Man on the Edge

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How good is Man on the Edge on a scale of 1-10?

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    12
8.

The energy on this song is palpable. The riffs are blistering, the chorus is simple and anthemic, but yes, the lyrics are pretty bad. Thankfully, the music makes up for it.
 
9/10

This song is fucking badass. Blaze's vocals are beyond excellent, except for the final chorus where he sounds flat in the "do-ow-own" part. Janick's lead is one of my favorites and just makes the bursting amount of energy of this song just churn faster and faster. Crushing, fast riffs as well. Steve's machine gun bassline is the icing on the cake. Definitely one of the more accessible songs on TXF for those who are averse to the dark, melancholic sound of the rest of the album. Though I think TXF in its entirety is perfect.
 
Blaze with a personal anecdote on Man on the Edge:

Songfacts: "Man on the Edge," what is that song about lyrically?

Blaze: It follows pretty closely the movie Falling Down with Michael Douglas. A lot of things happened in that movie. One of the key lyrics is "cannibal state," where the system of government consumes the individual and the materialistic society consumes the individual and digests him and spits him out, so his identity is completely gone.

In that film, Michael Douglas goes to work every day, because he's lost. But he is not going to work: He's pretending to go to work. He's getting dressed, packing his bag, making his sandwiches, and leaving the house the same time every day and coming home at the same time, because he's too ashamed to tell his family that he's lost his job. And the only reason he's lost his job is because it was a government job where he was designing missiles, and they don't want any more missiles.

That's the tragedy of it: He's a geeky oddball kind of guy that finds it difficult to communicate, but he finds himself trapped in this situation where he can't tell the truth because he can't even tell the truth to himself. He can't face up to the fact that he's redundant and unnecessary, which, obviously, is so unpleasant.

This struck a chord with me because years ago - and maybe this is melodramatic - but when I was a kid I used to have a paper route, delivering papers. A basic job that hundreds of teenagers have when they're in school. But I lost that job, and I was so scared of my stepfather, that he would beat me, that I kept leaving the house at the same time pretending I was going to do my paper route.
 
Simply the last really energetic Maiden rocker.Maybe the alchemist gets close to it but it just goes on for no reason.I never thought that man on the edge has a draggy arrangement.It is however a bit too ordinary but still quite solid.Blaze is delivering a very poor chorus performance.
 
If this were a "normal" Maiden album I believe this should have been the opening track, it sure feels like one to me at least.
High energy, cool riffs, catchy chorus, good solos. Blaze sound again good on this one, but I admit that I prefer it with Bruce on vocals. The way he ends the last chorus is brilliant!


7/10
 
This song is an awesome should be classic. It better suits Blaze's vocals (which makes sense, he wrote it) and I really dig the lyrics. Great chorus that has the perfect energy. The guitar melody starting the instrumental along with the bass and rhythm guitar parts are straight out of Powerslave. Great solos too. Love the way Nicko follows the bass fills before the choruses. It's little touches like that which I've missed on previous Maiden albums (as well as Virtual) that really makes these songs special.

10
 
It's an above average song overall because I really like the verses and the uptempo feel of the song but the chorus can get a little annoying when Blaze sings "Falling Down" repeatedly, I give it a 6/10 due to the strong verses.
 
Some people like this more than Lord of the Flies. I believe these people are wrong, though it is still a pretty good song. 7/10.
 
Janick had the main riff in "Man on the Edge" composed back in 1981, along with a melody which sounds similiar to the intro melody, 7:45.
 
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Eddieson said:
If this were a "normal" Maiden album I believe this should have been the opening track, it sure feels like one to me at least.
High energy, cool riffs, catchy chorus, good solos. Blaze sound again good on this one, but I admit that I prefer it with Bruce on vocals. The way he ends the last chorus is brilliant!


7/10
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Great double guitar intro by Janick and Adrian. Really lifts it!
 
10/10 fires Blazing down the barn!

Man on the Edge is far better and certainly strongest track on the album after the opening epic. Blaze contributes his first writing credit here, working with Janick to craft a rousing rocker with an incredibly simplistic, yet catchy chorus. Based on the 1993 Michael Douglas film Falling Down, Man on the Edge has some truly silly lyrics (look for the lines about “lunch” and “birthday presents”) but delivers a necessary shot of adrenaline. Blaze sounds right in the prime of his vocal range, a little bit of grit and push but still with a fully rounded tone.
 
A strong song, a lot less bleak than the rest of the album. It feels weird on it at first, but it grows. Currently an 8/10 for me.
 
Really strong song. Something in the vein of "Be Quick Or Be Dead" from the previous album; fast, direct and very energetic. The chorus is possibly the most memorable on the album. Should've been the opener instead of "Sign of the Cross". 8 .
 
I think it might be the single Maiden song that fits Blaze’s singing best, and it’s a very energetic rocker. Lyrics kinda suck though. 7/10
 
"The Evil That Men Do" called, and it would like its intro back. Preferably dusted off, because the original was better.

This kicks into a nice, peppy riff that goes away too quickly. Blaze sounds OK on the verse, though there are some pretty terrible lyrics with terrible phrasing again ("The car is an oven and baking is wild", "now he can't even give birth-DAY pre-SENTS").

Really good build-up to the chorus (though Blaze can't reliably hold the note), but the chorus itself is bland, and Blaze's delivery is so inconsistent that "falling down" literally sounds different every time he sings it.

A pointless by-the-numbers bridge leads into a pair of pretty decent solos, then another round of verse/chorus before hitting an appropriately snappy ending.

Another mixed bag, but the song has enough pep and charm to squeeze out a 6/10.
 
Number 6 said:
I hear no similarities, except maybe "slow intro to an otherwise faster song".
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Strum a clean chord, noodle a bit, strum another clean chord, noodle a bit. The notes aren't exactly the same, but the style certainly is.
 
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