The Red And The Black

How good is The Red and the Black on a scale of 1-10?

  • Total voters
    18
The Song still doesn't do it for me. After the Verses it stalls into insignificance
 
Wow! That is amazingly similar! Too cool!

Also, this one still stands as my most favorite song on the album. 9:40-11:52 is pure melodic, harmonic heaven! I wish Maiden would do a song that has those type of guitar parts for at least 90% of the song. Just one like that would be so sweet!
 
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frus said:
where???
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I think this bit

The black jack king and the red queen clash
The artful dodger, he counts his stash
The joker's wild like an impish child
While Madame Fortune see what's inside

SLIGHTLY resembles this bit

The mariner kills the bird of good omen
His shipmates cry against what he's done
But when the fog clears, they justify him
And make themselves a part of the crime


Mainly due to the way the vocals are phrased and the chugging guitar and bass
 
I think that any comparison between TRATB and ROTAM only shows that Steve really went downhill in the recent years.
The double guitar harmonies gave their place to single guitar lines. The beautful vocal lines gave their place to Bruce following the disturbing single guitar melodies. The urgency on the bass lines is lost completely. Oh well, it is a song that makes me sad.
 
Gk1 said:
I think that any comparison between TRATB and ROTAM only shows that Steve really went downhill in the recent years.
The double guitar harmonies gave their place to single guitar lines. The beautful vocal lines gave their place to Bruce following the disturbing single guitar melodies. The urgency on the bass lines is lost completely. Oh well, it is a song that makes me sad.
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I don't think Steve is capable of writing a masterpiece nowadays without a guitarists help. Look at the best songs off the last few albums

Book of souls
Starblind
Brighter than a thousand suns
The legacy
Dance of death
Paschendale
Brave new world
Ghost of the navigator
 
Babo 91 said:
I don't think Steve is capable of writing a masterpiece nowadays without a guitarists help. Look at the best songs off the last few albums

Book of souls
Starblind
Brighter than a thousand suns
The legacy
Dance of death
Paschendale
Brave new world
Ghost of the navigator
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I think that the main ideas behind these song - no matter if I like them or not - belong to the co-writers actually.

My personal feeling is - although I might be wrong - that:

Book of Souls - Steve actually made the song stand still for about 5 minutes, as he insisted adding more choruses.

Starblind - I think this is quite good. Not sure what Steve's input is....maybe the intro?

BTATS - I would bet that the repetitive chorus is his or the polka dance mid section

The Legacy - I think he only did the structure and lyrics so the song is a bit repetitive IMO

DOD - I would say he had to do with the lyrics and maybe the intro, which has to be one of the most boring ones in a MAiden song ever

Paschendale - I think he did the lyrics and maybe the mid section melodies

BNW - You gotta agree that he did the chorus...and unfortunately it is the worse part fo the song

GOTN - I am sure he did the mid section fast guitar melody part.


All in all - in my opinion - in most cases he contributed the worse part of the song. I think he is behind expanding 3-4 minute worth of songs to 10 minute ones. Good ideas for the most part but structured or patched in with little care.
 
That depends on what you call a masterpice. Most of the people here seem to think their opinion is the truth, and that their favorite songs are the best ones. On the list you've given above babo 91, there's only one song (Brighter than a Thousand Suns) that I do consider a masterpiece. I do think that When the Wild Blows is the best number they have recorded since 1988, and some consider it a mediocre and repetitve song.
 
I have to say, a poster with an anti-Steve Harris agenda is probably the most counter-intuitive thing to encounter on a Iron Maiden fan forum.

Gk1 said:
All in all - in my opinion - in most cases he contributed the worse part of the song. I think he is behind expanding 3-4 minute worth of songs to 10 minute ones. Good ideas for the most part but structured or patched in with little care.
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1. This is all speculation. Given your particular bias, it's not even terribly credible speculation. Of course you'd say any good song Harris has touched should really be credited to the co-writer and he actually just made it worse.

2. Your tendency to present your opinion as fact and imply anyone who disagrees with you is deluding themselves is a tad bit irksome. Not all of us (most of us, from what I can observe) think Harris or the band at large doesn't give a shit and don't take great care in constructing their songs. And not all of us agree with your opinions on the songs and their strengths and foibles, of course. For my money, I generally love the reunion material. I don't think the fact that Steve has relaxed his creative control of the songwriting process reflects poorly upon him.
 
The sentence you've cited, Viper, is indeed a perfect exemple of strange bias : when one doesn't like something in a particular song, this has to be attributed to Harris. The "good" parts and aspects, on the other hand, to the other contributor. I must admit that I suffer from another bias : I keep wondering why the Smith/Dickinson songs of the last record are (how to say that ?) horribly boring, and the Smith/Harris are not.
 
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Anyway, on the actual topic of the song itself, I love parts of it. Other parts don't grab me as much. This is probably the most difficult song on the album for me; it hasn't really clicked yet, but unlike some other posters who have commented on it, I feel no urge to reach for the skip button when it comes on. It does feel like a bit of a jumble, but it flows pretty well nevertheless.
 
harrisdevot said:
The sentence you've cited, Viper, is indeed a perfect exemple of strange bias : when one doesn't like something in a particular song, this has to be attributed to Harris. The "good" parts and aspects, on the other hand, to the other contributor. I must admit that I suffer from another bias : I keep wondering why the Smith/Dickinson songs of the last record are (how to say that ?) horribly boring, and the Smith/Harris are not.
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Personally, I like both Smith/Dickinson songs, and my least favorite (it's not a bad song though, and who knows, it could grow) is When The River Runs Deep, which is of course Smith/Harris, and my favorite song of the album is Empire of the Clouds. Gk1's attitude that everything Harris touches is bad, even when it isn't, and that anything he touched that is good was actually made worse by Steve (which is speculative at best) strikes me as silly and intellectually lazy though. Judge the songs on their own merits and faults, not by whose name is next to them on the credits.
 
Viperlord said:
I have to say, a poster with an anti-Steve Harris agenda is probably the most counter-intuitive thing to encounter on a Iron Maiden fan forum.



1. This is all speculation. Given your particular bias, it's not even terribly credible speculation. Of course you'd say any good song Harris has touched should really be credited to the co-writer and he actually just made it worse.

2. Your tendency to present your opinion as fact and imply anyone who disagrees with you is deluding themselves is a tad bit irksome. Not all of us (most of us, from what I can observe) think Harris or the band at large doesn't give a shit and don't take great care in constructing their songs. And not all of us agree with your opinions on the songs and their strengths and foibles, of course. For my money, I generally love the reunion material. I don't think the fact that Steve has relaxed his creative control of the songwriting process reflects po
orly upon him.
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It is strange that my posts are filled with expressions like "I could be wrong" or "in my opinion" and you still think I present my opinion as an undisputed fact.

I think we all know more or less how each of the members writes music, the same way we can distinguish who is doing what solo.

And I think we can all agree that the song which got the most complains is TRATB. I can tell after around 25 years of listening to Maiden that Steve seems to be in the worse "writing condition" in the band.
 
I agree fully with Babo and anyone else when they say that Steve's "own" songs aren't that great anymore. His last great own song imo was Blood on the World's Hands (a 10!), and The Clansman (9!) was very good as well.
 
Personally I love For The Greater Good of God and When The Wild Wind Blows; they're both 9/10s at last listen rather than 10/10s, but I'm quite picky about giving 10s, so that's fine.

(Yes I have a list of ratings which I should get around to actually voting and posting when the new polls come out I suppose.)
 
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