Empire Of The Clouds

How good is Empire of the Clouds on a scale of 1-10?

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    25
DJMayes said:
I am of the opinion Empire doesn't need cutting down - I'm more curious to hear what they cut out.
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Part of it was that Bruce ordered more orchestration for one part of the song and it stopped short of what he was hoping for, so they just went with what they had. Something Bruce was playing on the piano at the Paris listening session was also missed out. I've only seen a short clip up on Youtube of him playing piano so far, he was going for a few minutes before that clip was recorded.
 
I'm still amazed now that I am really familiar with this song how it doesn't feel like it's 18 minutes at all. I love the whole storytelling vibe to it - Maiden does that really well. I agree with whoever said that The Red and the Black feels longer than Empire even though it's 5 minutes shorter.
 
R101's original shed, which still stands at Cardington, Bedfordshire

Look! Bruce is also involved in a project, that concerns these buildings! read on:

RAF Cardington, Bedfordshire
"The buildings are amazing and every day you are blown away by their size and scale and their engineering," says Chris Daniels of Hybrid Air Vehicles (HAV), the current occupiers of RAF Cardington.

The site is home to two giant sheds, built for airships in the 1920s, which are now Grade II-listed buildings.

One shed housed the R101 airship that crashed at Beauvais in France in 1930 on its maiden flight to India.
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Shed 1 and Shed 2 at Cardington are protected by listed status because of their history

The R101 was the world's largest flying craft at 731ft (223m) long and had been intended to service routes within the British Empire.

Forty-eight of the 56 crew and passengers died in the crash which ended Britain's work on large airships for many years.

But airship manufacturing has returned to Cardington with HAV, which is building a new generation of airships there. Last year at Cardington it unveiled what is currently the world's longest aircraft, a 302ft (92m) airship.

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The restored Shed 2 at Cardington is used as a film studios and rehearsal space

HAV's Airlander, which was designed and built at Cardington, is full of inert helium and not explosive hydrogen like the R101.

Iron Maiden singer and qualified pilot Bruce Dickinson put £250,000 into the project, which attracted about £6m in government grants.

HAV aims to build "hundreds" of the airships, which it says are ideal for carrying large loads into disaster zones without airports.

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Shed 1, pictured during restoration, is where the R101 airship was built in the 1920s

"The legacy of those old airships is the stunningly huge and impressive space," said Mr Daniels.

"So it's great to understand the historical context, but for us it is historical."

The site is also expected to see the building of about 600 new homes, which were granted permission last year.

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The ill-fated R101 airship while tethered, readying for flying at Cardington
 
DJMayes said:
I think you are wrong in so aggressively attacking other people's opinions.

I think it is wrong to say whether it will be a classic or not less than 2 weeks since release.

Do I think the song is perfect? God knows, but I like it enough to not worry either way.
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Well, I heard a lot of people say tbis song is classic and once we discussed about it we ore or less got to the conclusion too many things could change to make it better.
 
Gk1 said:
Please someone tell me if we could have anything done differently in the structure of i.e. Powerslave or Hallowed? This my friends is the difference between an instant classic and a classic wannabe. I think it is time we take the song for what it really is. Good night and good luck.

EDIT: It is a good song with some really nice melodies but it onky takes one listen to understand there is not much attention to the structure. All I can hear is people trying to convince themselves that it is magnificent...well,time will tell to begin with but In my opinion most of us heard enough Maiden in their lives to know that I am right.
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Oh. And here I was thinking musical taste was subjective. Good to know that I was wrong :facepalm:
 
If you want to talk about structure, Empire of the Clouds is the most structured song Maiden has ever done. Second maybe to Rime. I find it surprising that you, @Gk1 , haven't caught this, since you often criticize Steve Harris' epics, usually citing either the repetition or the structure. So I understand that some of the repetition wouldn't be your bag, but going after the structure makes me think you just are just looking for things to dislike about it.

It's fairly obvious listening to a Harris penned epic that not a ton of thought goes into the structure. They have a stream of consciousness quality to them sometimes. The way TRATB trails off into this long instrumental jam is a pretty good example of this. When I listen to that song, I get the feeling Steve wasn't really setting out to write a song that long, it just happened that way.

Empire, on the other hand, has a very tight and exact structure that is dictated by the lyrics. It's very programmatic, the music is there to tell a story. There's an interview with Bruce where he talks about writing it and how he'd write one section and then ask himself "what happens next in the story". That totally comes through in the music. The S.O.S part is awesome because it's musical foreshadowing. The crash hasn't happened yet, but we all know it's coming. This is a nuance that Maiden hasn't really used before. Usually the music is tonally appropriate to the lyrics, but it never goes as far as to actually provide imagery to the lyrics like in Empire. As for the repetition of that part, it creates dramatic tension. Bruce is slapping us in the face with what's yet to come. He's emphasizing an important part through music.
 
