Official thread for Final Frontier discussion
- Thread starter Travis The Dragon
- Start date
Every time you post, I get hungry, because I think of this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doner_kebab 
The Flash
Dennis Wilcock did 9/11
Night Prowler said:Every time you post, I get hungry, because I think of this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doner_kebab
Damn I love my country
TFF is one of my Top 4 Maiden albums.
I have never been to Turkey, unfortunately. Best kebab I ate was in Florence, a year and a half ago.
Dickinson 89
Prowler
.taker64 said:
Cornfed Hick
Ancient Mariner
Per LC's request, I'm going through and rating the songs on this album. (Didn't know about this project before -- I really need to start doing more than simply checking the Classic Songs thread...)
The highest score I'm giving is an 8 (earned by Coming Home and WtWW
. This is because 9's and 10's should be reserved for the truly exceptional classics, of which this album contains none, IMO. After some time to periodically go back and listen, I think this album is more toward the middle of the pack amongst Iron Maiden's other albums, not near the top. (Which is still pretty good.)
The highest score I'm giving is an 8 (earned by Coming Home and WtWW
. This is because 9's and 10's should be reserved for the truly exceptional classics, of which this album contains none, IMO. After some time to periodically go back and listen, I think this album is more toward the middle of the pack amongst Iron Maiden's other albums, not near the top. (Which is still pretty good.) 
Donner
Ancient Mariner
Night Prowler said:Every time you post, I get hungry, because I think of this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doner_kebab
Haha, Doner Kebab's rule! I ate them frequently while I studied in Germany. Donner on the other hand is German for Thunder.
Listened to TFF all the way through for the first time in a few months last night and it was better than I remembered. Great album.
The Final Frontier standings:
01. The Talisman
02. Coming Home
03. Starblind
04. Where The Wild Wind Blows
05. The Final Frontier
06. Isle Of Avalon
07. El Dorado
08. Mother Of Mercy
09. The Man Who Would Be King
10. The Alchemist
11. Satellite 15
Album standings:
01. Somewhere In Time (flawless)
02. Brave New World (flawless)
03. A Matter Of Life & Death (flawless)
04. Piece Of Mind (Quest For Fire is its only flaw)
05. Seventh Son Of A Seventh Son (The Prophecy is its only flaw)
06. The Number Of The Beast (Invaders, Gangland and Total Eclipse are good but nothing compared to the other songs)
07. Powerslave (Losfer Words and The Duellists are fillerish)
08. The Final Frontier (production quality brings the score down, Satellite 15 is boring and The Alchemist is fillerish)
09. Iron Maiden (Charlotte The Harlot, Iron Maiden and Sanctuary are good but nothing compared to the other songs)
10. Dance Of Death (production quality brings the score down, there is too much repetition and some songs are fillerish (Wildest Dreams and Gates Of Tomorrow))
11. No Prayer For The Dying (many fillers)
12. The X Factor (too much repetition, production sucks)
13. Virtual XI (too much repetition, production sucks)
14. Fear Of The Dark (too many fillers)
15. Killers (some of Maiden's worst songs are here: Innocent Exile is the worst one)
01. The Talisman
02. Coming Home
03. Starblind
04. Where The Wild Wind Blows
05. The Final Frontier
06. Isle Of Avalon
07. El Dorado
08. Mother Of Mercy
09. The Man Who Would Be King
10. The Alchemist
11. Satellite 15
Album standings:
01. Somewhere In Time (flawless)
02. Brave New World (flawless)
03. A Matter Of Life & Death (flawless)
04. Piece Of Mind (Quest For Fire is its only flaw)
05. Seventh Son Of A Seventh Son (The Prophecy is its only flaw)
06. The Number Of The Beast (Invaders, Gangland and Total Eclipse are good but nothing compared to the other songs)
07. Powerslave (Losfer Words and The Duellists are fillerish)
08. The Final Frontier (production quality brings the score down, Satellite 15 is boring and The Alchemist is fillerish)
09. Iron Maiden (Charlotte The Harlot, Iron Maiden and Sanctuary are good but nothing compared to the other songs)
10. Dance Of Death (production quality brings the score down, there is too much repetition and some songs are fillerish (Wildest Dreams and Gates Of Tomorrow))
11. No Prayer For The Dying (many fillers)
12. The X Factor (too much repetition, production sucks)
13. Virtual XI (too much repetition, production sucks)
14. Fear Of The Dark (too many fillers)
15. Killers (some of Maiden's worst songs are here: Innocent Exile is the worst one)
Donner
Ancient Mariner
Today is the first day since I bought it on August 17, 2010 that The Final Frontier is no longer in my 5 CD changer at home. Not that I listened to it all the time during that span, there were a few months off once, but it was always there. Time to give it a rest for awhile. What a great album though.
