IRON MAIDEN REFERENDUM 2020: Results -> Hallowed Be Thy Name wins for the 5th time!

Are you satisfied with the results?

  • Total voters
    18
Voted for These Colours Don't Run, For The Greater Good Of God, The Legacy, The Wicker Man, Blood Brothers and The Thin Line Between Love & Hate.
 
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Eliminated after Round 9:
These Colours Don't Run - 16 votes
The Thin Line Between Love & Hate - 16 votes
Dream Of Mirrors - 15 votes

Virtual XI + Virus join the game!
 
Voting for...
• The Reincarnation Of Benjamin Breeg
• The Wicker Man
• Blood Brothers
• When Two Worlds Collide
• The Educated
 
I'm gonna need to re-listen to be sure, but I'll likely be voting for everything from VXI with the exception of Futureal, Clansman, and Amigos.
 
All of Virtual XI except, Como Estais Amigos, The Clansman and Futureal
The Legacy
Brave New World
Out On A Silent Planet
Virus
 
Well, here it is, Virtual XI is an inexcusably bad album. It’s strange too, there’s atleast two Iron Maiden albums I think are worse than this one (Dance of Death and No Prayer For the Dying) but man, this album straight up just offends me. I can’t even pretend to like it because Iron Maiden is one of my favorite bands (and I see many people pretend to think this Virtual XI is good just because Iron Maiden is their favorite band; stop fooling yourself). Iron Maiden’s one of those bands that had some objectively genre defying songs that still hold up insanely well today. And I’m talking about the good stuff: 80’s heavy fuckin’ metal. Murders in the Rue Morgue, Transylvania, Aces High, Powerslave, Wasted Years, Flight of Icarus… Those kinda songs you just see the title of and you start bobbing your head a little bit and start reaching for a beer.

….now that being said: who the fuck gets excited to listen to The Educated Fool? Who the fuck sits down and ingests this shit willingly? I’m sorry, but this album is thoroughly worse than I remembered. Who even wants to see songs like Don’t Look to the Eyes of a Stranger or Como Estais Amigos live? What kind of reaction would this stuff garner if they played it live? I can’t wrap my head around the songwriting process for this album; I truly can’t.

I’ll tell you what this sounds like, and this is the first TRUE album where Iron Maiden started to sound like this, this sounds like a prog band recording a hard rock album (WELL past their prime mind you) after getting picked up by some German metal record label like Steamhammer or SPV. It sucks. And it’s one of those things, I’m not even mad about Iron Maiden choosing not to chase past glories, I’m just mad about them writing and sounding like garbage for this album.

I don’t know, Futreal doesn’t do anything for me. I mean it’s energetic but still finds everyway possible to be boring/lifeless. There’s only three songs on here that I can make it all the way through on: The Clansman, When Two Worlds Collide, Lightning Strikes Twice. Those last two atleast are a bit shorter and remind me a bit of a better Iron Maiden band.

My guess is Steve purposefully botched this one to make booting Blaze go down smoother with the fans. That’s all I can think of. If I spent my time uselessly ranking and reviewing things I’d give this a low 2/10.

Voted for:
  • The Wickerman
  • Blood Brothers (would like to see Ghost, Brave, and OOTSP move on)
  • Futureal
  • Angel whatever
  • Educated fool
  • Como whatever
  • Stranger eyes song
  • Virus
 
Dityn DJ James said:
and I see many people pretend to think this Virtual XI is good just because Iron Maiden is their favorite band; stop fooling yourself
Click to expand...
Or they actually like Virtual XI. There’s a warm, friendly quality I find when I listen to it. No the production isn’t their best, Steve went overboard with the repetition, but the band feels like they’re really putting soul into it at the same time. Of course not everyone is going to like it but I personally put it well above a lot of the ‘80s material.

And for the record, no I don’t think “Como Estais Amigos” would work all that great live, but that doesn’t stop me from loving the hell out of the studio version. I cry every time I listen to it. It’s my third favorite Maiden song overall.
 
Lord of Light and Wickerman
And VXI except Como Estais Amigos, The Educated Fool, and Clansman.

If there's a song I want to see in the finals it's The Educated Fool. I never got the hype for Futureal. It's just a normal rocker in my eyes. Fool is a lot more special to me :)
 
I voted for:

The Reincarnation of Benjamin Breeg
The Legacy
Futureal
The Angel and the Gambler
Como Estais Amigos

I have a soft spot for VXI, not sure why, there's lots of melodies that are admittedly repetitive but at least I like 'em.
 
