Bruce Dickinson

[MindlessPieces]

We should never forget that record companies pay a good amount of money to have ads on the magazines where those reviews are published and that is the main reason why those magazines still exist.

I used to naïvely believe the reviews I would read on metal magazines. Then I met someone who used to edit one of them. We became friends and I learnt from him how things worked, from small bands having to pay an amount of money to be interviewed, to record companies buying ads that would guarantee excellent reviews for their artists.

Fans like to read positive glowing reviews. I certainly wouldn't buy a magazine or frequent it if they wrote bad reviews of my favourite band.

There are a couple of YouTubers called Lost in Vegas. They seem to like everyone except Iron Maiden. It's probably the reason I don't listen to them any more. They say they don't like Bruce's voice, but then they listen to and like plenty of bands whose singers are objectively much much worse than Bruce. I don't get it.

But if they did glowing reports on Maiden, I'd probably watch them, It's just a fact of life.

 

[GhostofCain]

Y’know, after multiple listens I think the only truly mediocre song on the album is “Face In The Mirror”, which sounds like a castrated version of “Tears Of A Clown”. I genuinely like every other track (though obviously some more than others).

Are you really using “castrated” as a pejorative term to describe a song?

 

[GhostofCain]

They say they don't like Bruce's voice, but then they listen to and like plenty of bands whose singers are objectively much much worse than Bruce. I don't get it.

Out of curiosity, how do you measure this?

 

[Vaenyr]

Fans like to read positive glowing reviews. I certainly wouldn't buy a magazine or frequent it if they wrote bad reviews of my favourite band.

There are a couple of YouTubers called Lost in Vegas. They seem to like everyone except Iron Maiden. It's probably the reason I don't listen to them any more. They say they don't like Bruce's voice, but then they listen to and like plenty of bands whose singers are objectively much much worse than Bruce. I don't get it.

But if they did glowing reports on Maiden, I'd probably watch them, It's just a fact of life.

Uuuh, there's no such thing as "objectively much much worse" with regards to liking a voice. Lost In Vegas aren't fans of operatic vocals and prefer stuff like Layne Staley's voice.

That's the thing about opinions: there's no right, no wrong and per definition nothing objective about them.

 

[GhostofCain]

Uuuh, there's no such thing as "objectively much much worse" with regards to liking a voice. Lost In Vegas aren't fans of operatic vocals and prefer stuff like Layne Staley's voice.

That's the thing about opinions: there's no right, no wrong and per definition nothing objective about them.

You can argue that someone who sings out of tune is a worse singer than someone who doesn’t though.

 

[MindlessPieces]

Uuuh, there's no such thing as "objectively much much worse" with regards to liking a voice. Lost In Vegas aren't fans of operatic vocals and prefer stuff like Layne Staley's voice.

That's the thing about opinions: there's no right, no wrong and per definition nothing objective about them.

Yeah, but they like the clean vocals when its not metal, but just want gruffy vocals when it is metal. I don't get it.

 

[MindlessPieces]

You can argue that someone who sings out of tune is a worse singer than someone who doesn’t though.

Their are lots of objective measures.

Ability to do vibrato, ability to do head voice, chest voice, mix voice, vocal range, ability to transition from one type of voice to another, enunciation, ability to add fry, and colour and change tone, good breath support e.g. ability to do long notes, sing quickly and not run out of breath.

 

[Vaenyr]

You can argue that someone who sings out of tune is a worse singer than someone who doesn’t though.

Of course, that's not what the point of contention is with the Lost In Vegas folks. They respect Bruce's skill, but aren't fans of operatic vocals. That's why this "objectively worse" is pretty weird.

Their are lots of objective measures.

Ability to do vibrato, ability to do head voice, chest voice, mix voice, vocal range, ability to transition from one type of voice to another, enunciation, ability to add fry, and colour and change tone, good breath support e.g. ability to do long notes, sing quickly and not run out of breath.

Yet none of that is in any way relevant to if someone likes a voice or not because that is purely subjective. Take the Dream Theater vocalist James LaBrie. The man can sing, recovered from his injuries, has an impressive vocal range. "Objectively" he does a lot of things right as far as technique is concerned. Yet despite all that I'm not a fan of his voice and he's the sole reason why I can't get into the band.

