Blaze Bayley, good or bad?

Which was the better album; The X-Factor or Virtual XI

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Seriously though. Blaze has grown on me and he's not that bad. I think he may be better than Paul, in terms of vocal abilities and range. My only complaints are on TXF, he sounds too quiet on some parts of the tracks and I have to turn it up and then turn it back down when the instruments get going louder. That is probably the production quality. His voice is almost TOO low in tone.
I agree that Blaze had the misfortune of following one of the best heavy metal vocalists of all time, Bruce Dickinson. I immediately thought, "ugh, where's bruce? what is this?". I know Bruce will be a sound for sore ears when I get into Brave New World in two days.

Virtual XII has some good songs, but half of it is as filler as filler comes. Futureal, The Clansman, The Educated Fool, Don't Look to the Eyes of a Stranger and Como Estais Amigos are the only good songs. The other three are just instantly forgettable. Well... that's 5/8 of the album. It's not an awful album, it's just.... only okay. When Maiden has set such high standards, okay just doesn't cut it.
 
It is a shortcoming of his abilities, no doubt, but a good production would easily have taken care of that. Just compare to how he comes off on the Sneap-produced solo efforts.
 
Not all production though. The songs on the solo albums are written for his range. His voice doesn't sound all that different, it just better suits the music and (at least on the first few) he sounds like he's putting a lot more effort in. On the Maiden albums he sounds like he's struggling on several songs (especially Virtual XI) and is straight up out of tune at times. You can only blame the production so much for that.

Look at the less than great productions we've had on a few Bruce fronted albums, did those make him sound any less great than normal? (Not necessarily rhetorical, I'd be curious if anyone thinks this)
 
IMO TXF has to be one of the worse metal albums ever.Even Steve said that his hearing problems resulted in the bizarre sound of the album.I have no problem with slow songs.It is that most of the songs are too boring.There are1 or 2 eal riffs and MOTE sounds like a poor man's BQOBD.Thjs is the al um where the single guitar melodies dominate everything.The songs lack any decent guitar work and the best songs are the ones left out.(Justice of the piece and Judegement day).Nicko is really bad on most songs and Blaze is funny to say the least.There some darl moments in the album but the down sides are so many....20 years after the al um was released I can't even listen to it. MOTE and SOTC where quite decent live but the album versions -especially SOTC are beyond illproduced and lacking any real fire
 
LooseCannon said:
link?


Suffice to say this is a minority opinion.
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No problem with that.I just don't get how can someone love the Maiden factor in the songs,the way we loved it in the 80s or even in FOTD and still like TXF as it contains very little of what I feel Maiden was up to that point.As for the link I'm not able to recover it,sorry
 
There were some good songs on both these albums to be sure and they deserve some credit. But, ,Blaze was really the weak point on them to me. His voice is fine for a few songs, but it becomes monotonous to me pretty quickly. I have a hard time listening to the albums start to finish.
I hate to say anything bad about him, seems like is a good guy and I feel for him in how things worked out, it was not all his fault for sure and he handled the situation with class and he had the misfortune to follow one of the best singers and front men of all time in an era when metal in general was in a decline ... but him leaving was the best thing that could have happened for Maiden and Maiden fans
 
