Iron Maiden songs that you flat out dislike?
- Thread starter Caveman Ninja
- Start date
Viperlord
Nomad
This is getting progressively (hue) sillier. Even granting that Steve solo epics are generally less complex (this is not always a bad thing for the songs; I think Greater Good of God and Wild Wind, in terms of what they're trying to accomplish via storytelling, benefit from Steve's approach there,) it's not as if the band does not do epic multi-layered songs. Starblind and Isle of Avalon for instance have a lot going on.
Apparently so.
Babo 91
Nomad
Actually, new maiden tends to be a lot more technical and harder to play than the majority of old maiden
DJMayes
Ancient Mariner
I will throw my hands up and say as a non-musician I have absolutely no clue. I was just assuming it for the sake of argument.
Naty
Educated Fool
All this discussion about music's technical details... It's at moments like this that I quite like the fact that I don't understand the technical stuff that much. To me it doesn't matter if a song has repeated melodies or the same drum beats for the most part of the song or whatever. If it appeals to me on an emotional level, that's enough. But as it was already said here, everyone relates to music in different ways.
Brave New Pilgrim
What not to do if your bird sh#$% on you....
Actually, as a guitarist for 12 years, I find a lot of the older stuff much more straight forward and easier to play then a lot of the newer stuff. The new stuff is actually much denser in material than a lot of the older stuff.
So, here it is: musicians. We have a lot of them. What's the hardest stuff to play?
Brave New Pilgrim
What not to do if your bird sh#$% on you....
Well, it probably depends on what the players strengths and weaknesses are as a musician. I play a lot of metal-type-stuff, so I don't really find any Maiden all that physically taxing to play. Also, harmonies typically = easy to play. The harmonies are typically constructed to be easy to play, so that 2 or even 3 guitarists can...well....harmonize.
I find the songs with a lot of nuance and/or moving parts to be the most difficult to pick up. So basically, the epics. Infinite Dreams, Rime, Paschendale , pretty much all of AMOLAD, WTWWB and EOTC are good examples of these. Multi-layered songs with a lot of moving parts can be quite tricky to completely absorb.
Solo-wise, it really depends on the song.
Guitarist here. I don't think any of their stuff is that difficult. I also disagree with the reunion stuff being harder to play. The difficulty level is about the same. Even Alexander the Great only took an evening for me to figure out.
For timing, I remember Back In the Village and Sea of Madness having tricky riffs. The Seventh Son album in general has various passages with some difficulty. In fact, after giving it some thought, I'd say Powerslave through Seventh Son are all more difficult than anything they've done since. Lots of intricate guitar parts there.
I'm not a bassist (maybe @SinisterMinisterX ) can fill us in here but the old stuff sounds harder to me to play on bass than the new stuff.
I think as long as you have a good sense of rhythm and know the songs well enough, pretty much anything by them can be picked up fairly quickly. The more difficult thing would be playing Maiden with a band and locking in.
For timing, I remember Back In the Village and Sea of Madness having tricky riffs. The Seventh Son album in general has various passages with some difficulty. In fact, after giving it some thought, I'd say Powerslave through Seventh Son are all more difficult than anything they've done since. Lots of intricate guitar parts there.
I'm not a bassist (maybe @SinisterMinisterX ) can fill us in here but the old stuff sounds harder to me to play on bass than the new stuff.
I think as long as you have a good sense of rhythm and know the songs well enough, pretty much anything by them can be picked up fairly quickly. The more difficult thing would be playing Maiden with a band and locking in.
Brave New Pilgrim
What not to do if your bird sh#$% on you....
I don't really find it harder to play, per-se. I simply find it a little more difficult to completely absorb some of the subtleties and intricacies, making for a slightly longer learning process. That's what I've found, anyways. Each guitarist is different.
Most Maiden in general is pretty simple on guitar, though. (Minus the solos)
It's not "harder" so much as different. Steve's increasing use of power chords as the years go by give a very different feel to the two eras.
The chops are more "obvious" in the early years, when a lot of Steve's lines were "lead bass", constructed very much like guitar lines. The hard parts from later songs tend to be when Steve switches to other techniques. For instance, the acoustic bass part from The Clansman is especially tricky to play but not obviously technical-sounding.
I think it's very possible a brand new bass player would find the early stuff to be harder, but since I grew up with it, it all seems about the same to me.
Mrcl
Invader
I gave Paschendale another chance and listened to it a few times in my car. Well, after the initial hearing of this song I didn't like it in the slightest. Now, having given it time to grow on me... I dislike it less. It has its great moments. But also very weak moments.
I don't flat out dislike it anymore but its not a top song for me.
Dr. Eddies Wingman
Brighter than thousand_suns
Liveone
Nomad
It all depends on the song.
Like a few of the guys have said already, Maiden rhythm guitar isn't that tricky to pick up.
The lead harmonies are straightforward as well. In fact there are more guitar harmonies on TBOS than there have been for a very long time.
The most difficult part are the solos.
The really early solos from IM album aren't too bad however once H arrived it got a bit more difficult.
Also Janick's solos can be quite hard to pick up for obvious reasons.
Brave New Pilgrim
What not to do if your bird sh#$% on you....
Talking about harmonies for a sec. One thing that I've noticed in the evolution of my playing/writing/recording is that I'm using harmonies a lot less than I was several years ago. Back 4 or 5 years ago, all of the material I wrote seemed to sound like old school Maiden on speed- very fast and virtually everything was harmonized. As I evolved and grew as a musician, I started to use guitar harmonies quite a bit less. Don't get me wrong, I still use them, but not nearly as much. It started to seem a little gimmicky TBH.
Harmonies are an effective little way to add something to a song. They can give a little sparkle without being anything too taxing or complicated. Overuse could certainly get quite gimmicky, yes.
MrKnickerbocker
clap hands
As a primarily rhythm-based guitar player who dabbles in leads and has very little righthand tremolo speed...
I find most of their uptempo songs hard to play. Comes from a decade of playing incorrectly (using my forearm instead of my wrist), but even the verse gallop in The Trooper is tough. That said, most of their stuff is quite easily to pick up, especially the melodic work. Harmonies in Maiden songs are usually very simple. The rhythms are the bits that get tricky.
I find most of their uptempo songs hard to play. Comes from a decade of playing incorrectly (using my forearm instead of my wrist), but even the verse gallop in The Trooper is tough. That said, most of their stuff is quite easily to pick up, especially the melodic work. Harmonies in Maiden songs are usually very simple. The rhythms are the bits that get tricky.