Haha, I guess you knew which way I was going.
Well yea, that seems to be what people go for when that criticism comes up. I was specifically expecting AMOLAD to be mentioned.
I am not so good with technical guitar terms, but looking at Brave New World, do Ghost, BNW and Blood Brothers also start with arpeggiated chords? At least they start with a soft calm intro (calm melodies).
Without listening to them, as far as I know Ghost doesn't, Blood Brothers definitely does, and I
think BNW doesn't. I don't like BNW much but the other two are favorites of mine, I suppose those intros don't last too long and what comes after is pretty awesome I think. In my opinion, Ghost is more exciting than any of the three songs I mentioned earlier.
And what about these three-in-a-rows: Dance of Death: Face in the Sand, Age of Innocence, Journeyman?
Face In the Sand has a pretty unique intro I think. The way it builds up is something else too, although it vaguely reminds me of Sign of the Cross, so you might have a point there. Age of Innocence has the arpeggiated thing, but the bluesy solo is a nice change of pace. Journeyman does the arpeggiated chords too, but again, it's completely unlike anything Maiden has done before. Say what you will about DoD, they were at least really trying some different things there.
Or: The whole second half of
The Final Frontier? (Isle of Avalon, Starblind, The Talisman, The Man Who Would Be King and WTWW
.
Now this is an interesting case. Structurally, not only are these songs quite similar, but a few of them even have counterparts on other albums. Starblind sounds like the spiritual successor to Lord of Light, Talisman continues a trend of Janick songs that started with Dream of Mirrors and has a lot in common with the Legacy, specifically.
So yes, the repetitive structure criticism is certainly valid here. However, I think it works here because each song creates a different mood and are so different from each other that I forget that each song has a similar formula. With the X Factor, most songs are going for the same mood which makes the repetitiveness all the more noticeable. Don't forget that the first 5 on TFF are also quite different from each other. The result is a one dimensional album (not necessarily a bad thing) that I'm only going to want to listen to when I'm in a certain mood, and another that I can enjoy pretty much whenever I want.
It should also be noted that I'm biased here, Isle of Avalon is my favorite Maiden song, Starblind would be in my top 10 as well. None of the other songs mentioned here (from X Factor or otherwise) would come close. Well, except SotC, but I only mentioned that song in passing.