New Single - The Writing on the Wall

7th Son landed at #12 on the US chart, while Powerslave topped out at #21. That’s not obviously not an abject failure.
True. I think album sales are only important for the band's management. For the fans (and the band itself) the most important thing should be the music and the concerts, of course.
 
7th Son landed at #12 on the US chart, while Powerslave topped out at #21. That’s not obviously not an abject failure.

Though like you, I’m old enough to have purchased Powerslave when it was released (though once again I had to wait for my parents to come home so they could drive me to Good Vibrations to buy it. I was a young metal head, lol) and I don’t remember people being as enthusiastic about 7th Son as they were Powerslave. It’s my favorite Maiden album, though.
Powerslave wasn’t an instant success they got the success with extensive touring. Even now most American fans mention Powerslave when talking about best Maiden album. SIT, after world slavery tour, did 2.5 million copies and 7th son plummeted to 500k.

People that say sales don’t matter are WRONG, had 7th son been a huge success in the U.S Maiden would have continued with that style instead of whatever they tried to do with NPFTD, so we all lost in the end.
 
had 7th son been a huge success in the U.S Maiden would have continued with that style instead of whatever they tried to do with NPFTD, so we all lost in the end.
Look, I greatly dislike NPFTD, but your statement about what Maiden’s stylistic direction would have been had 7th Son done better in the States, or if it had any impact at all is simply baseless, unless you have some interview or comments which explicitly say otherwise, in which case I’m more than happy to stand corrected. But I know I have never seen anything that would remotely imply that they said, “hey, 7th Son didn’t sell as well as we had hoped in the States, so we better write an album that sounds even further removed from the sound that sold well there”.
 
Maiden will simply no longer make an album with cult status, because that is no longer possible these days. Back then, NOB and Powerslave were outstanding. At that time it was new and revolutionary. but that is not the point. The point is that Maiden will hopefully have no ohohoh parts and artificially drawn out songs on the new album. But Steve is responsible for that. He wants it that way.
 
Look, I greatly dislike NPFTD, but your statement about what Maiden’s stylistic direction would have been had 7th Son done better in the States, or if it had any impact at all is simply baseless, unless you have some interview or comments which explicitly say otherwise, in which case I’m more than happy to stand corrected. But I know I have never seen anything that would remotely imply that they said, “hey, 7th Son didn’t sell as well as we had hoped in the States, so we better write an album that sounds even further removed from the sound that sold well there”.
They tried to approach the hard rock sound with NPFTD , with disastrous results. It is well documented how disappointed they were with 7th son’s failure in the U.S. Up until NPFTD Maiden with Dickinson had a certain style, yes their albums were different but they all had the same principles. They were a class act above the rest of the metal scene, they were aristocrats of metal, don’t know how else to put it. That all changed with NPFTD.
 
They tried to approach the hard rock sound with NPFTD , with disastrous results. It is well documented how disappointed they were with 7th son’s failure in the U.S. Up until NPFTD Maiden with Dickinson had a certain style, yes their albums were different but they all had the same principles. They were a class act above the rest of the metal scene, they were aristocrats of metal, don’t know how else to put it. That all changed with NPFTD.
Yes, but none of that shows that the ”failure” of 7th Son was what led to NPFTD being terrible. Dickinson had already moved on from his classic style at that point, as demonstrated by “Tattooed Millionaire“, he wasn’t particularly good live, even on the older material on that tour, and he wouldn’t fully return to the more classic style until Accident of Birth.

They changed because they wanted to, not because 7th Son didn’t sell well in the US. You’ve come up with a theory and are trying to make the pieces fit your narrative. The reason they have never returned to pre-NPFTD is that they don’t want to. They have free reign at this point and could attempt to make an album in any style they choose. You don’t like what they choose, and there‘s nothing wrong with that, but they have chosen not to make an attempt to recapture the past, and I think that’s a good thing, even if I don’t always love the result.

Edit: Fixed NPFTD acronym.
 