I appreciate the fact that you guys feel the need to defend Steve and Bruce. I believe that we don't need to think in order to like a song. The ultimate judge for me had always been the opinion of the non die hard Maiden fans. Of course my friends can't speak for everyone. But there is something that just doesn't flow with both songs (EOTC and TRATB). Devil hides in the details. It is clear that these sonngs needed a bit more work. It is clear to quite a few people who did spend some time next to me listening to the album. People who don't have to think to themselves that the R101 needs to fly (or fall) so that they have to listen to the same melodies over and over and over again. Maiden have been to heights where no other band even came close. I don't think I need to be soft on them as the material they create now,although good, is by all means sloppy.
 
Gk1 said:
Please someone tell me if we could have anything done differently in the structure of i.e. Powerslave or Hallowed? This my friends is the difference between an instant classic and a classic wannabe. I think it is time we take the song for what it really is. Good night and good luck.

EDIT: It is a good song with some really nice melodies but it onky takes one listen to understand there is not much attention to the structure. All I can hear is people trying to convince themselves that it is magnificent...well,time will tell to begin with but In my opinion most of us heard enough Maiden in their lives to know that I am right.
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I think there was more attention paid to the structure of this song than 99 % of the popular music recorded in the past 50 years.
It has a very deliberate structure and all kinds of detail. Most crucially the music and the lyrics play equally crucial roles in telling a powerful story.

It's OK not to appreciate the choices made about the structure, but to say no attention was paid to the structure is wrong.
 
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Gk1 said:
I appreciate the fact that you guys feel the need to defend Steve and Bruce. I believe that we don't need to think in order to like a song. The ultimate judge for me had always been the opinion of the non die hard Maiden fans. Of course my friends can't speak for everyone. But there is something that just doesn't flow with both songs (EOTC and TRATB). Devil hides in the details. It is clear that these sonngs needed a bit more work. It is clear to quite a few people who did spend some time next to me listening to the album. People who don't have to think to themselves that the R101 needs to fly (or fall) so that they have to listen to the same melodies over and over and over again. Maiden have been to heights where no other band even came close. I don't think I need to be soft on them as the material they create now,although good, is by all means sloppy.
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What does this even mean? I know all kinds of people who dislike all kinds of Maiden songs. Does that mean The Trooper sucks?
Non die-hard Maiden fans who are very close to me love the Alchemist and Como Estais Amigos, so clearly those must be two of the band's shining moments.

I am very interested in other people's opinions and how they can help me to appreciate nuance that I haven't seen before.
But the ultimate judge for me is how the song affects me.

And the idea that those of us who are affected positively by this song are being soft, or defending Bruce and Steve — in other words being wilfully blind — is offensive.

Maybe we just like the song?
 
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So... I've heard it many times, I have been listening to it carefully... And something's still amiss. I mean, the song is good, I'm not even going to pretend it isn't. It's just a bit too long. And yes, before you accuse me of loving Six Digrees of Inner Turbulence or something, listen to this: I think 18 minutes are a bit too much for a song that is mainly lyrically driven. There is not enough various parts, musical ideas, musical story. It's mostly about the lyrics. Which is not bad, but then again, it could be a bit shorter, since the lyrics are sometimes sparse. Some parts are truly gorgeous (the hauntingly beautiful melody after the SOS, at about 7:20) and the lyrics are great (Bruce's lyrics always are). But I cannot quite go over 7 in my book. Maybe a weak 8. This in contrast to the other behemoth, TRATB, which I too wasn't that wild about at first, but which I came to love, seriously. Even the whoas grew on me, but mostly it's about the fact the 14 minutes of that one sound to me like 5 and the 18 minutes of EOTC... still sound to me like a quarter-hour. But I admit it's a very nice closer.
 
It is by all means a good song. And yes in my world it is a missed apportunity. I am sorry if I got carried away. I think it only takes one listen to understand that the song needed more work and in MY work / friend nvironment there is not one single person that disagrees with me.
 
Gk1 said:
It is by all means a good song. And yes in my world it is a missed apportunity. I am sorry if I got carried away. I think it only takes one listen to understand that the song needed more work and in MY work / friend nvironment there is not one single person that disagrees with me.
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This is my problem. How can you take something that someone put so much time, effort, and care into and be so pretentious that you think you can fairly judge it/disregard aspects of it after 1 listen? Especially for a song that long, your brain isn't going to process all of that information after the first time anyway.
 
I don't necessarily disagree, I just tend to stick with my inital impression. Some songs might grow but I most of the time can tell whether something works for me or not. And altnough I appreciate Empire I can hear too many problems with it.
 
I liked it from day one for instance. I don't have to be ashamed of that either. It's also legitimate. :cheers:
 
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I love this song since day one. There are parts that I would change for my taste but honestly a) that would be disrespectfull and b) I can find things to change in all songs. From all Maiden epics I think this is the one I like the most. Storytelling is amazing, music is great and overall feeling of the song is very interesting. After weeks I like it even more.
 
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