Kerrang Magazine Iron Maiden Tribute CD

Lately I've gotten a craving for different. I'll listen to acoustic versions, string tribute covers, country covers of metal, metal covers of country... unique individual twists intrigue me... CSIT was exactly that, so I liked it, but I think Metallica's is the best (of the four I've heard, I'm in the process of hearing the rest).

Edit: ok, listened to the rest, Black Tide's Prowler was impressive, liked it a lot, A7X did a good job, but nothing spectacular... Still like Metallica's the best :) Something about how Hetfield sings it.
 
As for the artwork on this CD, one of my dogs has this annoying habit of launching himself at the TV if he sees a dog/cat/horse/etc. and tries to attack whatever it maybe (the main reason why our TV is screwed to the wall - he would have knocked it over by now). Well, I was listening to one of these covers on youtube and the artwork was visible on my laptop screen - and he saw it. I have no idea what he sees in this artwork, but he does not like it. :D
 
Albie said:
As for the artwork on this CD, one of my dogs has this annoying habit of launching himself at the TV if he sees a dog/cat/horse/etc. and tries to attack whatever it maybe (the main reason why our TV is screwed to the wall - he would have knocked it over by now). Well, I was listening to one of these covers on youtube and the artwork was visible on my laptop screen - and he saw it. I have no idea what he sees in this artwork, but he does not like it. :D
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What about Eddie? That's a beast! Especially the first LP could cause some problems! ;)
 
Thanks for posting the DT, Foro - it's the one I was most curious about, being a big DT fan.

And I'm also one of the few people alive (apparently) who likes LaBrie's voice. I think is great on this track - much better than on DT's live versions of The Number Of The Beast album.

To Invader, who "complained" about LaBrie not hitting the high scream at the end ... I think LaBrie handled that perfectly. His voice gets thin and annoying when he goes that high. By staying (relatively) low, his voice kept its power and sounded much better.

Remember, a good cover is never about merely duplicating the original note-for-note. If that's all you want, listen to the original. The challenge of a good cover is changing the song to make it your own. I'd usually rather hear a band try to do a truly new version of a cover and fail miserably than hear a note-perfect but boring cover.

There are exceptions, of course. DT is often note-perfect, and I like that because some of the covers they do (e.g. "Funeral For A Friend") are challenging, and few other bands can aspire to do those covers. And we all know about "Holy Diver" getting butchered.

But sometimes the failures can be interesting for what they attempted. In the past few days, I've heard Monster Magnet's cover of "Evil" (an old Willie Dixon blues tune, more famously covered by both Clapton and Cactus) and Grand Funk's cover of "Feelin' Alright" (a Dave Mason song most famously covered by Joe Cocker). Both of those were failures, but both of those bands radically changed the song around and at least tried to be interesting. I give them credit for having the courage to risk failing.


Edit:
Now checking out the Metallica, and that's exactly what I was talking about above. They made it their own. I fucking love it!
 
Listened to a bit from each album mostly it is just embaressing performances but there are a few good ones ,Dream Theater,Metallica and I like Sign and Ghostlines versions of Run to the Hills and Brave New World. There is nothing worse than Devildriver's screaming Wasted Years. Interesting Metallica do one of maiden's few ballads.
 
Well, Metallica have their fair deal of ballads (or semi-ballads) themselves, many of their songs are either fireworks or ballads.

The Devildriver one left my ears in agony. Wasted Years with screamo vocals? Also the vocals on the 2 Minutes to Midnight cover were lousy.

Must say I like the covers of Prowler, Remember Tomorrow and To Tame a Land the best. Flash of the Blade wasn't too bad, but the singing style in the chorus was ... well, I won't elaborate on that. And Trivium's version of Iron Maiden was quite good.
 
i'm sure everyone will disagree with me but i actually dug the cover of Wrathchild. i've never heard anything by the Gallows before but i liked the way they made it into a sloppy hardcore punk song (and i love sloppy hardcore punk). of course it doesn't hold a candle to the original, but at least they made sound like they could have wrote it themselves.
 
Listening to Brave New World now, I think this is the best of the three "non-metal" covers. They use the original melody a lot more, only the vocal melody is altered. Nice guitar solos as well, some of it sounds like some of Davey's slow intros (which I love, especially the one in Still Life).

About the Gallows cover of Wrathchild - I don't think it's bad, I'm not just a big fan of the singing style in punk. But I agree with James Rock that they "made it sound like they could have wrote it themselves". That is a good thing, especially for simpler songs. For more complex songs like To Tame A Land, I agree with SMX - it's impressive when a band goes for the "note by note" cover and succeeds, like Dream Theater often do in their covers.
 
Overall, not a bad album though I suspet it'll grow on me over time. I love Coheed's version of the trooper and Ghostlines' version of Brave New World.
 
James Rock said:
i'm sure everyone will disagree with me but i actually dug the cover of Wrathchild. i've never heard anything by the Gallows before but i liked the way they made it into a sloppy hardcore punk song (and i love sloppy hardcore punk). of course it doesn't hold a candle to the original, but at least they made sound like they could have wrote it themselves.
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Not everyone, I actually agree with you. I like this version of Wrathchild.
 
I really enjoyed all the covers.

SMX, I would like to know your criteria for a "failed" cover of a song. For example, I didn't find the cover of Wasted years a "failure" like most people did, but rather "interesting" go hear WY with screamo vocals. CSIT I personally thought was awesome. Not saying you consider these failures (you might though), but just speaking from what seems to be the general consensus...
 
First of all, when I talked about "failures", I wasn't referring to any of these Maiden covers.

Second, I suppose that calling a cover a "failure" is a personal judgement. Here's my standard: it has to be as good as the original version, or better. Like I said before, that doesn't mean it has to be a duplicate of the original - but it has to have about the same quality.

You can judge for yourself when a cover has succeeded. I know this situation has happened to me many times:
Someone else: "Have you ever heard <song X> by <band Y>?"
Me: "Yes, good song ... but have you heard the cover by <band Z>?"

In other words... if I feel no desire to mention the cover, it often means the cover was a failure.
 
I like that one as well. I am sure I have done something similar in my past. Damn, I wish I could find a Kerrang.
 
No joke!  Where would one find that? I've looked around, but I think that I'm way too far away from anywhere cool to find that mag... :mad:
 
Who knows, I've checked about 6 different stores that carry a lot of magazines and none of them have it. The problem is that there isn't any great record stores around anymore.
 
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