I really like both Blaze albums, but Virtual XI will always get the nod from me.
I have loved VXI since I first heard TAATG, then purchased the album and heard the rest. I actually like every song from the album, there are definitely no songs that I would want to be replaced, I think each song compliments each other well and I like the overall sound of the album. I think the biggest mistake fans make when listening to both Blaze and Paul albums is comparing them to Bruce! If you can't get past comparing either of their voices to Bruce and just listen to the music, then I feel bad for you. I feel if VXI was just an anonymous album from the late 90's it would have been much more successful, but when everyone is comparing it to Powerslave it's going to lose all credit. I'll admit that VXI doesn't live up to Maiden standards, but it's a solid 7/10 album (9/10 for me at the moment, which I listened to it as I read all 9 pages of this thread).
The X Factor is also a great album, I listened to it yesterday (trying to get my mind off The Book Of Souls haha). Definitely an album that I feel needs to be listened all the way through. It took me much longer to appreciate than VXI, which I loved on my 1st listen. I also listened to both albums numerous times before knowing anyone else's opinions (members here and other forums, as well as my friends) so I made up my mind without being encouraged or disencouraged by others. SOTC, The Unbeliever and The Aftermath are my favorites from the album, the live performance of The Aftermath found on Best Of The 'B Sides is f***ing awesome!! Judgement Of Heaven is also a great song and especially the intro fits so well after The Aftermath, it feels like after the war and after seeing The Aftermath you see the sun come through the clouds and brightens up the day. I give The X Factor a 8/10, though it might change in the future. I also love Virus, that's a great song. I feel the only problem with the Blaze era is the repetitive chorus'. I dislike Man On The Edge for that reason alone, good song but "falling down, falling down, falling down, falling down ect." Blaze really got the bottom end of song writing (as far as repetitiveness) through the Maiden years, which results in him getting bashed for being a poor vocalist.
Overall, there is just something about both Blaze albums that really draws my attention. They are both great hard rock/metal albums that makes me want to just rock out, which at the end of the day is what they were originally intended to do. I would have liked hearing a 3rd Maiden album with Blaze, but not if that meant not having Bruce on Brave New World. A Blaze album in 1997 would have been fine though! I must say that I hate the artwork for both Blaze albums though! They are just too dark and scarwy for my taste lol I do like the red color on VXI and I like the alternate cover for TXF though.
 
I disagree about the music. Modern Maiden at its best is just as good if not better than 80s Maiden.
 
Mosh said:
Not all production though. The songs on the solo albums are written for his range. His voice doesn't sound all that different, it just better suits the music and (at least on the first few) he sounds like he's putting a lot more effort in. On the Maiden albums he sounds like he's struggling on several songs (especially Virtual XI) and is straight up out of tune at times. You can only blame the production so much for that.

Look at the less than great productions we've had on a few Bruce fronted albums, did those make him sound any less great than normal? (Not necessarily rhetorical, I'd be curious if anyone thinks this)
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Yes I think so actually.
There have been moments on the last three albums where Bruces vocals should have benefited by a fuller and better vocal production.

Bruce sounds stunning through the whole Brave New World record and I believe that is because of the added vocal layers and harmonies as well. On for an example The Final Frontier the vocals are more rough and the vocals don't fully live up to the potential and I believe Bruce could have sounded greater at some places.
 
That's fair. Personally I liked the lack of layers and harmonies on recent Maiden albums.

However, my point is that I think if you took away all those layers and harmonies from BNW (or listen to Rock in Rio and get exactly that) Bruce's performance would still shine. It's arguably his best vocal performance on a record and I think that would come through even on an X Factor level production.
 
Mosh said:
Not all production though. The songs on the solo albums are written for his range. His voice doesn't sound all that different, it just better suits the music and (at least on the first few) he sounds like he's putting a lot more effort in. On the Maiden albums he sounds like he's struggling on several songs (especially Virtual XI) and is straight up out of tune at times. You can only blame the production so much for that.

Look at the less than great productions we've had on a few Bruce fronted albums, did those make him sound any less great than normal? (Not necessarily rhetorical, I'd be curious if anyone thinks this)
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The producer's job is to make sure the performances are so good they possibly can be - and that includes making sure the material is written as to fit the singer. Andy Sneap was in on the whole writing process, producing them through the whole process. That's what a great producer (or even just a good one) would have done on TXF and VXI too.

All in all, when I say "production" I mean the whole process that takes the output of the artist and make it into a record. If the material is badly suited for the singer, it's the producer's damn job to make sure the band change the key, rewrite or drop the song altogether.
 
@Mosh @Maturin
For me Bruce absolut peak was from 1997 - 2001 and I agree that Brave New World should sound have been great even without layer etc.

But I think the band have taken the live - feel one step to far. A song like Starblind should have sounded better with a few more vocal takes in my opinion. But on the other hand A Matter of Life And Death sounded good to me even with the unpolished sound.

So I guess production is just a matter of Opinion. Andy Sneap is known for making quite compressed, compact, precisise records, isn't he? I'm thinking about Megadeths Endgame, and that suited them, but the same production should not have suited Iron Maiden in my opinion.
 
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