How did you feel when the reunion was announced in 1999?

Mosh said:
That had to be demoralizing for someone who had just put out one of his best works (and surely at least part of the reason the Maiden reunion happened).
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100% the only reason Bruce had for going back to Maiden.
 
Mosh said:
I can't imagine an alternate universe where the Bruce solo band continues much beyond The Chemical Wedding, at least in that format. As far as I know, the album didn't sell very well and his solo gigs were still a far cry from what he was doing with Maiden. That had to be demoralizing for someone who had just put out one of his best works (and surely at least part of the reason the Maiden reunion happened). If there was no Maiden reunion, I could see them doing one more album tops before Bruce moved on to something else. Maybe flying full time? I really doubt they would've continued making music together to this day though.
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This is what I've always believed as well. If you look at Bruce's solo discography, he's really not one to keep doing the same thing forever if it's not working out commercially or critically. Hell, it took him until 1997 and AoB to fully return to heavy metal even. Considering this and the general lack of career success, there's no way he was going to keep at it for much longer. One more album and a best of collection would've likely been it for him.
 
I think that in retrospect, I foresaw what was going to happen: the output would be a bit less good, but much more succesful. I really hope that Bruce will tour solo again at some point and, above all, put much more care into his next solo album than in Tyranny of Souls.
 
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Black Abyss Babe said:
My boyfriend sums it up thus: "they discovered they didn't quite work without him, he discovered he didn't quite work without them."

I think that basically covers it :).
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And somehow both released masterpieces in the time they were split. :innocent:

But no, I agree. As good as their material was during that time, they stand stronger together than apart.
 
Diesel 11 said:
And somehow both released masterpieces in the time they were split. :innocent:

But no, I agree. As good as their material was during that time, they stand stronger together than apart.
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The boyfriend doesn't agree with us regarding VXI though - he describes it as "an absolute travesty" :grumble:

My take on the whole is that what they did in the '80s was good, and what they did in the '90s (all of them!) was as good, but different. What they're doing now is better than everything that went before. For a number of reasons :).
 
Diesel 11 said:
If you rather like the restless nights, why shit on the album that came from them? :innocent: :ok:
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Black Abyss Babe said:
The boyfriend doesn't agree with us regarding VXI though - he describes it as "an absolute travesty" :grumble:

My take on the whole is that what they did in the '80s was good, and what they did in the '90s (all of them!) was as good, but different. What they're doing now is better than everything that went before. For a number of reasons :).
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This is almost my exact opinion on Maiden. I didn't get into them until I was 8 years old, which was the year Seventh Son came out. So I was too young to have opinions like "this production sucks" or to be able to tell the difference in Janick or H. It was just more metal I enjoyed. I was 15 when The X Factor dropped and that was already a bad/tragic year for me so that album has always stuck with me. I'm only 38 now, and was never really old enough during their hey day to feel really strongly about their 80s material. Granted Seventh Son and Powerslave are some of my favorite albums by them. But their newest albums, post re-union? Taken as a whole era, their 80s work doesn't touch what they're doing now, imo.
 
chaosapiant said:
This is almost my exact opinion on Maiden. I didn't get into them until I was 8 years old, which was the year Seventh Son came out. So I was too young to have opinions like "this production sucks" or to be able to tell the difference in Janick or H. It was just more metal I enjoyed. I was 15 when The X Factor dropped and that was already a bad/tragic year for me so that album has always stuck with me. I'm only 38 now, and was never really old enough during their hey day to feel really strongly about their 80s material. Granted Seventh Son and Powerslave are some of my favorite albums by them. But their newest albums, post re-union? Taken as a whole era, their 80s work doesn't touch what they're doing now, imo.
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That's interesting. It's cool to hear that someone else got into Maiden as a kid. I also got into them when I was 8 - in 1986. My experience with that has been a little different - getting into them that young completely clouds my opinion about the 80s era because I do tie it in with my childhood (which was a happy one for me) so I'm honest and say that I can't ever look at them objectively. The 80s albums will always rank high for me because of the nostalgic 'memory triggering' moments that they provide (and of course, I did, and still do, enjoy the music). It's tough for me to evaluate those albums on musical merit alone.

I was really apprehensive about the reunion announcement though because I thought if they screwed up the next album, they were done. You can only ride the wave of excitement for so long - you have to have an album to back up the hype. Fortunately, BNW delivered. I'd even go on to say that BNW is one of the most, if not the most, important album of their career because of that.
 
chaosapiant said:
This is almost my exact opinion on Maiden. I didn't get into them until I was 8 years old, which was the year Seventh Son came out. So I was too young to have opinions like "this production sucks" or to be able to tell the difference in Janick or H. It was just more metal I enjoyed. I was 15 when The X Factor dropped and that was already a bad/tragic year for me so that album has always stuck with me. I'm only 38 now, and was never really old enough during their hey day to feel really strongly about their 80s material. Granted Seventh Son and Powerslave are some of my favorite albums by them. But their newest albums, post re-union? Taken as a whole era, their 80s work doesn't touch what they're doing now, imo.
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I think the exact opposite :)
 
chaosapiant said:
This is almost my exact opinion on Maiden. I didn't get into them until I was 8 years old, which was the year Seventh Son came out. So I was too young to have opinions like "this production sucks" or to be able to tell the difference in Janick or H. It was just more metal I enjoyed. I was 15 when The X Factor dropped and that was already a bad/tragic year for me so that album has always stuck with me. I'm only 38 now, and was never really old enough during their hey day to feel really strongly about their 80s material. Granted Seventh Son and Powerslave are some of my favorite albums by them. But their newest albums, post re-union? Taken as a whole era, their 80s work doesn't touch what they're doing now, imo.
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I only discovered Maiden around 2010, when TFF was already out (read my back story here, if you're interested). But something very strange has happened with all the information I've accumulated about them since: my mind has filed it all in chronological order, so it seems like I remember it from the time. Like for example, I was remembering recently a last day of term at school, when the music teacher had invited us all to bring in records. So the girls were bringing in stuff like Wham. I thought "Why on earth didn't you think to take Powerslave?" Then I remembered: "Oh of course, because it was 1986 and you hadn't heard it then!"
 
I was incredibly excited, ecstatic and over the moon about it, as it was not just Bruce who was coming back, but also Adrian. Both are key ingredients to the Iron Maiden that I love. The outcomes of the reunion have been beyond my wildest dreams, both in terms of new material and live shows. Long may it remain son.

The downside was not getting enough Bruce solo material since then, but you can't always get what you want.
 
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