Studio Album #16 - Rumours and Speculation (New Info 27.02.15)

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I think most people will defend them when you actually start talking about it. But the problem with short songs is it is a little harder to tell a story musically, as well as lyrically. Anyway, I'll be happy with whatever they give me. Iron Maiden owes me nothing.
 
LooseCannon said:
It's a good song.

Rainmaker disagrees.
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I agree with you and with Rainmaker. Which is one of my favourite songs from DoD and my favourite short song from post-1999 Maiden.

That being said, Maiden made a lot of 4-5 minutes long classics in the 80s. Aces High, Wasted Years, The Evil That Men Do, NOTB and more. And we haven't seen much of that in the later years. The best songs on later albums tend to be among the longer songs (Paschendale, Brighter Than a Thousand Suns, Starblind). But again, my favourite Maiden song is their longest song ever ... and it is from 1984.
 
Dr. Eddies Wingman said:
That being said, Maiden made a lot of 4-5 minutes long classics in the 80s.
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Yes, but for every Aces High there is a Flash of the Blade, for every Number of the Beast there is a Gangland, for every Trooper there is a Quest For Fire. Just like now, there are three short good songs, and three short...not so good songs, in the recent albums. Their hit-fail ratio on short songs is the same.
 
I feel like many people consider long songs to be the harder ones to write when in reality shorter songs demand better songwriting abilities. Performing is another thing, though, long songs are more often than not tougher to perform.

LooseCannon said:
Yes, but for every Aces High there is a Flash of the Blade,
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Flash of the Blade is awesome. One of their best short songs.
 
LooseCannon said:
Yes, but for every Aces High there is a Flash of the Blade, for every Number of the Beast there is a Gangland, for every Trooper there is a Quest For Fire. Just like now, there are three short good songs, and three short...not so good songs, in the recent albums. Their hit-fail ratio on short songs is the same.
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I don't think I could agree with this. The short songs were definitely better in the 80s and a lot of the time the best short songs on an album are up there with the longer songs too. Whereas nowadays the epics are usually the best songs by far. Plus I think each 80s album only has 1 or 2 weaker songs at most. Powerslave, for example, doesn't really have a bad moment. Back In the Village is probably the worst song and even that track is pretty decent IMO.

The Flash said:
I feel like many people consider long songs to be the harder ones to write when in reality shorter songs demand better songwriting abilities.
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This depends on the song though. You can't make a generalization for that. A short song won't always be harder to write than a long song.
 
I don't really want to prejudge or have specific expectations. I think it could lead to disappointment and I trust the band.

That said, if Steve asked me what I wanted, it would include a couple short aggressive Purgatory-style tracks, a couple songs that don't sound like anything they did before, one super-long, non-repetitive, multi-part Rime style epic, one Rainmaker style single, and a handful of signature Colours Don't Run-style Maiden signature tracks (none of which sound alike).

Now I've gone and done it...:(
 
I think that most long songs on the last album aren't that good. Unimaginative and predictable material.

Time for a fresh approach.
 
Many of their short songs are repeats in versus and lyrics if you listen to songs like Iron Maiden and Purgatory. Couldn't be that hard to write them. NOTB and Gangland are terrible. Powerslave does not really have a flaw in it as a whole album.
 
How short is a short song? 5 minutes and down? I'll analyze the Official Maidenfans Rankings.
 
Forostar said:
I think that most long songs on the last album aren't that good. Unimaginative and predictable material.

Time for a fresh approach.
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Avalon and Starblind broke new ground. Wild Wind didn't, but was excellent.

I think about how fresh and exciting Primal Rock Rebellion was.
And, unlike a lot of you, I liked British Lion. Regardless, it didn't sound anything like Steve Harris Iron Maiden.

I wonder if that solo experience inspired the writers, or just got it out of their system so they could get back to doing a rote Maiden albums. Five years is a long time.
 
Forostar said:
I think that most long songs on the last album aren't that good. Unimaginative and predictable material.

Time for a fresh approach.
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I could see a case for Talisman and Wild Wind, especially the former, but the other 3 epics covered new territory.

The Flash said:
Of course you cannot make a generalization. But it's more often the case.
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I don't even know if that much is true. Songwriting is a difficult process no matter what sort of song you're writing, length has very little do do with it. There's something to be said for conciseness, but you can still practice conciseness in the format of a longer song. Take Paschendale for example: Yesterday LC was talking in chat about how Paschendale is Maiden's "most complete song", with every note and lyric being perfectly placed. This got me thinking; whether or not you agree with that, making every note of a song worthwhile is really where the challenge is and that transcends the length of a song IMO.
 
Every single note. Every single tap on the drums, every plucked or...fingered...string. Paschendale is perfect, a masterpiece from start to finish, a complete story both musically and lyrically.
 
LooseCannon said:
Every single note. Every single tap on the drums, every plucked or...fingered...string. Paschendale is perfect, a masterpiece from start to finish, a complete story both musically and lyrically.
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I listened to Paschendale 5 times in a row yesterday. Better each time, what a song.

I was going through some articles online about the Battle of Ypres and reading some of the comments from people on here who had family fight in the battle. Getting some more background details definitely took it up another notch or two.
 
Mosh said:
I don't even know if that much is true. Songwriting is a difficult process no matter what sort of song you're writing, length has very little do do with it.
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I disagree. Creating a compact song that reaches the level of a grander experience is extremely difficult. Much more so than a song where you can fuse more ideas.
 
Forostar said:
Yep, to make a good soup with less ingredients, is more difficult.
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I partly agree with you and @The Flash here. A short song is very much hit-and-miss. When you write a short song, you're laying all your eggs in one basket. With long songs, you can have great parts, parts that some like and others dislike, and parts that noone like. I'd say that writing a long song which is good from start to finish is just as hard as, or harder than, writing a good short song. I think there's more work behind Hallowed Be Thy Name than Aces High. Both great songs.
 
I completely get where Flash is coming from, but let me point out that it's a lot easier to get away with a simplistic song when it's short (Paranoid) than when it's long (Loch Ness). By which I don't mean to say that Flash neglected this aspect.
 
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