Gangland

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How good is Gangland on a scale of 1-10?

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A good and enjoyable song, but it is the weakest track on the album. "Total Eclipse" should have been on the album instead. 6.

Edit: listened to the whole album again and had to bump "Gangland" up to a 7. That makes "Run to the Hills" the weakest track on the album for me (although it's pretty strong on its own). But I still think "Total Eclipse" should've taken its place.
 
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Another underrated Maiden song that's underrated for a reason - there are better. "Gangland" is nonetheless pretty great. 7/10.
 
A peppy drum intro buffets a nice arpeggiated groove. This cuts abruptly into an OK but decidedly non-catchy verse, which then cuts into a mildly catchy but quickly grating chorus.

A return to the verse, and then we take a left turn into an extended bridge with much better vocals. This returns to the annoying chorus, then breaks into a pretty sweet harmonized interlude.

An awkward scream from Bruce introduces what sounds like the beginning of a great solo, but then it suddenly cuts off while the backing music continues for a few more bars (WTF?). This leads back into the verse and chorus, which does a pretty icky upward modulation at the end before an embarrassingly bad squealing of "tell no tales" ends the song.

There are some good bits hiding in here, but there's lots of bad and blah stuff too. I think the bad parts tip the scales just enough to round this down to a 4/10.
 
I don't undestand what is the big problem with Gangland. Yes it is a bit weak but Invaders and Total eclipse are not any better. 6
 
Look, has anyone tried to eat a lot of sickingly sweet candies all at once? I'm asking this because this has to be the musical equivalent of that. It all starts off good enough with a frantic drum intro, courtesy of Burr, followed up by a decent enough riff from the boys. Even the lyrics start off well, but then everything falls into chaos. The closest example I could use to describe how quickly this song hits rock bottom (and tries to keep going deeper) is Fear of the Key, but even that's not a fair comparison.

I understand the guys wanted to give Burr an actual credit on the album in some way but perhaps they should have taken a bit more precaution. And in the end, not even the band seems to like this one. And I don't either.

This is a 3/10.
 
I always wondered why Gangland has so short solo - does anyone knows ? :confused:

This song do not deserve the hate it gets. Almost speed metal (someone even include Invaders as a early thrash metal song - but that's probably more correct for the song Iron Maiden). Amazing drum intro by Clive, heavy riff, great pre-chorus and the actual chorus is actually quite haunting. Awesome twin-lead guitar melodies and Bruce's screams are top-notch (his highest note?). Only one short solo - that's a down..... 7/10
 
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Number 6 said:
As you may know, The Number of the Beast was created in a very short period of time, and "Gangland" was the first song they recorded for it, so it had to be rushed.
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That's a dull excuse/mistake. Of course they have time to add the second solo, I don't get why they have to hurry up to finish a album.
 
After the greatest of RTTH, "Gangland" doesn't quite match it. It's decent, but nothing special. 4
 
Kalata said:
That's a dull excuse/mistake. Of course they have time to add the second solo, I don't get why they have to hurry up to finish a album.
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"There's a guitar solo missing from 'Gangland'. It was recorded but we were in such a hurry that it was never mixed and nobody noticed. There's supposed to be two guitar solos, Dave's which is on there and then I do this shriek and a big drum roll and there's this backing track where Adrian's guitar solo should be. We were all so out of it. There was a massive stack of beer cans in the studio, we actually built an entire wall of beer cans. We had a blast recording that album but there was odd moments of forgetfulness." (Bruce Dickinson for Marco Barbieri - 1999)

They were in a rush because they had already booked dates for the tour and had already reserved the time in the studio so they had to work everything like a clock

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I think they've overdubbed the album version over what he's playing and playing along to, as his playing looks out of sync for a lot of it.
 
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