Blaze Bayley, good or bad?

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

  • Total voters
    87
RTC said:
I can't get behind TXF Powerslave when a third of the album's running time is mediocre at best, the best song of the album by some distance is stupidly placed right at the start end, the structure is all over the place and there's really no must-listen to track on the album apart from SignRime.

It's not a bad album, but it's not really a good album either.
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Fixed that for you.

No, I don't think the above is true, but MANY fans do.
 
You would be surprised at that.

Honestly, for anyone looking for 'Anti-Blaze' comments, this is probably the last forum they'd go to (not saying you or anyone is anti-Blaze). This forum has the widest array of people that appreciate his talents I've seen.
 
None of my problems with the album are Blaze related. I think he did a great job.
 
RTC said:
I can't get behind TXF when a third of the album's running time is mediocre at best, the best song of the album by some distance is stupidly placed right at the start, the structure is all over the place and there's really no must-listen to track on the album apart from Sign.

It's not a bad album, but it's not really a good album either.
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Your opinion. I consider Fortunes of War a master piece and as many, I absolutely love the album, Look for the Truth and The Aftermath being the only songs I tend to avoid. I was so happy when it came out and when I realized they could do well without Bruce. It was such a relieve.
 
Will one of mods please fix the thread title, the typo is driving me crazy.

My two cents: Blaze is not a great singer, nor even a particularly good one, but if the song stays within his (limited) range, he can be powerful. See "2 a.m." and "Lord of the Flies." He can also be embarrassingly awful at times: the "Fortunes of War" chorus is an abomination that makes the lead singer of the rock band at Billy Madison's third grade graduation party sound like Ronnie James Dio.

The X Factor is not a great album, but it is a pretty good one, and creatively it was a critical point of departure for the band's style and Steve Harris's songwriting ever since. I'm not sure exactly how much credit Blaze deserves for that, but there would never have been an AMOLAD or Final Frontier without the X Factor to lay the foundation.

The X Factor is a far superior album to Virtual Xi (what does the poll have to do with the question posed in the thread title??).

Fun fact: Blaze lists Mario "Lanzia" as an influence on his official website, which almost excuses the original poster's misspelling of Blaze's name in the thread title. It also explains, to some extent, Blaze's polarizing vocal style.
 
Listening to TXF at this very moment once again. I'll give feedback when I'm done.

Must say, it starts very strong, even with the dumb placement of Sign.
 
Here's my ratings. Brackets are for my old ratings from my first review:

Sign Of The Cross: A- (A-)
Lord Of The Flies: B (B)
Man On The Edge: B- (C+)
Fortunes Of War: D+ (C-)
Look For The Truth: D (D+)
The Aftermath: C+ (C)
Judgement Of Heaven: C+ (C+)
Blood On The World's Hands: B (B)
The Edge Of Darkness: B+ (B)
2 A.M: C+ (C-)
The Unbeliever: C- (D+)

Have to say, it was better than I remember it, but the momentum is absolutely slaughtered in the middle by two poor songs. The Unbeliever is the polar opposite of Dream Of Mirrors also; having a decent beginning and a terrible finish as opposed to Dream's terrible start and decent finish.
 
Cornfed Hick said:
Will one of mods please fix the thread title, the typo is driving me crazy.

My two cents: Blaze is not a great singer, nor even a particularly good one, but if the song stays within his (limited) range, he can be powerful. See "2 a.m." and "Lord of the Flies." He can also be embarrassingly awful at times: the "Fortunes of War" chorus is an abomination that makes the lead singer of the rock band at Billy Madison's third grade graduation party sound like Ronnie James Dio.

The X Factor is not a great album, but it is a pretty good one, and creatively it was a critical point of departure for the band's style and Steve Harris's songwriting ever since. I'm not sure exactly how much credit Blaze deserves for that, but there would never have been an AMOLAD or Final Frontier without the X Factor to lay the foundation.

