Bruce Dickinson

  • Thread starter Thread starter Anonymous
  • Start date Start date
Not surprising for a Maiden forum, but I personally feel people are hugely overestimating the contribution Adrian made to these albums. I have no hesitation in saying that minus Adrian these albums wouldn't lose an ounce of their awesomeness. Roy & Bruce is (or certainly were) a potent combination in a way Bruce & Adrian (today) really aren't. Perhaps comparing opposite eras unfairly, but that's my opinion. The tracks on AoB & tCW that H is credited with seem to me to be the poorest tracks across both albums. When you also consider the Bruce-H combo in Maiden the songs of late are pretty hit-and-miss. Speed of Light? Loved it. Death or Glory? Decent, but still felt really manufactured; and this is one of the tracks Bruce & H worked on & penned prior to the band getting together for BoS writing/recording session(s), so it's not like they threw it together. Adrian's own solo work? PRR is superb. Everything else is decidedly average. I think if Adrian was involved now it would be great, as he is a much improved guitarist to 1990's Adrian Smith. AoB/tCW without Adrian would be no great loss though.
 
Last edited:
I don't find Bruce's band to be musically impressive at all so I personally don't even care who the instrument players are. Steve Harris is the reason why Iron Maiden is so great and the absence of Steve is also the reason why Bruce's solo stuff isn't as good as Maiden.
 
Bruce's solo albums lack the guitar melodies that I love about Maiden. TXF and VXI were full of those. And I should probably add that the guitars are good on TCW and AOB, but I couldn't care less about bass and drums.
 
CriedWhenBrucieLeft said:
I have no hesitation in saying that minus Adrian these albums wouldn't loose an ounce of their awesomeness.
Click to expand...
When I look at Bruce and Roy’s work together without Adrian I see the new tracks from Best Of... and everything from Tyranny Of Souls, and in both cases the overall quality is a step down from their AoB/CW work, IMO. You could chalk that up to coincidence, but I think what those tracks lack is the finesse and feeling that Adrian brought to the mix, even when he was just contributing a solo.

CriedWhenBrucieLeft said:
Adrian's own solo work? PRR is superb. Everything else is decidedly average.
Click to expand...
Welcome To The World would like to have a word with you...
 
All of Adrian's solo albums are good, just to a different extent. Welcome To The World would be much better if, say, Bruce was singing on it.
 
Jer said:
Bruce’s solo albums also lack the shitty vocal phrasing dictated by Steve Harris, which has always been one of Maiden’s biggest failings, IMO.

And that’s not all they were full of! :D
Click to expand...
I have no problem at all with the phrasing thing but I understand the issue. But I have to repeat that The X-Factor and Virtual XI have a lot of really awesome melodies.
 
CriedWhenBrucieLeft said:
Not surprising for a Maiden forum, but I personally feel people are hugely overestimating the contribution Adrian made to these albums. I have no hesitation in saying that minus Adrian these albums wouldn't loose an ounce of their awesomeness. Roy & Bruce is (or certainly were) a potent combination in a way Bruce & Adrian (today) really aren't. Perhaps comparing opposite eras unfairly, but that's my opinion. The tracks on AoB & tCW that H is credited with seem to me to be the poorest tracks across both albums. When you also consider the Bruce-H combo in Maiden the songs of late are pretty hit-and-miss. Speed of Light? Loved it. Death or Glory? Decent, but still felt really manufactured; and this is one of the tracks Bruce & H worked on & penned prior to the band getting together for BoS writing/recording session(s), so it's not like they threw it together. Adrian's own solo work? PRR is superb. Everything else is decidedly average. I think if Adrian was involved now it would be great, as he is a much improved guitarist to 1990's Adrian Smith. AoB/tCW without Adrian would be no great loss though.
Click to expand...
I strongly agree with this. Adrian's involvement in AoB seemed more like a PR thing or a way of sending the message that this was going to out-Maiden Maiden. On Chemical Wedding he is more prominent, but even then his songwriting contributions are fairly weak. As far as guitar solos, they're good and he is a nice complement to Roy Z but I wouldn't say it's among his best work as a player. Most of his solo albums are also not very good (PRR probably being the best of the bunch). I'm sure part of it was just having to learn how to write again. From what I understand, after he left Maiden he pretty much took a break from music. Being able to play guitar and write songs is like having muscles, you lose it fast if you're not constantly working at it.