 

[Jer]

Are you really using “castrated” as a pejorative term to describe a song?

Yes, because it uses basically the same verse melody and tone, but it doesn’t have any oomph and never really goes anywhere. It has no balls and no real drive, so “castrated” sounded about right.

Apologies to any eunuchs in the thread that I might have offended!

 

[GhostofCain]

Their are lots of objective measures.

Ability to do vibrato, ability to do head voice, chest voice, mix voice, vocal range, ability to transition from one type of voice to another, enunciation, ability to add fry, and colour and change tone, good breath support e.g. ability to do long notes, sing quickly and not run out of breath.

Thanks.

Happy to see a comparison of Bruce (my favourite) with other singers to see if he is objectively better or if it is just my subjective view of his voice.

 

[GhostofCain]

Yes, because it uses basically the same verse melody and tone, but it doesn’t have any oomph and never really goes anywhere. It has no balls and no real drive, so “castrated” sounded about right.

Apologies to any eunuchs in the thread that I might have offended!

I respect you a lot @Jer since the early days of the internet and I am grateful for the platform you provided to us Bruce fans, but I certainly was expecting better from you than labelling a song as “having no balls”.

 

[Jer]

I certainly was expecting better from you than labelling a song as “having no balls”.

Um, OK, I guess I crossed some new social red line that I wasn’t even aware existed…?

It sounds like a flaccid knockoff of “Tears Of A Clown”. Is “flaccid” OK, or did I just trigger the erectile dysfunction crowd…?

I swear, trying to keep up with all this language policing is exhausting. I’ll just leave it to the self-appointed experts, then.

 

[MindlessPieces]

Yet none of that is in any way relevant to if someone likes a voice or not because that is purely subjective. Take the Dream Theater vocalist James LaBrie. The man can sing, recovered from his injuries, has an impressive vocal range. "Objectively" he does a lot of things right as far as technique is concerned. Yet despite all that I'm not a fan of his voice and he's the sole reason why I can't get into the band.

Anyway, the point that I was making (and which seems to have been totally missed) was not about how dare Lost in Vegas not like Iron Maiden.
But was, as a Maiden Fan, I want to hear critics say glowing things about the band, If they do, then I tune in, I follow them, subscribe, perhaps buy magazines. If they trash them, then I don't tune in, I certainly don't buy the magazine.

So there must be pressure on proffessional critics to give glowing praise of popular artists in order to win over their fans and add them to their own list of fans.

 

[Vaenyr]

Anyway, the point that I was making (and which seems to have been totally missed) was not about how dare Lost in Vegas not like Iron Maiden.
But was, as a Maiden Fan, I want to hear critics say glowing things about the band, If they do, then I tune in, I follow them, subscribe, perhaps buy magazines. If they trash them, then I don't tune in, I certainly don't buy the magazine.

So there must be pressure on proffessional critics to give glowing praise of popular artists in order to win over their fans and add them to their own list of fans.

I vehemently disagree with that notion. The entire point of a review is to get the honest opinion of the reviewers. Glowing reviews that only exist to attract a readership go against the spirit of what a review is in the first place. It's about reading a variety of different opinions. As Bruce wrote in Darkest Hour "Appeasers every one", what's the point in purely glowing reviews?

Do you love every single Maiden song? What's your opinion on Virtual XI for example? If you're not a big fan of it, should it have received a bunch of 10/10s so that Maiden fans bought the publications?

It's a fundamental lack of integrity and I can't believe someone would unironically hold such a position, but we don't have to agree on that.

 

[Iron Lurker]

We should never forget that record companies pay a good amount of money to have ads on the magazines where those reviews are published and that is the main reason why those magazines still exist.

I used to naïvely believe the reviews I would read on metal magazines. Then I met someone who used to edit one of them. We became friends and I learnt from him how things worked, from small bands having to pay an amount of money to be interviewed, to record companies buying ads that would guarantee excellent reviews for their artists.

Some time ago I was an intern for a major record label in the late 80s. Even though it was supposedly no longer going on Payola was alive and well. I was in the A/R dept. and the main job was to get the label's records on radio stations playlists. I recall the label wanted to break a major star's solo record at the time and were offering trips to Hawai'i to station managers if they put the record on rotation for a set number of weeks. Of course there was more than that.

