Reumeren said:
That's probably true generally speaking, but Somewhere in Time was an obvious album to pick songs from on a tour with a near-identical name. I don't think an internet poll where people vote songs against eachother says anything about the general opinion on the reacion to the setlist.
The following I do not see as
the truth, so please don't take it the wrong way.
I am only trying to find out why
Somewhere in Time, an album of Maiden's golden(!) era is so unpopular on this particular forum. Here goes my brainstorm:
I think there might be a relation between a setlist and the way people can judge songs.
1. In 2010 a lot of young kids have to swim in a huge offer of music. They listen fast, and listen not well (not often enough) to judge music in a fair way. Note the not unimportant role of (the) Maiden (management) themselves who solely bombard the young kids with the standards, both on best of CDs and on tours. It's almost indoctrination.
2. The less live exposure of an album/songs, the less popular that album/those songs. A lot of people on
this forum tend to vote for (kill) songs they have never or hardly seen live. That's because they still can feel the thrill of the few songs they
did see live.
So, on this forum we have a combination of the two, which is "deadly" for old Maiden albums which hardly have live exposure.
We have a lot of young people who only know the band shortly and who discover Maiden as fast as other bands. In my younger time, I hardly played anything else when a new Maiden album came out (you couldn't get music for free). I "grew up" with every Maiden album I bought.
But now, also I, in these fast & digital times, play new Maiden albums less often than in the past. Still I saw the AMOLAD tour and to see this album live helped a lot to appreciate its songs even more.
Back to the majority of the people who play polls on this forum. A lot of these people have hardly seen Maiden live, and if they've seen them, they saw a lot of standards, of which most survived the longest on this forum poll. Coincidence? I don't think so.
Since hardly anyone on this forum had the chance to see the more rare SIT songs (SMX is the exception) I think it's -again- not a coincidence that the album went through the toilet as fast as it did.
On the official forum, Maiden is the favourite band of 99% all the members (why else do they pay money to be a fanclub member?). More people grew up with older albums, plus more people have seen more different setlists in their live. Add these factors together -> The following albums are still alive there:
Iron Maiden: 13 -
Piece Of Mind: 51 +
Powerslave: 14
Somewhere In Tme: 67
Somewhere in Time has the highest score, and might even win that game.
And in the rest of the world? At least in Greece, they still scream for Alexander The Great.
My 2 cents.