Yet, despite all this, he is probably my favorite writer in Maiden. I think he and Steve balance each other out quite a bit. It's a really good writing combination. I tend to like most of the songs that H is attached to.
 
Oh, vocal phrasing is a big big issue for me. That's one of the main things why I'm not particulary fond of TRATB (the other is guitar doubling vocals for 8 minutes straight, sometimes even two of them).

Themoralsoflifeandtheperilsofdeathtakethewrongwayoutrunningoutofbreathmeetmymatchintheafterlifesuppressthedemonsthatplaguethenight

etc...
 
I really like both Smith/Dickinson tracks off TBOS and think that, with the exception of the rather mediocre Wildest Dreams and New Frontier (here his contribution was fairly minimal), all Smith penned tracks post reunion have been from very good to magnificent. Moreover, when he works with both Steve and Bruce results tend to be outstanding.
 
Jer said:
Roy and Adrian’s differences are what make them such an interesting combination. Roy leans toward fire and bluster, while Adrian leans toward smoothness and feeling; but they’re also versatile and can veer into each other’s lanes, which keeps things fresh. And most importantly, they’re both great players, so they rarely disappoint.

Adrian and Kai Hansen were a really interesting pairing too, with Kai’s effervescent bubbling of fast notes playing nicely off of Adrian’s bluesier stylings. I wish we’d gotten to hear more collaborations from them.
Click to expand...
"Jer solvin H" just happens to be an anagram for John Silver. :eek:
 
Mosh said:
From what I understand, after he left Maiden he pretty much took a break from music.
Click to expand...
This isn't quite correct - he took a break to start with, but he had done both the Psycho Motel albums before hooking up with Bruce. It wasn't like he had done nothing at all between leaving Maiden and joining Bruce.
 
Black Abyss Babe said:
This isn't quite correct - he took a break to start with, but he had done both the Psycho Motel albums before hooking up with Bruce. It wasn't like he had done nothing at all between leaving Maiden and joining Bruce.
Click to expand...

The break was quite short: if I am not mistaken he started The Untouchables in 1992!


 
  • Like
Reactions: Jer
That’s pretty much what I said. He left Maiden and took a break from music. Psycho Motel and Accident of Birth were close enough timeline-wise that I think Adrian was in a similar place musically. I can hear a lot of Psycho Motel in Machine Men and Welcome To the Pit.
 
Mosh said:
That’s pretty much what I said. He left Maiden and took a break from music.
Click to expand...

You said more than that. This is what you said exactly:

Mosh said:
From what I understand, after he left Maiden he pretty much took a break from music. Being able to play guitar and write songs is like having muscles, you lose it fast if you're not constantly working at it.
Click to expand...

He did took a break, that is true, but it was a pretty short one. Adrian Smith was actively writing songs in 1992. Even with the (short) break after he left Maiden, it seems to me he had been working at it more often than Dave Murray if you ask me!

Mosh said:
Psycho Motel and Accident of Birth were close enough timeline-wise that I think Adrian was in a similar place musically. I can hear a lot of Psycho Motel in Machine Men and Welcome To the Pit.
Click to expand...

I agree that Welcome to the Pit is quite close to some of the Psycho Motel material (not so sure about Machine Men though), but tracks like Road to Hell, Ghost of Cain or Return of the King are the type of high quality stuff that Smith and Dickinson were writing for Iron Maiden during the 80s.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top