I'm sure what you say is true and a lot of that goes on. But I'm not cynical enough to think every single good review is bought and paid for.

 

[MrKnickerbocker]

After 3 listens, I’ve ended up here:

Ragnarok 7/10
Hell 7/10
Rain 6/10
Resurrection 5/10
Fingers 8/10
Eternity 9/10
Mistress 8/10
Face 5/10
Shadows 9/10
Sonata 2/10

There is no truly great song on the album. Many songs suffer from one compositional or performance choice marring the whole thing. The first two tracks would probably be 8’s or 9’s for me if they eliminated those godawful pre-choruses.

 

[Mosh]

Part of me wonders if the album reception would be different if certain things weren't so highly publicized, mainly the wide timespan that the songs/vocal takes originate from as well as the fact that Sonata is somewhat ad libbed. I don't think the album is great but I think it's a bit better than the fan consensus and some of the criticisms of Sonata feel overblown to me. There are some really weaknesses in the vocal department, but I actually think the vocals are better when it's sourced from 2014 or earlier (see Shadows of the Gods, which I believe is probably the strongest track and definitely Bruce's best vocal performance, and it seems like he recorded that around 2005). So using old takes/old versions of songs has been to the album's benefit more often than not. I tend to think most people wouldn't notice as much if Bruce hadn't been so public about it though.

Same thing with Sonata. I don't love the track and it feels more like an epilogue/bonus track, but I think a lot was made of the ad libbing and the looseness of the track stands out a lot more as a result. Overall, the album has had impossible expectations and the lack of a lyrical or musical theme/concept to tie it all together, despite originating as a concept album, doesn't give fans a whole lot to work with. I really dig the variety though.

So far my favorite songs are Shadows of the Gods, Resurrection Men, Fingers in the Wounds. Eternity Has Failed is super interesting and while I've gone back and forth I think I slightly prefer the Maiden version overall. What it comes down to is that I like the faster tempo, I miss Steve and Nicko, and honestly the instrumental section is a little busy for me. I think the song works better without the solos frankly.

 

[MindlessPieces]

I vehemently disagree with that notion. The entire point of a review is to get the honest opinion of the reviewers. Glowing reviews that only exist to attract a readership go against the spirit of what a review is in the first place. It's about reading a variety of different opinions. As Bruce wrote in Darkest Hour "Appeasers every one", what's the point in purely glowing reviews?

Do you love every single Maiden song? What's your opinion on Virtual XI for example? If you're not a big fan of it, should it have received a bunch of 10/10s so that Maiden fans bought the publications?

It's a fundamental lack of integrity and I can't believe someone would unironically hold such a position, but we don't have to agree on that.

Seems a bit naive really.

The reality is that most fans like to hear good things about their bands/artist.

Virtual XI and X Factor are a waste of space, I don't have them on my MP3 player.

 

[Ironalice]

Fans like to read positive glowing reviews. I certainly wouldn't buy a magazine or frequent it if they wrote bad reviews of my favourite band.

There are a couple of YouTubers called Lost in Vegas. They seem to like everyone except Iron Maiden. It's probably the reason I don't listen to them any more. They say they don't like Bruce's voice, but then they listen to and like plenty of bands whose singers are objectively much much worse than Bruce. I don't get it.

But if they did glowing reports on Maiden, I'd probably watch them, It's just a fact of life.

They were a lot more favorable towards Breeg:

But I have come to accept the fact Bruce's voice is pretty much an acquired taste, you either love it or cant stand it, there doesnt seem to be much of a middle ground.

 

[Vaenyr]

Seems a bit naive really.

The reality is that most fans like to hear good things about their bands/artist.

Virtual XI and X Factor are a waste of space, I don't have them on my MP3 player.

No, it's not naive. It's the entire point: to get a description of something you are looking forward to that you haven't heard yet. It's basically the definition. You read a review to find out if what they write will appeal to you or not; not to get glowing reviews and brownnosing.

So, should magazines have printed 10/10 reviews for the Blaze albums in your opinion? So that they could attract Maiden fans, according to your theory?