Re: Daily Song: Different World
Well, mckindog, I made my post, because I am interested in comparing Maiden's openers of this century. But there's more. I wrote this on 9 September 2008, voicing my
expectations for the next album (which now has become TFF):
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... Personally, I certainly hope that Maiden will stick to the long songs (can’t get enough of it to be honest). Many bands with a long career have difficulties with writing strong shorter songs (e.g. less than 6 or 5 minutes) and Maiden is no exception.
It proves that it’s difficult to make a soup with less ingredients (in the form of time). The longer the songs, the more ingredients Maiden can add.
When AMOLAD came out I was surprised to see that the album had a longer average song length than My Dying Bride’s latest album. MDB are famous for their long songs so this was quite remarkable! ...
and in later posts in the same topic:
...One "pretty good" short song is
nothing compared with the pre-2000 era, and especially the 80's.
If they're going for short songs again I really hope they'll come up with something completely
new, and not a The Wicker man-Wildest Dreams-Different World part 4. In other words: I hope that Adrian won't contribute to the opening track, he's better in longer songs, since he has rejoined the band....
...Hm to be honest I haven't much statistics but I'll think about it. I could be wrong. But not when it comes to Maiden, at least. Al the popular songs of the last three albums are longer tracks, apart from Rainmaker and perhaps The Wicker Man. On older albums, way more short songs are often as popular as the longer ones....
In hindsight: funny because Adrian did contribute again to the opening track, but I still don't find it as good as TWM. However, I do like the different path that was chosen!
...the shorter songs from the pre-2000 era are way more popular (or "better") than most recent shorter songs...
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That's how I look at it. Maiden has done many strong short(er) songs in the past, it's difficult for them to reach that level, when they want to put interesting things in a short period of time.
However, Maiden has surprised me with the last album, because you'll see that I'll give a much higher grade for The Alchemist, simply because I find it better. I admit that in some parts The Alchemist reminds us of Man on the Edge, but it still has a fantastic melodic vibe. I'll get more into that when that song arrives.
Bottom line: I try to judge every song on its own, short and long, but naturally I do compare with other songs. I still think Maiden prefers to write longer songs, just look at the songlengths of TFF. That's a wise choice, because -with the exception of Rainmaker and The Alchemist- it has been a while since they did it as well as in the past.
The Wicker Man is imo not as good as most previous openers. It's good, but I find most previous openers at least as good or better, with the exception of Moonchild and Where Eagles Dare.
Please take this into consideration: It's not that I judge short songs more critical than long songs. On the contrary, if I see monotone, repetitive, unimaginative parts in long(er) songs, or when I miss strong melodies, I mention this in my posts.
mckindog said:
I seem to like straightahead rock songs better than most of you guys and as far as straightahead rockers go
We'll see. Actually, thanks for this input, I think I'll make a statistic to see how people have judged songs by songlength. Even though members might not be busy with this consciously, when they vote, it's still interesting to see what may come out.
