Somewhere in Time is an album i've been meaning to revisit. now seems to be the ideal opportunity. I bought the vinyl reissue the other year but haven't yet played it. In fact its the only studio Maiden album I dont own on cd, for some reason. Originally owned on cassette. I was never sure about the synth sound back in the 80's but saying that I love Wasted Years, Stranger and Heaven. Its the other tracks i havent heard in years and need get back in touch with. Just to give some background the first Maiden albums i owned were the first 2 with Di'Anno and Seventh Son, which is still my favourite. So going back through the 80s and buying the other Dickinson albums i quickly took this one to be the weakest of a great bunch. I need to see if that is still the case, but even now would suggest this hard to put above any of the first five studio albums. The cover is great, those 3 mentioned tracks alone are superb. I'll give the others a play tomorrow.
Listening back to Wasted Years is this the first album or video where you can see the band start to look a little more older, that last tour must have taken so much out of them, certainly did for Bruce. The lyrics of the song too. They started getting tired. Less enthusiasm, perhaps a little bit anyway. Inevitable after 5 classic albums and years on the road. Happens to all bands.
Going back to the good old days, I remember the "1st side" as being great, the rest less so. Alexander The Great is one of the epics that never really gelled with me, but I must have a sit down and a proper listen to the whole album again rather than the bits on my mp3 player......
I've missed a few days but I can't think of what I could add to the comments on the awesome "Rime of the Ancient Mariner" and Live After Death. Although I will mention that although it is not my favorite cover, I think Live After Death's album cover is one of their most beautiful, along with Seventh Son's. In LAD's case, something about the dark blue with the yellow--and it's so much better than the original "outstretched arms" concept.
Interesting as Waysted also opened for the PoM tour with Saxon in conjunction. So they opened for Iron Maiden several times. I saw them on thePoM tour. Waysted was supposed to be Pete Way from UFO on bass and Fast Eddie Clarke (Motörhead) on guitar, but it didn’t work out there that way. Charlie McCracken (Rory Gallagher) was on bass as Way had flaked out even before the recording of the album. Jerry Shirley (Humble Pie) was on drums. The first s/t album is pretty good, IMO. The singer, Dave King, does a mean Robert Plant ape.
SOMEWHERE IN TIME (album) This album was my introduction to Maiden in late '86, and so it will always be up there in my ranking. It's my favorite album cover of theirs too, thanks to all the "in jokes." I guess I never had a problem with the guitar synths, because that's the Maiden sound I "started with." Objectively, I do find this album somewhat "front-loaded." Side Two of the cassette was never as good to me as Side One. That said, the album on the whole will always have a very special place in my heart. When I got the tape, it had one of the longest fold-outs I'd ever seen, and I loved all the pictures and the zodiac signs, etc. Even the holes on the back (where the case closed) were cool. It was one of the first transparent tapes. Maiden were so futuristic! SOMEWHERE IN TIME (the song) Great way to kick off the album. Great playing from everyone. Even if Bruce's energy and morale was at a low point post-World Slavery tour, you would never guess it from this song; he is going for it. I also like the "subtle" pick slides in the chorus. "Caught somewhere"--wheeeewww!--"in ti-ime." I also think it's a well-structured tune that lasts the perfect amount of time and concludes in the perfect way.
Isn't that Fastway? The ones who did "Say You Will" and the soundtrack to that "masterpiece of cinema," Trick or Treat?
So, who did support IM - Waysted, or Fastway? Although I only ever heard their debut albums - I had Waysted, my mate had Fastway - Waysted were much better than Fastway, I thought. Side one of 'Vices' was brilliantly trashy
Apparently, both. I saw Fastway in support of Maiden in 83 with Saxon. Waysted obviously toured with them later.
Per Wiki: Waysted is a rock band formed by the UFO bass guitarist Pete Way and the Scottish rocker Fin Muir (Ian Muir) in 1982. Recruiting Frank Noon (formerly with Def Leppard), Ronnie Kayfield and Paul Raymond, Waysted signed to Chrysalis Records and released Vices in 1983. Waysted - Wikipedia Looks like Waysted did 2 separate stints on Somewhere On Tour: | The Iron Maiden Commentary | Tours | Somewhere On Tour 1986-87 | Dates and Venues |
Somewhere in Time Like @The Slug Man this was my introduction to Maiden. I also marveled at the cassette foldout. It's great artwork, even if you don't know the in-jokes. A great opener, and I like that the band was experimenting with the synth sound - it fits with the futuristic tone of the album. Nicko and Steve are seriously working the Gallop here. Love the guitar solos, too. I'm cool with the repeated chorus here, though it becomes a problem in some future Maiden songs. As for the lyrics, I take it as how we all struggle with whether our time on earth is all there is. Nobody knows if we had a past life, or whether there's an afterlife. Do you choose to live for the pleasures of the moment, or to build up karma for the next? You're caught somewhere in time/between two minds (God and the Devil). But maybe I'm reading too much into it.
I forgot to rank "Live After Death" in my post yesterday, I will give it the rank it deserves 5/5 and not going to rank each song this time.
Somewhere In Time, few thoughts of the album first. I think it's remarkable album, always been one of the total favorites among the top5 for me. It must have felt like really hard, wearing and draining afthe Maiden had done such extensive and long tour (World Slavery Tour), so it was pretty obvious that they simply wouldn't follow the same formula soon. Also Somewhere In Time was the second semi-concept album again, the album didn't have particular central theme or concept-story running through it, as it was more of very disctinct and concept sound instead. Bruce didn't have that much output and contribution on this album as he had previously penned and desired to take more acoustic-style, his songs were rejected by the band. Would be interesting to find out what it was? I could easily see and think that it must have been something in the way of "Led Zeppelin III", as it could have even been possibility to enhance their musical output wider, perhaps too wide at that point. This marks also the point where Adrian got to do more and actually showed his song-writing on purpose, writing three songs on the album and 2 of them would be singles and among the most memorable tracks. Even if Bruce was unfornately so absent on the song-writing here on this album, the song-writing is still extremely strong here, but it makes me wonder what if he hadn't thought of that acoustic-stuff at all.. I think the album is masterpiece, all the little echo added to Bruce's voice aswell the guitar-synths brings this album it's totally own charm, ethereal and distict feeling and soundscape. In some sense, I must mention here that, even if I love and like to rank Somewhere In Time so high (as much as I think it's absolute masterpiece that needs to be placed in top album) it's in little challenging place in the catalogue. When we think that the previous-album (Powerslave) was so great, ambitious album but also the one that would eventually be released after this (Seventh Son Of A Seventh Son) proved to be one of their masterworks and again one of the best ever. All albums released in the '80s are great but maybe SIT indeed has some sort of feeling of transitional-album, like @TexasBuck mentioned in his post earlier.
Apparently, Bruce did have material, but it was rejected for not fitting the band or the album at hand, as his stuff had a more acoustic vibe to it
Indeed and this is interesting really. I can't remember has this matter ever been brought up properly on any interviews, only perhaps mentioned briefly while discussing that time of the band. Also, I can't recall if he ever mentioned that any of those songs eventually became other songs on some other albums or his own solo-albums.