Breeg
Lord of Light
The Legacy
The Angel and The Gambler
Lighting Strikes Twice
When Two Worlds Collide
Don't Look To The Eyes Of A Stranger
Virus

A quick listen to Virtual XI showed that not much opinion had changed to those of before. The songs I didn't vote for I do quite like, with honourable mention to The Educated Fool. Also went for the AMOLAD votes again, although I didn't bother with BTATS as it was likely a useless vote.
 
Dityn DJ James said:
I see many people pretend to think this Virtual XI is good just because Iron Maiden is their favorite band; stop fooling yourself
Click to expand...
When I first got into Iron Maiden, I got in via Napster in 2001. As a result, I grabbed some songs out of order. Some of those songs were ones from VXI - When Two Worlds Collide, Futureal, and Lightning Strikes Twice, in that order. All three of them remain personal favourites to this day, regardless of quality. Do I think it's a good album? No, it's not really. Do I think it's better than what you say? Absolutely.

It's certainly got some failed experimental moments and you can feel the beginnings of the reunion-era prog turn in places, and a lot of the experimentation doesn't work, but this is not an album made by a band with a creative dearth, it's an album made by a band that is at a turning point and doesn't know quite where to go. As a result you get songs that reinforce the "dark and brooding" theme of TXF, you get songs that are long and attempt to be progressive without quite knowing how, and you get a really cracking epic that's stood the test of time, and you get a couple shorter songs that try to grab the energy of traditional Maiden short songs.

I like The Angel and the Gambler. I think it has really great moments in it. I think the choruses, although never-ending, are catchy. I think it sounds different to a lot of what Steve's written, and I think that's intentional. It's not a song that challenges me heavily as a listener, but I like it. I'm not fooling myself into it, it's not on my list of "must listens". I think it's a 7/10, and unfairly maligned because of the repetition and length.

I like When Two Worlds Collide. I think if this song had ended up on BNW it would be far more lauded. It's got a cool flow to it, and Blaze sounds as good as ever on the song, with the band not sounding dragged down and in the dirt (like in other songs on the album). I'd put it in 7.5/10 or even 8/10.

I like Lightning Strikes Twice. I like the energy in the chorus and I like the buildup, and I like the solo a lot. I think of all of the songs on this album that I fell in love with before I immersed fully in the Iron Maiden catalogue, this one has fallen the most, but I'd still call it a 7/10.

I'm not going to defend the last three songs on the album. I think Don't Look to the Eyes of a Stranger is one of the worst Iron Maiden songs, in The Assassin/The Apparition level of bad. It plods, it repeats, it meanders. The Educated Fool...I like a lot of what it does, but I'm not sure it works as well as it was intended to work. And Como Estais Amigos is a nice concept, but again, it doesn't work, though it has a lovely vocal performance.

Do I think it's a lovely, superstar album? No. Do I think it's got value above what people express? Absolutely. And hate-filled angry rants directed at me, and others like me, who seem to think that I am deluding myself because I want to show my love of the band? No.

I show my love of the band by listening to every album. Every song. And forming deep, meaningful opinions on each and every one of them that aren't just furious "this is crap, this sucks, Blaze stinks" opinions. I might not always express those opinions, but I have 'em. For every song in this band's library, even the scuzzy b-sides that nobody should care about like Pass the Jam and More Tea Vicar (which, by the way, are nonsense and I'm happy they provided the band some fun to create, but I'm not entirely sure why they passed them along to us, because as a listener, I got very little of value other than knowing the band members seem to have the ability to have fun together). I have opinions that are controversial (no, I think SIT is a very pedestrian album because of a bland vocal performance by Bruce and because the synths make it sound very samey), I have opinions that are downright blasphemous to some people (To Tame a Land is a bad idea and a bad execution that gets dragged over the finish line because it has cool guitars), and I have opinions that march in lockstep with the majority of Iron Maiden fans, but I have 'em for my own reasons that have nothing to do with blind mindless adoration.

In short, please don't suggest that opinions of me, or people like me, are the mindless opinions of lickspittles. They aren't. We have good and cogent reasons to like what we like, and dislike what we don't, and we ask you to respect them.
 
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