Bruce Dickinson

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Forostar said:
What solo albums? You mean these songs that were recorded 15 to 30 years ago? DUH!
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AOB, TCW, TOS, the songs are comfortable to sing. Bruce (and Roy Z) knows his strengths and limits. He is properly produced, sings in comfortable range. In my mind, the biggest problem is HOW Maiden albums nowadays are produced. 'Live in the studio', 'will be fine how it is' and so on. The Band (with Steve at the helm) feels too comfortable. They need to challenge themselves. (Let's make Empire of the Clouds with real orchestra!) 'Tough guy' producer would be 'kick in the ass' for them. :)

Priest chalenged themselves with Firepower. 'Let's hire this modern producer and on top of that let's hire Tom Allom.' Those two had suggestions for Rob (regarding singing), I'm sure you have read interviews.
 
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Firepower was Priest playing it safe. They got the producer who worked on their most mainstream and popular material in addition to a producer who is super consistent but also somewhat plain. It's a great album, but it's Priest in their comfort zone. Nostradamus was Priest challenging themselves.

Nobody is going to challenge Maiden because Maiden isn't looking for that. If they were, Kevin Shirley would be just as capable as anyone else (he famously pushed back on Rush during Counterparts when they were tempted to go toward more processed sounds).
 
Priest put out an overall quality package with Firepower, with a lot more life to it than their previous album. I'm not terribly bothered about it being plain when there are a lot of nicely written and catchy songs. But I do like that it doesn't sound like it was recorded in a broom cupboard the 70s.
 
Azas said:
AOB, TCW, TOS, the songs are comfortable to sing. Bruce (and Roy Z) knows his strengths and limits. He is properly produced, sings in comfortable range.
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I don't know, Bruce had to work hard with those songs back in the day. In the studio he obviously was absolutely sensational, and I suppose we are talking about the studio albums, but listen to live versions of Trumpets of Jericho and hear how strained Bruce is. It doesn't sound comfortable to sing at all.
 
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Poto said:
I don't know, Bruce had to work hard with those songs back in the day. In the studio he obviously was absolutely sensational, and I suppose we are talking about the studio albums, but listen to live versions of Trumpets of Jericho and hear how strained Bruce is. It doesn't sound comfortable to sing at all.
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That's the point. Studio album is polished and perfected. Live environment is a different beast.
 
Zare said:
Nice and relevant motivational speech in the first half. I know that he is addressing "his audience" but a large portion of the people aren't creative to an extent of getting the bills paid.
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True.

By the way, Bruce does not seem too impressed with the UK government... :lol:
 
Ruflux said:
IESF is an interesting example in how bad production makes a song that should sound a bit different - a bit exciting, even - feel dull, limp and lifeless. It's a Bruce Dickinson solo track never intended for Maiden in drop D (actually it's just Adrian and Janick in that tuning anyway) but it just kind of sounds just like every other Maiden track thanks to the atrocious production on that album.
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If I'm not mistaken, after the reunion Adrian also played live some songs in drop D - RTTH, Wrathchild, Trooper, HBTN....
 
Am I the only person in the world who loves not only how Bruce’s upper register sounds, but also the Shirley production of the modern Maiden albums? I think they all sound phenomenal. And I admire Steve for sticking to his guns and doing what he wants. I might not agree with all of his decisions, but I love that he knows what he wants and gets after it.
 
Pedigree is irrelevant if the results stink. The production on The X Factor, Virtual XI, Dance Of Death, and The Final Frontier is inexcusable for an A-list band. AMOLAD and The Book Of Souls are passable. Brave New World is the only album from the post-Birch era that actually sounds consistently good, and even that one has some issues with the vocal harmonies.

I don’t understand the point of fanboyism on this. The “whining” may amuse you, but the results on the albums are obvious disappointments unless you like a sloppy, muddy, raw sound.
 
Jer said:
Pedigree is irrelevant if the results stink. The production on The X Factor, Virtual XI, Dance Of Death, and The Final Frontier is inexcusable for an A-list band. AMOLAD and The Book Of Souls are passable. Brave New World is the only album from the post-Birch era that actually sounds consistently good, and even that one has some issues with the vocal harmonies.

I don’t understand the point of fanboyism on this. The “whining” may amuse you, but the results on the albums are obvious disappointments unless you like a sloppy, muddy, raw sound.
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You must be right.
 
Jer said:
Pedigree is irrelevant if the results stink. The production on The X Factor, Virtual XI, Dance Of Death, and The Final Frontier is inexcusable for an A-list band. AMOLAD and The Book Of Souls are passable. Brave New World is the only album from the post-Birch era that actually sounds consistently good, and even that one has some issues with the vocal harmonies.

I don’t understand the point of fanboyism on this. The “whining” may amuse you, but the results on the albums are obvious disappointments unless you like a sloppy, muddy, raw sound.
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TBOS is passable? I think it sounds bad and everything is disconnected - Especially the CD version. The vinyl is a bit more forgiving since it's not squashed. Even prefer the DoD remaster which is ok. I think the original intent behind the DoD production was good - Prominent guitars and somewhat old school drum sound with a decent amount of overheads and room mikes. It just didn't go all the way (i.e. sloppiness), and the original release was a bit nuked tbh.

I love the production on AoB and CW though. Come to think of it, especially AoB since it sounds really authentic.
 
Yeah, I'd personally rank the remastered, less clippy version of DoD over TBOS easily since it at least tries to sound decently polished. TBOS really feels like a rough demo version in far too many parts in comparison. In fact, thanks to the muddy bass drum sound, I'd honestly rank it below certain songs on TFF too (that album has some pretty huge variances in the production between songs so I can't really say it's better on the whole).
 
MindRuler said:
I wonder if the remastered DOD would change my opinion about that album which is now among the bottom 3.
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It's been brought up to the same level of compression as the other reunion albums. You might hear some difference, but it's not night and day. Anyway, you should still try it on Spotify/Youtube/whaterver.
 
Midnight said:
It's been brought up to the same level of compression as the other reunion albums. You might hear some difference, but it's not night and day. Anyway, you should still try it on Spotify/Youtube/whaterver.
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I just bought the vinyl edition which I'll rip as soon as I have it in the mail. Vinyl doesn't allow for the same amount of limiting/compression anyway, so should be good.
 
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