Bruce Dickinson

[CA Bryers]

The real bonus song is Eternity. Come to think of it, the album could have been without it and Sonata - and those two, along with Shadow and maybe Resurrection Men, are the songs with the biggest impression from the album for most fans. So it was a good move for the album's success. Better songs, probably, the same emotion, that's not that easy. IIRC, Bruce said that Shadow is a better closer than Sonata, both unique in their feel and structure.

With the amount of the written material, he could have easily putted more songs to the album (2 more - one fast and one TCW-like), and a bonus one too (he should have done it after all these years), but I guess he wanted to save some songs for the next album and maybe followed the concept of the story in some way. He probably felt that the album's backbone was there, and Eternity is definitely part of. I'm very grateful that a version of the song with solos exists, but it will always be more of a Maiden song for me, probably because it was released first as such. Sonata and Rain could have been bonus songs, especially in some of his other albums.

I'm really curious if they'll try Sonata live, it could change some opinions. It's a too specific song, so I'm not sure if he has to play it.

Great points, especially about Eternity being a bonus song. I consider it a Maiden song for the same reasons, though I prefer Bruce's because--as much as people hate the production on Mandrake--at least it doesn't sound as horribly muddy as the BoS version does. It sounds pretty great to my ears, at least.

As for Sonata live, I guess it depends on if Bruce read any of the feedback Mandrake got. If there's one song that's universally agreed upon to be the weak point of the album, it's Sonata. I'm normally one who's up to hear a live version of just about anything, but after so long hoping the song'll grow on me, I've given up. It's not that far off from Midnight Jam, which is equally meandering and kinda pointless. I mean, Sonata had been laying around and considered unusable by both Bruce and Roy, and it reportedly took Roy a lot of tinkering and editing to get it to the version we got, which still wasn't very good.

Other than that one song, though, I do like the album quite a bit, and am hopeful for the next album.

 

[rockerman]

TMP is my most favorite album by Bruce with Sonata being my favorite track. In fact, I wish he would do an entire album with the “rock opera” feel of Sonata.