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

They split? For me it always has been:

- Fear of the dark
- Skunkworks
- Chemical Wedding
- Brave new world

:D

i was quite happy but also sad, because I love his solo material.
 
They split? For me it always has been:

- Fear of the dark
- Skunkworks
- Chemical Wedding
- Brave new world

:D

i was quite happy but also sad, because I love his solo material.
No love of Accident of Birth? I always felt like that one's a bit underrated. People remember TCW as Bruce's greatest work (and I don't disagree) but AoB laid out the foundation for it and has a bunch of great tracks on it and yet it feels like most regard it as an okay album at best.
 
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No love of Accident of Birth? I always felt like that one's a bit underrated. People remember TCW as Bruce's greatest work (and I don't disagree) but AoB laid out the foundation for it and has a bunch of great tracks on it and yet it feels like most regard it as an okay album at best.
I prefer Skunkworks to be honest. Accident is not bad album but for me nothing stands out as much as I would like to.
 
No love of Accident of Birth? I always felt like that one's a bit underrated. People remember TCW as Bruce's greatest work (and I don't disagree) but AoB laid out the foundation for it and has a bunch of great tracks on it and yet it feels like most regard it as an okay album at best.
I think TCW is the best album overall but I may prefer the song "Accident of Birth" over anyhting else from his solo career.
 
I think TCW is the best album overall but I may prefer the song "Accident of Birth" over anyhting else from his solo career.
I'm kind in the same boat myself actually, although I rank AoB as an album pretty close behind TCW. I absolutely love the song Accident of Birth though. The lyrics in particular, but the instrumentation is obviously very good as well.
 
Probably a masochist too, given that you are still here 19 years later! :D
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TCW, IMHO, may be a more musically creative and innovative album, but AOB could seemingly have the catchier tunes. In any case, both are incredibly stellar Bruce releases, and sounded fresher than anything Maiden had done during his hiatus from the band,
 
It’d be really cool one day if Maiden would play some of Bruce’s stuff live. I’d love a Maiden version of the title track to AOB.
 
The problem here is board's lack of mechanism that would display how much people "dislike" that post ;)
To be fair, some forum members may have abused that system in the past by giving certain Malaysians -666 for fun and profit.
 
So the title of this thread says it all. What were your feelings as a fan in 1999 thinking that Blaze and Virtual XI would be the template for all future Maiden?

For me ecstatic is not the word. Bruce is coming back? Adrian too?? Three guitarists? I've never cared much about family but the closest I can equate it to was a kid's divorced parents getting back together. I actually like the Blaze albums a lot, even VXI. But there was a part of me that I didn't want to acknowledge that knew that something was missing. They could still write great songs, but the swashbuckling feeling of adventure of their earlier releases was missing. And then as the months wore on and we got news of Brave New World coming out, first the album cover and then the Wicker Man single, I couldn't believe it. Maiden was back. And they so effortlessly rose back to the top of metal as though they never really left. I can't believe that was almost 20 years ago now.

One word: apprehensive

Though the mix and production on TXF and VXI was terrible, the songwriting inconsistent, and Bayley's range limited, those albums were an improvement over FOTD and NPFTD.

I was ecstatic about Smith returning. Harris is the band's backbone, but Smith is also a fantastic songwriter and player, and his departure from Maiden was a huge blow.

I had mixed feelings about Dickinson returning because I didn't care for his raspy singing on many FOTD and NPFTD songs, and his attitude in the 1990s wasn't great: he was critical of Smith for how he left Maiden, didn't put much effort into Maiden in the 1990s (I saw them on the NPFTD tour and he sounded pretty bad), said some terrible things about Harris and TXF.

That written, Dickinson is a larger-than-life personality, a phenomenal singer (with fantastic stage presence), and a talented songwriter, so I can forgive him for occasionally having been a bit of a jerk. No one is perfect, and I certainly couldn't withstand the spotlight as well as he has.

Once they released Brave New World and toured, my apprehension was gone. Dickinson sounded amazing on that tour, and his renditions of Sign of the Cross and The Clansman were superb. Rock in Rio has my favorite versions of those songs as well as Hallowed Be Thy Name, The Trooper, The Evil that Men Do, and Fear of the Dark. And the subsequent studio albums have all been strong. The last 18 years have been a great time to be a Maiden fan.
 
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