General fan vibe during the Blaze days

I took the liberty to make some slight changes.
Jer said:
I think a big part of the issue was the inevitable comparison between Maiden's output and Bruce & Adrian's output during the same timeframe. For many people, 1995-1998 showed Bruce & Adrian putting out some of the strongest work of their career (minus Psycho Motel's State Of Mind) while Maiden put out some of the weakest work of theirs. This, combined with Blaze's performance issues and poor album sales, made late 90s Maiden look like a shell of the band they used to be.
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Thankfully, some still managed to look at all these records as different entities. The Maiden records, especially The X-Factor (imo) have good things on them. Naturally one has to be open for it and like it, to appreciate it. The "open" part seems easy, but I bet it wasn't for many. Constantly comparing with Bruce was in the way of good judgement for many.
Jer said:
In situations like this, people's opinions tend to be formed by either loyalty or merit. Some people genuinely enjoyed the new twist Blaze brought to the group, and they liked the dark vibe on The X Factor. Some people didn't like Blaze very much, but they were loyal Iron Maiden fans, so they actively defended the choice and tried to find ways to enjoy the new music anyway. Some A lot of people hated Blaze irrationally because they were loyal Bruce fans and he wasn't Bruce, and those people would have rejected him regardless of how well he sang. And some people like myself gave Blaze a fair shake, but were heavily disappointed by his performance and couldn't find a way to enjoy most of the new material.
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Imo (dis)liking these albums does not purely need to be connected only to Blaze('s performance). There's a lot of music on there as well. If a big deal of the music (and e.g. a fair share of the vocals e.g. without offkey moments) is appreciated, an album as a whole can be appreciated as well, when focusing on its own identity.
 
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There’s a lot of music I enjoy in spite of mediocre or even bad vocals, but the voice of a band usually makes the largest impression so I understand how adjusting to that can be difficult (especially when you’re following one of the greatest rock vocalists of all time). To that end, there were some issues with the Blaze albums other than the vocals but, because the vocals are the most noticeable, that’s what people latch on to. I wonder what the reaction to Blaze singing Brave New World would’ve been, for example.
 
The main problems I have with the Blaze albums were

a) They just did not sound as good (the last 2 with Bruce suffered from this as well) as prior albums... it got better with BNW
b) His voice is okay .. but gets monotonous after a while. In LP terms, he is good for a side, maybe 2 at most .. but it is hard to listed to X-Factor all the way through


There were some really good songs on those two albums, better than the prior 2 Bruce albums, better musically ... but the vocals just limit the albums.


I have nothing against Blaze, he seems like a good guy .. I wish him nothing but the best, but I just do not like his voice all that much. It is really as simple as that. It surely did not help that he had to follow one of the best rock/metal singers and frontman of all time .. but nothing he did in Wolfsbane or post-Maiden tells me he is nothing but a run of the mill singer .. which sounds worse with a band like Maiden that generally has some pretty epic music.

All that said, I am glad Maiden did not go for obvious Bruce clones, I think that would have been worse and I am sure there was a thought of pulling Maiden in a somewhat different direction and beyond anything related to talent ... I am sure Steve was looking for someone to commit to the long haul so they did not end up having a revolving door of singers. Which again goes back to Blaze being a nice guy, the band seems to be genuinely fond of him. But in a way, that really worked against Maiden, a more confrontational personality (within reason) might have been what they needed
 
Mosh said:
There’s a lot of music I enjoy in spite of mediocre or even bad vocals, but the voice of a band usually makes the largest impression so I understand how adjusting to that can be difficult (especially when you’re following one of the greatest rock vocalists of all time). To that end, there were some issues with the Blaze albums other than the vocals but, because the vocals are the most noticeable, that’s what people latch on to. I wonder what the reaction to Blaze singing Brave New World would’ve been, for example.
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And remember that four of the songs on BNW were actually written for VXI and it's noticeable (to various degrees) that they were written with Blaze's voice in mind. I think Blaze would have sounded fantastic doing Dream of Mirrors.
 
Well with those 4 and some stuff that ended on Silicon Messiah the third Maiden record with Blaze might have good songs on it.
Why just saying good songs? Because it was Dickinson who demanded that Maiden return to working with a high-profile producer in high-profile studios. The drums are immense on BNW compared to VXI.
 
Did Bruce demand high profile? I thought he just wanted a proper producer and a proper studio instead of Steve trying to do it himself in his shed.
 
Black Abyss Babe said:
Did Bruce demand high profile? I thought he just wanted a proper producer and a proper studio instead of Steve trying to do it himself in his shed.
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Good idea that. I think it was pretty obvious that building a studio at home/getting into producing was Steve's own little personal interest that he sorta dragged the rest of the band into...Not saying it wasn't a good idea but sometimes you also need some outsiders to have a say or two :) I suppose also for the rest of the band - its easier for them to voice their opinion I would guess.
 
Diesel 11 said:
Fear of the Dark and NPFTD actually have some good production, though...
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They don't, or at least not as good as the production of the albums that came before them. They certainly sound better than The X Factor or Virtual XI though, but I guess Martin Birch had something to do with that.
 
Obviously when Bruce left in 93 I was distraught like most fans.
When I found out Blaze was going to be Maiden's new singer I really didn't know what to expect. The first song I heard from the X-factor was MOTE on vinyl.
Really loved it. It was so heavy but still had that Maiden stamp all over it.
Have been a huge fan of Blaze ever since he joined Maiden. The guy is a metal legend and really down to earth.
The main problem for Blaze was that was never going to be able to sing Bruce era Maiden songs live.
However his 2 Maiden albums are pretty good imho....
 
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