Bruce Dickinson

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For me it's Chemical Wedding.

@Forostar I see Man of Sorrows as one of the weak links on AOB and I can't agree with you about consistency. Also I find Alchemist to be a 10/10 regardless of the TCW song repetition in there. However I'd give both albums 10/10, only when we delve into rating specific songs TCW comes out a notch better.

Tyranny of Souls has several OK songs, mainly Abduction, Believil, and Devil on the Hog. Rest of it is AOB/TCW level of excellence. Roy does everything very well, if you haven't heard Adrian Smith soloing over these kind of riffs you wouldn't miss him, so no bad points on the lineup too.

I find 3 latest Bruce albums as three best solo albums by Maiden members. TCW, then AOB then TOS. I would then put Primal Rock Rebellion, closely followed by Skunkworks on #5. Balls to Picasso is still better than Psycho Motel for me, so #6, followed by Welcome to the World and State of Mind on #7 and #8.

I would stop here because the rest, e.g. British Lion and Tattooed Millionaire, don't interest me enough to even rate them.
 
all Bruce's albums are better than any of the other solo albums

The Chemical Wedding is the best album "solo" album, followed by AOB and Skunkwork. Those 3 are as good albums as you could ask for. After that, Tyranny of Souls is a bit lower down the pecking order and Balls to Picasso is decent yet no great shakes. Tattooed Millionaire has some silly stuff on it but is still not bad as a "fun" album, the title track Son of a Gun and Born in 58 are good tracks, as is the b-side Darkness be my friend.

I like british lion a lot more than I expected I would. It's missing a lot of the "cliches" I expected to find on a Steve solo album and for that alone it's deserving of respect. The mid section of A World Without Heaven is brilliant. It just sounds as badly produced as the 90's Maiden stuff.

Adrian's stuff I never really listened to enough, it wasn't shit it just didn't click with me. I have more time for ASAP and Primal Rock Rebellion than Psycho Motel, maybe I should revisit psycho motel.
 
In my book The Chemical Wedding is the strongest possible 10/10, one of the truly best albums I've ever heard. I just can't get enough of it after the many years it has been with me. TCW and AoB are the highlight of Bruce's solo career. Nothing prior to it and nothing after matched these two albums IMHO. Tyranny of Souls is a significant decline (I really don't like the production).

Last year I relistened to the whole Bruce catalogue back to back (not in one sitting, though :P) and it was an amazing journey. I discovered a lot. I thought about writing something about all the albums back then, so maybe I'll get down to it one day.

As for solo albums by Maiden members in general, for me the three best are without a doubt The Chemical Wedding, Accident of Birth and Awoken Broken (I reeeeeealy love that one). British Lion is probably at the very bottom of my list... ::)
 
Zare said:
For me it's Chemical Wedding.

@Forostar I see Man of Sorrows as one of the weak links on AOB and I can't agree with you about consistency. Also I find Alchemist to be a 10/10 regardless of the TCW song repetition in there. However I'd give both albums 10/10, only when we delve into rating specific songs TCW comes out a notch better.

Tyranny of Souls has several OK songs, mainly Abduction, Believil, and Devil on the Hog. Rest of it is AOB/TCW level of excellence. Roy does everything very well, if you haven't heard Adrian Smith soloing over these kind of riffs you wouldn't miss him, so no bad points on the lineup too.

I find 3 latest Bruce albums as three best solo albums by Maiden members. TCW, then AOB then TOS. I would then put Primal Rock Rebellion, closely followed by Skunkworks on #5. Balls to Picasso is still better than Psycho Motel for me, so #6, followed by Welcome to the World and State of Mind on #7 and #8.

I would stop here because the rest, e.g. British Lion and Tattooed Millionaire, don't interest me enough to even rate them.
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You are ignoring some excellent BLAZE albums and the Murder One album by Killers and one or two Samson albums. White Spirit and A.S.a.P.
 
Whoops I forgot about Blaze, I had only current members in mind. ASAP has one album with couple of good songs on it. Murder One I don't recall any impression, I have to relisten it.

I would definitely have Sillicon Messiah and Tenth Dimension up there in first 5 or 6.

Samson I can't stand. Sorry

Edit : listening to Murder One now and the first song stole Ram it Down by Judas Priest together with the vocal delivery. If this is going to be another DiAnno bullshit like he usually does (hows that song going, december november i love you something) I won't be amused.
 
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British Lion is by far the album I listen to the most, and the one I enjoy the most, and I'm convinced the second one is going to be a lot better. After that, I love the first Blaze album. Bruce's records are really good but there are some aspects I don't appreciate. Accident of Birth is not agressive enough, the bass is way too smooth (the lines are great, but the way they are played doesn't fit the music) and Tyranny, as Black Abyss said, is patchy. And I think the way I view Bruce as a person prevents me from really getting into his music. It's difficult to explain, but I've missed the spot in the 1990s, and I feel like I can not fully get into the right mood now.
As for Adrian, I genuinely dislike his music and, most of all, his singing. I still have the complete ASAP collection, every version of everything, and I was shocked when I first played them. I should give it to a true fan and get rid of it.
 
Zare said:
Edit : listening to Murder One now and the first song stole Ram it Down by Judas Priest together with the vocal delivery.
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Hmm. No. Both are fast but there's more than speed.
Zare said:
If this is going to be another DiAnno bullshit like he usually does
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Nope. This is his metal pure excellence. Great songs with nice guitar work. Perhaps Priest inspired but nowhere songs are copied.

Samson's Head On is very nice.
 
harrisdevot said:
As for Adrian, I genuinely dislike his music and, most of all, his singing
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His singing is actually quite generic. I find it hard to understand the dislike of everything, because he did stuff from hard rock to modern downtuned metal. Do you dislike songs he did for Maiden?
 
Zare said:
His singing is actually quite generic. I find it hard to understand the dislike of everything, because he did stuff from hard rock to modern downtuned metal. Do you dislike songs he did for Maiden?
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Certainly not. He even contributed to songs I consider real masterpieces: Lord of Light and Brighter than a Thousand Suns. But, generally, I find his riffs not that interesting and quite generic and I don't see him as a great songwriter, even more so when he is outside Maiden.
 
Forostar said:
Hmm. No. Both are fast but there's more than speed.

Nope. This is his metal pure excellence. Great songs with nice guitar work. Perhaps Priest inspired but nowhere songs are copied.

Samson's Head On is very nice.
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Murder One is probably Di'anno's best outside Maiden, although I quite like the first two Battlezone albums as well. Head On is the better of the two Samson albums with Dickinson, and I think it might have been even better if he wasn't singing on it. Unlike harrisdevot, I like Adrian's singing, especially some old Urchin stuff (eg My Lady or Life In The City). And (I might have mentioned this, I'm not sure), I found V1's album quite good and was pleasantly surprised by Thunderstick's Something Wicked This Way Comes.
Don't think any of these qualifies as a "solo" album (except maybe Thunderstick) though.
 
Time for an Outside Maiden tournament/survivor. I think some people may be surprised about how good some stuff is, especially Di'Anno's stuff. People are put off because of his image and worse music he's done.
 
harrisdevot said:
As for Adrian, I genuinely dislike his music and, most of all, his singing. I still have the complete ASAP collection, every version of everything, and I was shocked when I first played them. I should give it to a true fan and get rid of it.
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Do you have the A.S.A.P. album on CD? :D
 
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