The third Blaze-sung Maiden album: lyrically a fusion of Silicon Messiah and BNW, but musically rooted in BNW?

[TheTalisman]

Both Maiden and Bruce were on CMC International in the U.S at the time, like Jer wrote. Virtual XI did way worse than any other studio album in the catalogue, but still good enough for the band to be signed on a smaller label, I believe. I can't imagine that CMC wanted to drop them.

Sale stats from 2005 for the CMC catalogue:
The X Factor (1995) - 112,710
Virtual XI (1998) - 65,243

Skunkworks (1996) - 20,361
Accident Of Birth (1997) - 45,921
Chemical Wedding (1998) - 41,363

IRON MAIDEN: U.S. Album Sales Revealed

IRON MAIDEN fan site MaidenFans.com has published the latest Nielsen SoundScan figures for the entire MAIDEN catalog as well as MAIDEN singer Bruce Dickinson's solo releases and recordings issued by ex-MAIDEN frontman Blaze Bayley under the BLAZE banner. Note: the SoundScan numbers for MAIDEN's...

blabbermouth.net

Bruce lost his major label record deal in the U.S after Balls to Picasso.

CMC signed a lot of artists in the 90's like Bruce and Maiden who couldn't get a better deal:

CMC International - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

On a sidenote, a third album would have no similiarities with Silicon Messiah, because Blaze wrote the vocal melodies for that album, based on music that his band members came up (Wray, Slater, Naylor, Singer). Producer Andy Sneap also helped Blaze a little bit.

 

[Ruflux]

The story is, Nicko went to Steve with some soundboard tapes near the end of the tour, and basically showed him how well (or not) Blaze was singing. Steve notoriously doesn't have the best hearing, so I imagine Nicko played it for him assuming Steve thought everything was fine live. If I had to guess, Nick was probably fed up with the direction with Blaze--maybe playing to smaller crowds, getting bad reviews, etc.--and wanted a change.

Speculate all you want if there's any connection from the above to Nick's sort of half-assed complexity in his drumming on Virtual XI. Possible he didn't want to make the effort in a direction he didn't believe in that far back.

I believe he also offered an ultimatum: either Blaze goes or he does. Losing Nicko would've pretty much spelled the death of the band anyway at that stage so there was no path forward with Blaze at the helm.

 

[FearOfTheLark]

Both Maiden and Bruce were on CMC International in the U.S at the time, like Jer wrote. Virtual XI did way worse than any other studio album in the catalogue, but still good enough for the band to be signed on a smaller label, I believe. I can't imagine that CMC wanted to drop them.

Sale stats from 2005 for the CMC catalogue:
The X Factor (1995) - 112,710
Virtual XI (1998) - 65,243

Skunkworks (1996) - 20,361
Accident Of Birth (1997) - 45,921
Chemical Wedding (1998) - 41,363

IRON MAIDEN: U.S. Album Sales Revealed

IRON MAIDEN fan site MaidenFans.com has published the latest Nielsen SoundScan figures for the entire MAIDEN catalog as well as MAIDEN singer Bruce Dickinson's solo releases and recordings issued by ex-MAIDEN frontman Blaze Bayley under the BLAZE banner. Note: the SoundScan numbers for MAIDEN's...

blabbermouth.net

Bruce, just like Maiden, lost his major label record deal in the U.S after Balls to Picasso.

CMC signed a lot of artists in the 90's like Bruce and Maiden who couldn't get a better deal:

CMC International - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

On a sidenote, a third album would have no similiarities with Silicon Messiah, because Blaze wrote the vocal melodies for that album, based on music that his band members came up (Wray, Slater, Naylor, Singer). Producer Andy Sneap also helped Blaze a little bit.

It's always interesting seeing sales for these smaller more niche labels. I imagine the label were quite happy with the sales on TXF. Nowadays on these smaller niche metal labels they'd throw you a party with a big cake if you sold over 100k

 

[dickinson1978]

I believe he also offered an ultimatum: either Blaze goes or he does. Losing Nicko would've pretty much spelled the death of the band anyway at that stage so there was no path forward with Blaze at the helm.

He couldnt sing many maiden old songs and sometimes he forgot lyrics of their own songs. The trooper was a disaster but the clairvoyant too 2 minutes to midnight and many others. Maybe wrathchild afraid to shoot strangers and heaven can wait but not more. He was shouting more than singing

 

[dickinson1978]

Both Maiden and Bruce were on CMC International in the U.S at the time, like Jer wrote. Virtual XI did way worse than any other studio album in the catalogue, but still good enough for the band to be signed on a smaller label, I believe. I can't imagine that CMC wanted to drop them.

Sale stats from 2005 for the CMC catalogue:
The X Factor (1995) - 112,710
Virtual XI (1998) - 65,243

Skunkworks (1996) - 20,361
Accident Of Birth (1997) - 45,921
Chemical Wedding (1998) - 41,363

IRON MAIDEN: U.S. Album Sales Revealed

IRON MAIDEN fan site MaidenFans.com has published the latest Nielsen SoundScan figures for the entire MAIDEN catalog as well as MAIDEN singer Bruce Dickinson's solo releases and recordings issued by ex-MAIDEN frontman Blaze Bayley under the BLAZE banner. Note: the SoundScan numbers for MAIDEN's...

blabbermouth.net

Bruce, just like Maiden, lost his major label record deal in the U.S after Balls to Picasso.

CMC signed a lot of artists in the 90's like Bruce and Maiden who couldn't get a better deal:

CMC International - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

On a sidenote, a third album would have no similiarities with Silicon Messiah, because Blaze wrote the vocal melodies for that album, based on music that his band members came up (Wray, Slater, Naylor, Singer). Producer Andy Sneap also helped Blaze a little bit.

Chemical wedding 60mil im sure thats what make bruce return and say that when i was out i realized how big maiden are.

 

[naranja]

He couldnt sing many maiden old songs and sometimes he forgot lyrics of their own songs. The trooper was a disaster but the clairvoyant too 2 minutes to midnight and many others. Maybe wrathchild afraid to shoot strangers and heaven can wait but not more. He was shouting more than singing

Playing the songs live 25% faster than the studio versions and not tuning down to accommodate the baritone didn't help

 

[dickinson1978]

Playing the songs live 25% faster than the studio versions and not tuning down to accommodate the baritone didn't help

I think they were even faster than 90s or 80s. I saw curitiba show and i realized how fast they were. So blaze had to sing really fast and we now how it sounded

 

[naranja]

I think they were even faster than 90s or 80s. I saw curitiba show and i realized how fast they were. So blaze had to sing really fast and we now how it sounded

He still did pretty well on his material I thought