Blaze Maiden or Bruce solo?

Which 2 albums do you prefer?

  • X Factor and Virtual XI

    Votes: 13 25.0%

  • Accident of Birth and Chemical Wedding

    Votes: 39 75.0%
  • Total voters
    52
Habberdasher

Habberdasher

Trooper
I've been a Maiden fan since '83 and bought Tattooed Millionaire when it came out, but for some reason never even listened to Bruce's other solo material...until about 3 weeks ago. I also have never gotten into the XF and VXI, despite many efforts on and off for the past 15 years.

Anyway, I have been listening to Balls, Accident and TCW for the past several weeks and think that the two latter Bruce albums are way better than XF and VXI. My reasons are: 1) Bruce way better on vocals than Blaze (and Bruce's own work on NPFTD and FOTD); 2) The songs seem to have more energy, while IM's are darker, more plodding (and repetitive); 3) Adrian rules!

What do you think? XF and VXI or AOB and TCW?
 
'Accident Of Birth' and 'Chemical Wedding' are two of the best Metal albums ever. There are only very, very few Maiden albums better than those two masterpieces and the two Maiden albums with Blaze are an also-ran.
 
Eh. I find it very difficult to choose. I certainly prefer The X Factor to Chemical Wedding, but I probably like Accident of Birth more than The X Factor. I don't know if I prefer VXI to CW. It's close. So...I'd have to coinflip it.
 
I always tried to avoid this question because I find the choice very difficult.
Let me say this:

The X-Factor is a strong album but I like at least three other Maiden albums better.
Virtual XI I find one of the lesser Maiden albums (might be the one but least favourite)

Accident of Birth is my favourite Bruce album
The Chemical Wedding is very cool as well, it contains some of the best Bruce songs, but also a few duller ones.

I guess I'd go for the Bruce albums...

Order of ranking:

1. Accident of Birth
2. The X-Factor
3. The Chemical Wedding (hmm or maybe a tie with TXF - not sure)
4. Virtual XI
 
Difficult choice. TXF would probably land in my Top 5 Maiden (as fifth), VXI would be in top 10. But both Bruce/Tribe/Smith efforts are superb, they are among best '90s metal records.
Hmm...VXI can't top either of them. TXF's most memorable moments can't top best moments of Bruce's two, either. But TXF is more consistent as a record. However, if i compile a selection of X tracks from both Maiden and Bruce albums, Bruce's would win.

Hence, i vote for Bruce's albums.
 
I slightly prefer Bruce's albums even though I seem to be one of the few who prefers Accident over Chemical Wedding by a very large margin.

1.  Accident of Birth
2.  The X Factor
3.  Chemical Wedding
4.  Virtual XI
 
I've been thinking about that for quite some time.

If you average the songs, Bruce's albums pretty much destroy Maiden's.
Still, Maiden have SotC, and several other great songs.

I think Bruce's albums win. Darkside and Book of Thel win it for me.
I've been thinking about that for quite some time.

If you average the songs, Bruce's albums pretty much destroy Maiden's.
Still, Maiden have SotC, and several other great songs.

I think Bruce's albums win. Darkside and Book of Thel win it for me.
 
Still haven't heard all of Virtual XI, but for it and The X Factor to beat the two Bruce solo albums, it would have to be my favourite album of all time (because Bruce solo albums are just that great, not taking anything away from The X Factor). Someone said before that they found The X Factor to be really consistent and I agree with that statement, but I find Chemical Wedding especially to be more consistent at an even higher level. The only song I could really think of taking out is Killing Floor (even Machine Men is quite good) and replacing it with Return Of The King, which for me would mean it would beat all of Maiden's albums except for 2!
 
Bruce solo. I can choose without thinking. I really like Virtual but I don't like X Factor as much as AOB or Chemical Wedding.
 
If I had to pick, I would take AOB and CW over X-Factor and Virtual XI (luckily I do not need to pick and listen to them all).  I will say though that Skunkworks/Balls/Tyranny are all really good as well, but a notch below AOB/CW.  I think TM is a step below those three, though it does have some good songs. 

The one downside to Bruce being back in Maiden is that there are so many good solo Bruce songs sitting on the shelf and not being played live.  I saw him three times solo and they were great shows.
 
Accident of Birth I find a bit hit and miss (but when it hits, it absolutely smashes the target) and The Chemical Wedding I think is a masterpiece. The two Maiden albums are both excellent. If pushed I'd probably choose the Bruce duo.
 
Chemical Wedding rules all, VXI the weakest one in this selection. AoB and TXF could have both used a pair of scissors, but AoB is better because it has more variety to it. And better production, of course.
 
Ranko said:
Chemical Wedding rules all, VXI the weakest one in this selection. AoB and TXF could have both used a pair of scissors, but AoB is better because it has more variety to it. And better production, of course.
Click to expand...
Something I forgot to add. AoB has amazing production. Maiden really need to use Roy Z
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top