Bombusbombus
Nomad
It has been gone for a while, super annoying since my computer (and my cd's) is packed away over the summer so i can't listen to it...
I do have some of the songs on different collections I've made though, so it's not that bad.
I do have some of the songs on different collections I've made though, so it's not that bad.
Eddieson
Educated Fool
Really annoying indeed.
Hopefully this will change when The Book of Souls is released.
The worst case should be if the don't release The Book Of Souls on Spotify at all. Slayer had a thing going on that they just had their old albums up (that maybe still is the case...)
*Edit (nope that have changed now)
Last edited:
Spambot
Meme Lord
I don't know if this is a right thread for an album review, but I didn't find any other thread so here it goes (kudos to anybody who has will to read all of this). I will be doing a song reviews in their own thread, this is just few thoughts on the album itself. Also, I can't really grade songs so precisely by numbers, but if I'm going to give grade to this record it would be 9/10 (based on 9 awesome songs and 1 letdown).
In few months time it's going to be 6 years since it's release and I can say with certainity that this is one of my favourite Maiden records. It's still beeing played in my car regularly and I enjoy it the same as I've enjoy it on a first listen (comparing to some other albums, like AMOLAD, on whom I've changed my thoughts several times and still have mixed feelings about it).
As every other release, first came announcement, new Eddie and a single. If I remember correctly, they didn't use album cover in annoncement, it was just that big Eddie's space head, and I didn't like it. Still don't. El Dorado single gave me a glimspe of hope that the whole concept is going to be presented in comic book form, but unfortunately - it wasn't. Which is a shame really beacuse I think it would really work well with the album. Single, on the other hand, I loved. I can't remeber when was the last time that I've listen single so constantly before an album release (I think my last.fm profile showed more than 100 listen to El Dorado before 16.08.2010.). But more on that in it's own thread.
Second single, a music video that is, was released just before the album release and I knew then that if my Maiden formula keeps going in this album (none of the singles from the album are in my top 3 songs from that record) it could really be a masterpiece. What gave me even bigger excitement were "song previews" that somebody compiled from Amazon (or some other page) and put on Youtube. I already knew first two songs but there was a video with a 30 second snippet from each song. I really debated if I should listen them or not but the fact that deceided was that I already knew all the song names. I try not to, but usually I have my own idea how song should sound when I read the song name, and usually - I'm completely wrong. To avoid that happening this time, I've listen to snippets (which were at the begining of the song) and this was my conclusion: "If they don't crash/ruin on choruses and bridges, this is going to be awesome". And few days later, I was right.
To this day, I rarely skip a song while I listen, which shows a great album strenght IMO. As on previous 3 records, this one also had 10 songs, but they made them (and arranged them) perfectly. From straight rock stuff, ballads, progresive lines to epics - they managed to hit every one perfectly while still maintaining an album structure, without fillers or overdoings. No Maiden album I consider "concept album" and this one definitely isn't it, but the songs are lined so good, it looks like they did the whole thing in one take, from start to finish.
As every, this one has a few things that didn't sit well with me, first of them being production. I'm not saying that Kevin Shirley is a bad producer, but he really should have the final word on sound. If somebody hits the wrong note, bring an old audio midi clip that wants to put on album, change the album sound - it's your job to say them "NO"! If you think it doesn't hold water with the rest of the song. It is well known that he is being strongarmed by Steve, but FFS man, it's your job to produce. Yes - they feel relaxed with him and already have a positive history with him and they organise the strong structure themselves, BUT - they can't have (or in this case, Steve can't) have the final word on everything. Listening to his other work (Shirley's) he really knows how to portray an instrument, vocal, part of the song or even whole album in really beautiful way. But that just doesn't come to life on (most of the) Maiden songs. Even untrained ear could hear that Satellite 15 intro is out of sync - you can't have that on your final product and a lot of effects that are really out of place; some "misses" during the album should've also been noticed.
