Satellite 15.. The Final Frontier

How good is Satellite 15.. The Final Frontier on a scale of 1-10?

  • Total voters
    13
6/10

Satellite 15 is a moody, throbbing intro constructed completely by Adrian Smith in a computer program. The track sounds like what it is: a demo. Bruce's vocals are clearly smashed in after the fact, wailing away over a piece of music that didn’t really need vocals. The drums are clearly synthetic, occasionally skipping or missing the beat by a hair. Though a cool idea, it’s a completely pointless piece of music and should have been left off the album. The Final Frontier kicks off with a single Nicko snare hit and a big crunchy chordal riff. It's another upbeat rocker destined to be a single. Like Different World and Wildest Dreams before it, Final Frontier lacks that special quality and feels a bit lazy. There’s nothing particularly bad about the song, though, and there is a classic Adrian and Dave solo duel. Dave’s lead is awesome. Overall it’s a song with a cool concept and an absolutely adequate delivery.
 
I have quite the opposite opinion most of you appear to have here. To me, what drags it down is the "Final Frontier" half, not "Satellite 15". In fact, I very much consider "Satellite 15" a highlight of the album! It showcases a very experimental side of Iron Maiden, doesn't really sound like anything they'd ever done before and works extremely well to open the album. "The Final Frontier" is a nice song, but not very different from the three previous openers (except it's inferior to any of them). If we were to rate both songs separately, "Satellite 15" would get a strong 8, while "The Final Frontier" would get a light 7. That gives something near 7,5, so I'll round it down to a 7 because of the flawed creative decision to merge both tracks together.
 
This is an extremely hard song to rate, because it’s so different from everything else. First of all, it’s basically two songs in one, yet they wouldn’t really work without each other. On its own Satellite 15 is just an intro to nothing, and The Final Frontier is just an unremarksble Maiden song. Personally, I enjoy more the first part. The raw sound adds to it, even though I would be curious to hear what it would sound like if recorded/produced it properly. The Final Frontier is a nice tune, but it has very little variation, and it sounds a bit like they went on autopilot on it. In addition to that, Bruce’s voice sounds awful, unlike on Satellite 15. I would go for something like 8 for the first part, 6 for the second, and a 7/10 overall.
 
Spacey, atmospheric guitars play out on top of repetitive drums. When this part has worn out its welcome, the drums fade away and Bruce offers a distant vocal. A very clicky and repetitive drum pattern comes in, and Bruce distantly meanders through some more lyrics.

A brief percussive break, and we cut to a simple but appealing rock groove. Bruce offers a nice verse, a better pre-chorus, and a repetitive, so-so chorus while straining to hit some of the notes. Another round of verse through chorus and we get a good pair of solos, followed by another run through the verse, pre-chorus, and overly repeated chorus before wrapping up with a big rock ending of sorts.

"Satellite 15" is annoying enough to burrow its way down to a 4; and "The Final Frontier" is sort of catchy, but ultimately pretty empty, and has enough weaknesses to only manage a 6. Overall that puts the combined track at a 5/10.
 
The final frontier is a very good song. But the four minutes of nonsense is not. 8
 
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What a way to open an album. Like @Number 6 says, "Satellite 15" is an interesting way of doing something different, though I don't think it quite succeeds and could've used trimming. "The Final Frontier" is better and a really nice song overall. The chorus is great, with one of Bruce's best performances on an album of spotty performances. The instrumental section is great too. Both songs combined, this is maybe above average, with a lot of good moments but not quite something that rivals the best of Maiden. 6
 
The intro (Satellite 15) is cool, but it's totally unnecessary because it's 4 minutes long - I think the idea was Adrian's... strange idea imo.
After it the song is a traditional Maiden rocker. Great riff and pre-chorus. The main chorus is also good. Brutally good solo from Adrian - one of his best. Dave's solo is also very good (typical solo and essential sound for him). The lyrics are quite good too. The low point is that the chorus is repeated so many times after the solos through the end of the song - a guitar harmony is what is really missing in this song (or some melody played by Jancik like in the album closer - it's the only title song without a solo from him, after all). The very end of the song scream ''space''. It' a simple song for a title track of a Maiden album. Overall, the song is very good, but because it contains ''Satellite 15'' part I will give it a 7/10
 
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TheTalisman said:
Satellite 15 came from Adrian's demo recorded over a drum machine. I prefer the En Vivo version where The Final Frontier is a separate track.
Click to expand...

Basically ''Satellite 15'' was an intro during TFF tour (En Vivo concert), so it was not played live, but yeah, I also prefer the song without it.
 
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