions than you just checking out entirely.
Exactly, nobody said you had to just love everything. The only thing I care about is that you at least like the artist, I don't give a s--- if you like the album in question or not
Gonna catch up with the thread soon concerning the last song of the album and aswell final words, thoughts and rankings. Anyways, inpired by that Bruce picture posted on page 97 by member @Smokin Chains I forgot to mention that I've liked how Bruce acted balancing on the ledge as he sang those particular lines on "The Evil That Men Do".
I love BNW aswell, it was great from the day it was released. I liked it and it was very pleasant time as I had seen them on 1999 tour and now would get new material. Now thinking, it might not be the best reunion-era album, but it's definitely masterpiece and very important one as it was the first of the bunch for that lineup.
Me too, I hope that we can run through and discuss all the albums and songs. There's no reason to go away, as the albums from 90's and onwards surely have the moments and songs aswell. I know, I've listened to them all in my lifetime a lot, but surely I think I need to revisit some of the little forgotten 90's songs more often. I also encourage people to give the albums you might not actually think to like, or if you have for some reason felt they aren't anything, to just give them few spins and time. Now, it's basically even more fun to discuss and share views of the albums and songs, where there's lot's of stuff that some people haven't overlistened at all, aren't bored or burned-out so don't necessarily have too much of a bond towards them. I might have my so called fan-glasses on, but I can honestly say that actually there ain't no bad Iron Maiden-album at all, it's even easier to see/hear if you compare the catalogue to some of their contemporaries. I'll get off my soapbox aswell and take my glasses off.
Count me in aswell and I'll be there too. Im already looking forward to reviewing NPFTD. I know that it's time for the disccussing the 90's, but I fear that we see people going away, let's stick to this thread all and participate. Like you said, we're soon going to be hitting a bit "rough patch" but of course it will get better and during those few 90's albums, there's still enough gems and great songs. Let's all be honest and give these albums/songs a chance here. Besides Maiden didn't do anything that horrible, except for few filler-songs on the 90's albums (in my opinion), nothing so bad as some of their contemporaries made. So Im gonna stay until the very end of this thread and share my views of each album/song here.. I think it would be nice if we had Bruce Dickinson Song By Song-thread here. That would be awesome but interesting too.
Only The Good Die Young: Best song on the album. Sounds upbeat despite the dark lyrics. The bleeding moon, the black sun and the Book of Life are all apocalyptic references from the Book of Revelations. It doesn't really give easy answers as to how the story ends, but rather poses some philosophical questions and opens room for interpretation.
"Seventh Son Of A Seventh Son" overall feelings of the album: Remarkable album and it's always been one of the total favorites among the catalogue. It's always had secured place in the top5 for me, not only Maiden-album. I've always loved it, my other favorites might change a bit around but some of these most precious albums just stay with me. I think Seventh Son was part of the logical continuation from the band, evolving and enhancing their soundscape and now they had used actual keyboards on their album. While some might have really had strong prejudice of how could any keyboard bring anything new to heavy metal, this album is fine proof and masterpiece of how it can be done when succeeded. I think that these last 2 albums we have discussed here have their totally own feeling, atmosphere in the sound standing out from the rest of their contemporaries. I really dig the whole ethereal feeling. Maiden did strong album after another, there ain't no weaker links but unfornately like I said there was only 1 song that felt a bit lesser (The Prophecy) but it's not that bad actually (it doesn't go to "11" like in Spinal Tap). So, to conclude, I have to say this is one of the finest albums ever from Iron Maiden and it proved to be last classic-era (80's) release from the band. There were still great times ahead. Onwards now and we face some changes as Adrian leaves the band, in comes Janick , but the changes are also evident on the upcoming albums, as H did take something out with him. Final rank for the album is 5/5 and I rank each of the songs as follows: "Seventh Son Of A Seventh Son": Moonchild 5/5 Infinite Dreams 5+/5 Can I Play With Madness 5/5 The Evil That Men Do 5/5 Seventh Son of a Seventh Son 5/5 The Prophecy 4/5 The Clairvoyant 5/5 Only The Good Die Young 5/5
Here's my rankings for the classic-era, which proved to be hard since all the albums are absolutely my favorites, all get 5/5 and are masterpieces. Really strong releases all the way, 7 great studio-albums and plus one truly milestone awesome live-album, that's one fine catalogue and one fine consistent output. Feels wrong to put Di'Anno albums so low, since they are great, especially the debut-album as it's also much better than some other competitor bands albums. I didn't put Live After Death to the list as I only ranked and concentrated on the studio-albums. I have to say that I get somewhat weird and wrong feeling for ranking the albums.. So this is now for the moment, it feels like this but as these things tend to change around so tomorrow I might give you totally different top: 1. Seventh Son Of A Seventh Son 2. Piece Of Mind 3. Somewhere in Time 4. Powerslave 5. The Number Of The Beast 6. Iron Maiden 7. Killers
1. Powerslave 2. Piece Of Mind 3. Number Of The Beast 4. Killers 5. Seventh Son 6. Iron Maiden 7. Somewhere In Time
"Only The Good Die Young", great song to close the album with, feels maybe even short song, as they could have had added further harmony-part there. I like the mixture of the melody and also very darkish lyrics. This is fairly or should I say rather straight-forwards going song without actual extra gimmicks, so there's just something that clicks with me and makes appeal. Very complete short song, it just has it all. The album ends with one of the most forgotten but also underrated Maiden songs ever. This is definitely as cool closing song for the album to what "Moonchild" was as album's opener. Bruce's vocals are again great and the lyrics are once again excellent, in fact really interesting, intriguing but also vague, not everything is clear so it's leaving lot for interpretation. Cool galloping and riffs, I like the harmonies and the solo from Adrian is great. Plus that little bass-thing, is it solo or interlude from Steve, that's great addition to the song. There isn't actually too many songs having that little bass-solo, be it Maiden-song or any other bands/artist aswell. I think it's really compact and placed just correctly. I like the instrumental section, it could have been even longer. Then the song concludes suddenly with outro and the acoustic binds it to the very start of the album. Cool bookend way to do so. Nice to hear little laugh there on the outro. As you hear those last sounds of the album it just makes you replay the album.. This one gets 5/5 from me.
Bruce's entire 1990's solo catalog is far and away better than anything Maiden put out that decade... and certainly still more interesting, at least to myself, than anything Maiden has produced even since he and Adrian returned; I'll listen to any of the solo albums in a heartbeat before I'll listen to Brave New World again (the latter of which remains one of my biggest listening disappointments to date, all I could think of after it was over was "what, that was it? THAT'S the best you could do???").
Agreed, I'm in for the long haul. I'm looking forward to the next few and the remainder, both good and less good will provoke plenty of discussion. Not sure I own all of the live albums (as there's so many of them,) but the studio records I have over a variety of formats.
Longtime Maiden fan here. I’m loving this thread so far, and I would be happy to weigh in on the 90’s albums. Problem is this thread is so great that I’m still stuck on page 25!
Well, once we get through these 7th Son B-sides, we're going to take a few days break to discuss the solo albums from 89-90 and also talk about the earlier non-Maiden work from everyone as well. It's a perfect chance for you to catch up!