Thematicly they've been everywhere. From books and trivias to personal experiences giving to the lyric database some new beautiful lines, while other were more hit-and-miss. In battle "melody VS lyrics", I prefer to be on Steve's side. Not that I don't like well writen song (lyrically speaking), but even the best line doesn't do much for me if it's sung over most forgetable melody. On this record, however, most of them are prety much nicely aligned with few exceptions. Their performance is what was also one of the higlight in this album. On the first listen it seemed very "live" and I've realy enjoyed seeing some of those songs live later.
Overall, most important thing to me is that some songs on this album (in almost 6 years) didn't lose the spark that they've had when I've listen to them for the first time. Comparing them to some other (even newer) releases they still look fresh, no matter how many times I've listen them. Compile several songs that have same structure and "mojo" - and you have a great album.
In few months time it's going to be 6 years since it's release and I can say with certainity that this is one of my favourite Maiden records. It's still beeing played in my car regularly and I enjoy it the same as I've enjoy it on a first listen (comparing to some other albums, like AMOLAD, on whom I've changed my thoughts several times and still have mixed feelings about it).
As every other release, first came announcement, new Eddie and a single. If I remember correctly, they didn't use album cover in annoncement, it was just that big Eddie's space head, and I didn't like it. Still don't. El Dorado single gave me a glimspe of hope that the whole concept is going to be presented in comic book form, but unfortunately - it wasn't. Which is a shame really beacuse I think it would really work well with the album. Single, on the other hand, I loved. I can't remeber when was the last time that I've listen single so constantly before an album release (I think my last.fm profile showed more than 100 listen to El Dorado before 16.08.2010.). But more on that in it's own thread.
Second single, a music video that is, was released just before the album release and I knew then that if my Maiden formula keeps going in this album (none of the singles from the album are in my top 3 songs from that record) it could really be a masterpiece. What gave me even bigger excitement were "song previews" that somebody compiled from Amazon (or some other page) and put on Youtube. I already knew first two songs but there was a video with a 30 second snippet from each song. I really debated if I should listen them or not but the fact that deceided was that I already knew all the song names. I try not to, but usually I have my own idea how song should sound when I read the song name, and usually - I'm completely wrong. To avoid that happening this time, I've listen to snippets (which were at the begining of the song) and this was my conclusion: "If they don't crash/ruin on choruses and bridges, this is going to be awesome". And few days later, I was right.
To this day, I rarely skip a song while I listen, which shows a great album strenght IMO. As on previous 3 records, this one also had 10 songs, but they made them (and arranged them) perfectly. From straight rock stuff, ballads, progresive lines to epics - they managed to hit every one perfectly while still maintaining an album structure, without fillers or overdoings. No Maiden album I consider "concept album" and this one definitely isn't it, but the songs are lined so good, it looks like they did the whole thing in one take, from start to finish.
As every, this one has a few things that didn't sit well with me, first of them being production. I'm not saying that Kevin Shirley is a bad producer, but he really should have the final word on sound. If somebody hits the wrong note, bring an old audio midi clip that wants to put on album, change the album sound - it's your job to say them "NO"! If you think it doesn't hold water with the rest of the song. It is well known that he is being strongarmed by Steve, but FFS man, it's your job to produce. Yes - they feel relaxed with him and already have a positive history with him and they organise the strong structure themselves, BUT - they can't have (or in this case, Steve can't) have the final word on everything. Listening to his other work (Shirley's) he really knows how to portray an instrument, vocal, part of the song or even whole album in really beautiful way. But that just doesn't come to life on (most of the) Maiden songs. Even untrained ear could hear that Satellite 15 intro is out of sync - you can't have that on your final product and a lot of effects that are really out of place; some "misses" during the album should've also been noticed.
Thematicly they've been everywhere. From books and trivias to personal experiences giving to the lyric database some new beautiful lines, while other were more hit-and-miss. In battle "melody VS lyrics", I prefer to be on Steve's side. Not that I don't like well writen song (lyrically speaking), but even the best line doesn't do much for me if it's sung over most forgetable melody. On this record, however, most of them are prety much nicely aligned with few exceptions. Their performance is what was also one of the higlight in this album. On the first listen it seemed very "live" and I've realy enjoyed seeing some of those songs live later.
Overall, most important thing to me is that some songs on this album (in almost 6 years) didn't lose the spark that they've had when I've listen to them for the first time. Comparing them to some other (even newer) releases they still look fresh, no matter how many times I've listen them. Compile several songs that have same structure and "mojo" - and you have a great album.