The X Factor is a far superior album to Virtual Xi (what does the poll have to do with the question posed in the thread title??).
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All of this. While I like the music that was made with him in the band, I can't think of a single moment on those two albums where I'd consider his singing to be a highlight. I just kinda tolerate it because the vocal melodies and instrumental music is good. That's not to say he's bad, but I also wouldn't consider him particularly good. But yea, he has plenty of fine moments.

I rank X Factor about middle tier for Maiden. Which is actually pretty good I'd say. With the exception of FOTD, I at least enjoy every Maiden album. So Fear aside, even at their worse I find them very enjoyable. It flows really well as an album and has some very stellar tracks, but also some very boring plodding moments. Unfortunately, Blaze isn't one of the reasons why I enjoy this album.

Blaze's solo material is good too by the way; at least his first two albums. The music fits his voice a lot better than Maiden ever did. However, like the albums he did with Maiden, I don't find the singing to be the highlight of these albums. I discovered the music because of Blaze, but his singing isn't what sold me on it.
 
Cornfed Hick said:
My two cents: Blaze is not a great singer, nor even a particularly good one, but if the song stays within his (limited) range, he can be powerful.
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I'm a big Blaze fan, I enjoy most of his work from Wolfsbane til present--but as a realist also, the above statement is kinda fact. I'm not sure I've heard anyone call him an immense vocal talent, but he's got one of those voices I like regardless. And hey, it's served him well enough to take him well beyond where he realistically should have gotten, and though his fan base has dwindled as the years go by and he has to get a day job from time to time, I admire his persistence and drive. Even more so, his optimism, despite having a long history with depression--I mean, when I saw him in 2011 on the US tour with maybe 20 other people in the crowd, I thought he'd do a "ugh, let's just get this over with" type performance, and shove off as quickly a possible. But nope, he performed like he had 20,000 in front of him. He knew how many people were out there, and he was still all smiles as he was setting up between openers and his show. I'd see him live again in a second.
 
The post above and Cornfed's say it best.

One of my first posts on this forum was album rankings, to which I got (and expected) an instant response of "You should give the Blaze albums another try" because I ranked them low. I have always found that people suspect a dislike of those two albums as being all about Blaze, but whilst I think that some of the songs would sound better with Bruce (not all, some songs do suit Blaze's voice more due to the tone of the song) I doubt I would rank them as good songs/albums even with that change. X Factor for me starts fantastic and then dies after 3 songs, I can find the odd moments later on that I enjoy but it is just a riff here and there, and the less said about 2AM the better from my perspective. I don't find his solo work to be amazing, but it has some good gems in there, and even the lower points of his solo albums I find better than the low points of those 2 Maiden albums, because they are more suited to his voice.

Ultimately the biggest problem there ever was with Blaze was that he wasn't suited to the existing material, and THAT is the reason he was the wrong man for the job. Nothing to do with him not being 'a good singer' or anything like that, simply when you join a band with over a decade of existing material you need to have a voice that fits it, down tuning would've helped but in reality they needed a different singer. That is largely due to Steve's refusal to have someone who wasn't British.

As CA Bryers has said above, I thoroughly admire his drive for the job he does, no matter how disheartening I imagine it can get during hard times. Something I greatly envy.
 
Cornfed Hick said:
Will one of mods please fix the thread title, the typo is driving me crazy.

My two cents: Blaze is not a great singer, nor even a particularly good one, but if the song stays within his (limited) range, he can be powerful. See "2 a.m." and "Lord of the Flies." He can also be embarrassingly awful at times: the "Fortunes of War" chorus is an abomination that makes the lead singer of the rock band at Billy Madison's third grade graduation party sound like Ronnie James Dio.
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I have to agree with this, Blaze has a sweet spot for his vocals, but it is narrow and it makes his voice boring after a few songs. I have a hard time listening (actually listening, not just background noise) to more than 4 or 5 of his songs at a setting.
 
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