Adrian's Solo Discography Ranked - The Complete List

@Jer I’m not sure if I’ll get to the Urchin stuff anytime soon due to the fact that I’m heading to Germany tomorrow, so if I don’t listen to those don’t think you need to wait for me.
 
Just wanted to check in and see if anyone is still actively planning to get in more ratings before the end of August...? If so, I'm happy to wait. If not, then I can start moving ahead with prepping the countdown.
 
I’m getting situated with the internet here, so if videos start working better soon I’m gonna finish my ratings, but I can’t guarantee it.
 
Sorry for not getting more progress done lately - wedding, vacation and other stuff takes up a lot of your time :p

Hopefully I can finish my ratings by the end of this week.
 
OK, folks, only one week left to vote! When August ends, the tabulation begins, and then I'll kick off the countdown.
 
Forostar said:
Jer if I would like to change a few grades. Is that possible? I do not wish to risk a complete reset.
Click to expand...
Sure, just PM or post the changes and I'll make them manually when I tabulate the results.
 
Hi @Jer
Would you change the following grades (black is current; blue is new)

A.S.A.P. - Silver & Gold
  • After the Storm - 10 9
Collaborations with Bruce Dickinson
  • The Ghost of Cain - 8 9
  • Return of the King - 9 10
Limited releases with Urchin
  • Countdown - 10 9
  • Countdown (Alternate Version) - 10 9
 
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Last call for votes! Saturday morning U.S. time I will close out the forms and start tabulating for the countdown. If you want to participate and haven't yet, now's your chance...
 
Psycho Motel - Welcome To The World
  • The Last Chain - 7/10
  • A Quarter To Heaven - 8/10
  • Rain - 8/10
  • Believe - 9/10
  • With You Again - 10/10
  • Into The Black - 8/10
  • No Loss To Me - 7/10
  • Underground - 8/10
  • Welcome To The World - 6/10
  • Something Real - 9/10
  • Innocence - 7/10
  • I'm Alive - 7/10
  • Hypocrisy - 6/10
  • Just Like A Woman - 7/10

Wow, this is a much, much stronger album than the previous two. The new vocalist's voice and style is also a better fit to the band's sound, in my opinion. A lot of great riffs, huge choruses and, as always, blinding solos to be found here. Some of the songs still suffer a bit from bad arrangements though, mainly the title track, which must be the weakest track on here. Best tune is without a doubt "With You Again", which manages to be soft and melodic without ever overdoing it, still retaining a somewhat melancholic edge. I really dig it. "Believe" and "Something Real" aren't far behind, great songs. I do think the album dips a little bit in quality in the second half, and I would personally cut a few tracks, as it would have made for a more trimmed, stronger album overall. The cover of "Just Like a Woman" is surprisingly nice.
Absolutely my favourite of the bunch so far, and I'm excited to see if the Primal Rock Rebellion one can continue the upward spiral when I listen to it tonight!
 
I don't have too much to contribute here but for what it's worth:

  • I like ASAP better than all the others
  • The Lion is probably my favourite ASAP song (ghost stories have never sounded so rock 'n'roll!)
  • My favourite Psycho Motel song is Underground (the opening riff reminds me of Marillion)
  • But Solli is my favourite of the two singers
  • With You Again is where I first learned to win at "Spot the Dave" - I'd heard repeatedly from the others that "Dave has the signature guitar sound of Iron Maiden" but without hearing him in any other context I found it difficult to quantify what that actually meant. When I heard this song I understood.
  • I have a special loathing of Just Like A Woman (but the discovery that Bob Dylan is responsible explains a lot!)

Apart from that nothing really stands out to me - it's all good and it's all listenable but I'd rather stay out of the voting than damn everything with faint praise :).
 
Primal Rock Rebellion - Awoken Broken
  • No Friendly Neighbour - 6/10
  • No Place Like Home - 7/10
  • I See Lights - 6/10
  • Bright As A Fire - 8/10
  • Savage World - 7/10
  • Tortured Tone - 9/10
  • White Sheet Robes - 7/10
  • As Tears Come Falling From The Sky - 5/10
  • Awoken Broken - 6/10
  • Search For Bliss - 8/10
  • Snake Ladders - 6/10
  • Mirror And The Moon - 7/10
  • Scientist - 7/10
  • Mooncusser - 1/10

Okay. I'm a bit disappointed with this one. My expectations were that it would continue on from the Psycho Motel albums and further evolve in sound and style, and well, it does, but it doesn't really deliver what I was hoping for.
I have a few problems with it, one of which is (no surprise, I guess) the singer. Let me clarify first of all that I have nothing against harsh vocals in general, as a number of my favourite bands utilize unclean singing to various degrees. This vocalist (who I have no prior knowledge of) varies between low snarls, mid- to high clean singing, and high wails. Problem is... only the lower, harsher style works alright - his clean singing lacks power, and the higher stuff comes off as outright whiny. I know, it's probably just his style, but I'm definitely not impressed.
I also (and this is probably blasphemous to even say) don't find H's playing, be it the riffs or the solos, as inspired as on the previous albums. On both ASAP and Psycho Motel, even the lesser songs usually had some good, uplifting moments from his side, but few things stood out for me here. It's decent enough, but I expected more. Also, did he decide to channel his inner Tom Morello or something? There sure is quite the amount of whammy!
All in all, this probably came out more negative than it should. Off the top of my head, I'd rank Awoken Broken close to State of Mind - both albums could've been great, but ends up being a little bit under par. I only regret that I got to listen to this so late, because if time permitted it I would've liked to give the album a few more spins before submitting my rankings. I'll make sure to give it another chance later on, but for now, if I want to listen to proggy metal with harsh vocals, this will not be my go-to fix.

I've also sent in my rankings for the collaborations.
All the Urchin-stuff just won't happen for me this time, so this is basically my final submission before the countdown begins :)
 
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OK, voting is officially closed, and I will get to work on tabulating the data. The countdown should begin later this weekend.

Thanks to everyone who participated! We got the best response on the A.S.A.P. work, where 14 people voted. The Psycho Motel, Primal Rock Rebellion, and Bruce collaborations all got 8-10 voters, and the limited release work brought up the rear with 6 voters. (Hopefully that won't lead to a lot of tie votes on the Urchin / Untouchables material, but we'll see.)
 
Looking forward to seeing the results... even though there will be a bunch I don’t know lol.
 
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OK, I've gotten everything tabulated with @Forostar 's final changes in there. Without spoiling anything, I can say that first place had a very clear winner and last place had a very clear loser, but there are a number of surprising results in between!

Every tie was breakable by giving preference to the highest individual votes, with one exception near the very bottom of the list where the vote totals were exactly the same. I'm going to exert host's prerogative to break that one.

Thanks again to everyone who contributed, and I'll get the countdown rolling within the next day or so!
 
If “The Lion” doesn’t win I’ll be disappointed. I do prefer a few Bruce songs to it, but in the context of Adrian’s discography, it’s his song. Sung by Adrian in the band Adrian Smith And Project, and the best one from that album. Hope it wins but we’ll see!
 
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