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had 7th son been a huge success in the U.S Maiden would have continued with that style instead of whatever they tried to do with NPFTD,
This could be one of the reasons.
Maiden will simply no longer make an album with cult status, because that is no longer possible these days. Back then, NOB and Powerslave were outstanding. At that time it was new and revolutionary.
Isn't a cult status = classic album (nowadays)?... like BNW or AMOLAD. Anyway, the first 7 albums forever will be with a cult status.
 
Isn't a cult status = classic album (nowadays)?... like BNW or AMOLAD. Anyway, the first 7 albums forever will be with a cult status.
Yes you are right. For me, BNW already has cult status. It probably also depends on the generation. Nevertheless, Maiden is more immediately associated with NOB than BNW, for example. And yes, I mean the first seven albums. They have a magic that all other albums will no longer have. Some don't seem to think about that when they want to go back to the old days.
 
Almost every band at some point try to change sound and to be honest the main reason is to gain new fans and earn more money.

I belive it is very frustrating for bands when you are recording album after album, working so hard then some Nirvana or Guns came and after one album become "bigger" than you.

So eveybody try to adopted to more American style becuse if you are big in America that means more money for you. Maiden, Metallica, Helloween, Sabbath, Ozzy, they all try at some point gain more American fans.

I dont know why but any type of metal with symphony or keyboards is not very popular in USA, so normal thing is that SIT and 7th never got big success in USA.
 
I've found the new song is growing on me. I was hoping for something a bit more "metal" but taken as a rock song it's pretty solid.
I think the instrumental/solo sections in the middle are very reminiscent of the proggy mid sections of the Final Frontier album.
 
Almost every band at some point try to change sound and to be honest the main reason is to gain new fans and earn more money.
I think it's because almost every band wants to develop their style and not to play in their comfort zone all the time.
 
7th Son landed at #12 on the US chart, while Powerslave topped out at #21. That’s not obviously not an abject failure.

Though like you, I’m old enough to have purchased Powerslave when it was released (though once again I had to wait for my parents to come home so they could drive me to Good Vibrations to buy it. I was a young metal head, lol) and I don’t remember people being as enthusiastic about 7th Son as they were Powerslave. It’s my favorite Maiden album, though.
Gotta chime in the Powerslave vs Seventh Son discussion - yes, I'm old enough to remember (even though the hardest music I listened to at the time was Van Halen!) the music scene during Powerslave era and, like the NOTB shirts, the Powerslave shirts MADE that album cool/scary/awesome. even if you never listened to Maiden and couldn't really identify them musically, EVERYONE thought that Powerslave shirt (like NOTB ) was wicked awesome, head and shoulders (ha) above all the other "cool" metal T's that all the bad/cool kids wore. I remember playing baseball in 6th grade and some kid on the team had that shirt on and all I could do was stare at the back of the shirt during practice and just marvel at this Biblical sounding "World Slavery Tour" disclaimer !!! Badass.
 
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The (kinda) soulless singing of Bruce in the chorus reminds me the chorus of ''The Man Of Sorrows'' (which is my least favorite song from TBOS album).
 
hey dudes, for those of you that dig acoustic guitars, this dude pretty much covers EVERY Maiden song in a brilliant way. he actually heard the new song and releases his cover LESS THAN A DAY AFTER (!) guy is amazing, enjoy!

 
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Making another Powerslave would be lacking creativity.
I'd say it requires big balls, because if this endeavour fails, they'd be eaten alive. So it's exact opposite. Maximum creativity is needed to compose songs, in greatness similar to Powerslave level, yet not make direct copy of it.
 
Speaking of singing, I really like that Bruce has dialed it back and you can actually hear the words (unlike many Harris compositions both recent BOS, TRATB and older TTAL).
100% agreed. Not forcing an aged Bruce to sing 1000 words per second at high notes helps a lot. And I'm sure that's the main reason why he sounds amazing on this song.
 
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