Brave New World: individual album judgement by yours truly

The Wicker Man - 8
Ghost of the Navigator - 7
Brave New World - 7
Blood Brothers - 7
The Mercenary - 6
Dream of Mirrors - 7
The Fallen Angel - 6
The Nomad - 6
Out of the Silent Planet - 3
The Thin Line Between Love and Hate - 5
 
The Wicker Man: 7/10 (-1)
Ghost of the Navigator: 9/10 (-1)
Brave New World: 9/10 (±0)
Blood Brothers: 10/10 (+2)
The Mercenary: 8/10 (+1)
Dream of Mirrors: 10/10 (±0)
The Fallen Angel: 9/10 (+2)
The Nomad: 9/10 (+1)
Out of the Silent Planet: 10/10 (±0)
The Thin Line Between Love and Hate: 7/10 (+4!!!)

Average: 8.8 (+0.8!)
 
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Just went through this in the individual song threads.

The Wicker Man - 9/10 >
Ghost Of The Navigator - 8/10 >
Brave New World - 9/10 >
Blood Brothers - 7/10 >
The Mercenary - 6/10 >
Dream Of Mirrors - 7/10 >
The Fallen Angel - 7/10 >
The Nomad - 6/10 >
Out Of The Silent Planet - 9/10 >
The Thin Line Between Love And Hate - 6/10 >

Average: 7.4/10
Weighted: 7.3/10

Oops, I thought I liked No Prayer For The Dying more than this album, but I guess I was wrong. I'm going to have to confess my sin in the blasphemy thread.

This album was a huge step in the right direction after the previous 3 albums had marched further and further down a hole. 3 excellent songs and 1 great one, with the rest being middling to good.

Bruce and Adrian sound great here, and even Janick stepped up and played uncharacteristically well. The production was a massive improvement over the Harris-helmed abortions that preceded it, too. Probably still the best sounding of the reunion albums.

Back when Bruce was about to rejoin Maiden, I was running a web site following his and Adrian's work, and I had the privilege of having Bruce's personal email address. When I heard he was rejoining I sent him a note that he acknowledged and apparently took to heart, where I strongly suggested two things for the reunion album:
  • Get an A-list producer, don't let Steve do it. This is Iron Maiden, not a garage band.
  • If Steve's lyrics are repetitive, do something to mix up the melody or delivery to keep it fresh.
I'm really glad that he seemed to have taken my advice. (For this album, at least...)

(Album rankings by person post >)
 
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Jer said:
Oops, I thought I liked No Prayer For The Dying more than this album, but I guess I was wrong. I'm going to have to confess my sin in the blasphemy thread.
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You can like an entire album more than another one with stronger songs. SiT has some of the highest ranking songs in the discography, but I rank it at #7 on my list.
 
Number 6 said:
The average song rating has absolutely nothing to do with the album rating. People really should start to understand that.
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Unless there are odd spoken word or intro-only tracks throwing things off, the average song rating should have quite a bit to do with the album's overall rating. There will always be emotional factors at play, but what's the point of rating things if you're going to ignore what it tells you?

"Best" and "favorite" aren't always the same thing. The ratings indicate how good you think something is. The album with the highest average would be the one you think is the best on the merits. But that album might not be your favorite, for emotional reasons.

For example, my favorite Megadeth album is So Far, So Good, So What! It was the first album of theirs I'd heard, and "Into The Lungs Of Hell" blew me away. I hated Mustaine's voice at first, but that intro instrumental was so good that I kept listening and got used to him over time. It has a special resonance for me because of that. But is it a better album than Rust In Peace? No, of course not. And if I rated them song by song, I'm sure the results would back that up.
 
Song ratings are important in establishing which songs you like better or worse, but the average score for the album from that can differ wildly from your own pleasure in listening to the album. Album ratings should be treating less as song averages and more like one treats rating the songs. Sometimes an album just has a bunch of strong songs, but the tracklisting and assortment are off, or it doesn’t have that ‘special’ quality. Meanwhile, another album may technically have weaker songs but is better arranged and as a whole there’s something ‘special’ to it. There are several albums that would be higher for me going by the song averages, but aren’t because as albums they aren’t as good overall.
 
Diesel 11 said:
Album ratings should be treating less as song averages and more like one treats rating the songs. Sometimes an album just has a bunch of strong songs, but the tracklisting and assortment are off, or it doesn’t have that ‘special’ quality.
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Exactly what I was going to say, I have a track listing problem with DoD for example

Besides, you said you like one album more than the other judged by the ratings? 'Favorite' and 'like' are on the same side, 'better' and 'best' the other, differentiating them is no good without using the correct words
 
Forostar said:
Hi Guys,

As you know, LooseCannon is currently revising the older song threads on the Commentary Boards, and now we all can rate the individual songs. I thought it would be cool to turn these individual ratings (only the ones which were posted) into album ratings.
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Forostar said:
Cheers Khan, and Invader.

Everyone his own thoughts of course, but personally, I think that the average of all songs may present a reliable representation of an album.

Invader, see this as one out of many methods to do this. I don't say it's the only or the best method, but I find it an interesting one and not such an unrealistic alternative.

Apart from comparing with ratings by other members, now we can also compare our judgement with our own thoughts we always had about these albums, and we can put it next to other methods and topics.

(quoting Invader, see original post)

This means that your votes for individual songs (the average) does not correspond with your overall feeling for the album (according to yourself). It's your own information leading to your grade, and it provokes you to compare, and think about it. Nothing wrong with that, I hope! :)
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Forostar said:
Now a bit more philosophy about this method. The thing is: when people rank songs, it's possible to define the average song ranking of an album. If people don't want to name that "album judgement", that's fine. But it surely is an indicator to see how someone judges a total album, without skipping any tracks, or without playing the best song another two times.

It's some kind of automatical reflection, rid of anything else. Let me explain. The following is not per se truth, just an idea I have.

When I listen to an album with 9 songs, I can have different feelings about each song, but in the end it's the total picture that matters. Some people tend to make the lesser songs less important, so that they'll be "surprised" to find out that the total album was so bad (via this method). Others might overemphasize bad songs, and will make better songs less important. They don't talk about these, perhaps they don't even want to listen to them. They'll be surprised that the total result is not as negative as they thought.

(quoting LooseCannon, see original post)

I have the feeling that this occurs more than once with Maiden albums from the nineties, especially the first two. More than just a couple of people keep on talking about the negative tracks, and hardly want to pay attention to the better ones, which they also have stained with the bad image.

I hope this topic serves an alternative view, where every song has the same amount of weight. If I am wrong, no problem. Then it's cold mathematics, which I like as well ;)
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01. The Wicker Man - 9/10
02. Ghost of the Navigator - 10/10
03. Brave New World - 9.5/10
04. Blood Brothers - 7.5/10
05. The Mercenary - 9/10
06. Dream of Mirrors - 9/10
07. The Fallen Angel - 7/10
08. The Nomad - 6/10
09. Out of the Silent Planet - 9/10
10. Thin Line...Love and Hate - 5.5/10

8.15/10

#4. Love the overall feeling and sound of this album. Plenty of brilliant songs, perhaps too many of them stacked on the A Side.
 
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BNW is my favorite Maiden album - majestic album.

The Wicker Man - 10/10
Ghost Of The Navigator - 10/10
Brave New World - 10/10
Blood Brothers - 10/10
The Mercenary - 9/10
Dream Of Mirrors - 10/10
The Fallen Angel - 9/10
The Nomad - 10/10
Out Of The Silent Planet - 10/10
The Thin Line Between Love and Hate - 8/10
------------------------------------------------------------
Average album score: 9,60
 
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The Wicker Man - 9
Ghost Of The Navigator - 10
Brave New World - 8
Blood Brothers - 6
The Mercenary - 7
Dream Of Mirrors - 9
The Fallen Angel - 5
The Nomad - 8
Out Of The Silent Planet - 8
The Thin Line Between Love and Hate - 10
 
The Wicker Man - 8 >
Ghost of the Navigator - 8 >
Brave New World - 9 >
Blood Brothers - 8 >
The Mercenary - 10 >
Dream of Mirrors - 9 >
The Fallen Angel - 9 >
The Nomad - 8 >
Out of the Silent Planet - 10 >
The Thin Line Between Love and Hate - 10 >

Average Score: 8.9/10
Actual Score: 9.7/10

Brave New World is the strongest Maiden album outside of Powerslave just going by song ratings, but there are two other albums alongside PS that I prefer over it. All things considered, it's fucking great and I can't believe that at one time I abhorred it. The very things I used to detest I now love. Crazy.
 
I really want a documentary for BNW album.

Something similar to the documentary about DOD (album,tour, DOTR live album) wouldn't be bad.

It was the reunion, huge buzz around the band and it is one of their best albums, as Bruce has said in his book. The documentary for the DOD album is great, but I much prefer a one for the BNW album - this is a special album and time for the band.
 
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