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

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Forostar said:
Yep, to make a good soup with less ingredients, is more difficult than making one with more ingredients.
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that depends on what your goal is. It is easy to make a good soup with few ingredients. It is hard to make a GREAT soup with few ingredients. Unless you like good soup that's always similar, but it's not Acdcfans.com is it?
 
(on what Wingman said on Hallowed and Aces)
Who knows. Rime was written in one afternoon, if it wasn't just an hour or so.

What I especially mean is that in long songs there's literally more room to do stuff. So in theory more length could easier make way for good (or new) approaches (multiple rhythms / changes / etc.)
 
Yeah, but "stuff" doesn't make a song better or worse. Stuff simply is. A perfect song isn't about length, but about atmosphere. It's about making every second contribute to the aura you wish the song to create. Like, Hallowed. Rime is good at this, but not great. It doesn't have the complexity of Paschendale or Hallowed. It is still a fantastic song, don't get me wrong - I love Rime. But I don't get the same emotions when listening to it. I wouldn't call Rime perfect. Or even When the Wild Wind Blows, which gets up there as well.

Aces High is very close to a perfect short song, because, again, you could take away the lyrics and give just the name, and you'd get a pretty good sense of what it's about.
 
LooseCannon said:
Aces High is very close to a perfect short song, because, again, you could take away the lyrics and give just the name, and you'd get a pretty good sense of what it's about.
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That is a really interesting way to look at Aces High. I've never considered that until now, but I can really envision the mood even without the lyrics there. Can you think of any other examples? Brighter than a Thousand Suns kind of does that for me too, the song sounds like a bomb.
 
I am sure that we have different preferences when it comes to lengthier songs, but all of these are in the category long.
Strong shorter songs in the last decades are vastly outnumbered by the wealth from the 1980s.
 
yeah, but so are shitty shorter songs. Even if one of us doesn't consider some of those songs as atrocious as others, on general ratings...there are a ton of bad shorter songs as well.

Iron Maiden has written 60 songs of 5 minutes or less.

Origin Era: 15 (7.5 per album)
Golden Era: 14 (4.66 per album)
Experimentation Era: 5 (2.5 per album)
Decline Era: 16 (8 per album)
Rejuvenation Era: 3 (1.5 per album)
Reunion Era: 7 (1.75 per album)

So we find, right away, that not only are short songs rarer during the better ages (Golden, Experimentation, and Reunion), that short songs are SIGNIFICANTLY more common during the two worst eras of Iron Maiden, Origin and Decline. Some people might hate Rejuvenation more than Decline, but most people find the songs from that era good and just hate the singer. We're talking about the songs as a whole here. So this is a strong correlation that I haven't crunched numbers for yet.
 
Lets head to the rankings, next.

Short songs in excellent range (>9.00)
Aces High (Powerslave, Golden Era, 9.54)
The Trooper (Piece of Mind, Golden Era, 9.50)
Children of the Damned (The Number of the Beast, Golden Era, 9.42)
Murders in the Rue Morgue (Killers, Origin Era, 9.28)
Still Life (Piece of Mind, Golden Era, 9.22)
The Number of the Beast (The Number of the Beast, Golden Era, 9.07)

Short songs in great range (8.01-9.00)
Transylvania (Iron Maiden, Origin Era, 9.00)
Genghis Khan (Killers, Origin Era, 8.91)
Rainmaker (Dance of Death, Reunion Era, 8.85)
Run Silent, Run Deep (No Prayer For the Dying, Decline Era, 8.76)
The Ides of March (Killers, Origin Era, 8.73)
The Wicker Man (Brave New World, Reunion Era, 8.58)
Man on the Edge (The X Factor, Rejuvenation Era, 8.43)
The Evil That Men Do (Seventh Son of a Seventh Son, Experimentation Era, 8.40)
Judas Be My Guide (Fear of the Dark, Decline Era, 8.29)
Prowler (Iron Maiden, Origin Era, 8.22)
Flight of Icarus (Piece of Mind, Golden Era, 8.21)
Wrathchild (Killers, Origin Era, 8.21)
Futureal (Virtual XI, Rejuvenation Era, 8.16)
Lightning Strikes Twice (Virtual XI, Rejuvenation Era, 8.15)
No Prayer For the Dying (No Prayer For the Dying, Decline Era, 8.11)
The Clairvoyant (Seventh Son of a Seventh Son, Experimentation Era, 8.09)
Run To the Hills (The Number of the Beast, Golden Era, 8.02)
Different World (A Matter of Life and Death, Reunion Era, 8.01)

Short songs in good range (7.01-8.00)
Losfer Words (Big 'Orra) (Powerslave, Golden Era, 7.95)
Deja Vu (Somewhere in Time, Experimentation Era, 7.93)
Only the Good Die Young (Seventh Son of a Seventh Son, Experimentation Era, 7.93)
The Alchemist (The Final Frontier, Reunion Era, 7.82)
Flash of the Blade (Powerslave, Golden Era, 7.80)
Charlotte the Harlot (Iron Maiden, Origin Era, 7.74)
Running Free (Iron Maiden, Origin Era, 7.73)
Childhood's End (Fear of the Dark, Decline Era, 7.68)
Total Eclipse (The Number of the Beast, Golden Era, 7.66)
Drifter (Killers, Origin Era, 7.34)
The Assassin (No Prayer For the Dying, Decline Era, 7.32)
The Mercenary (Brave New World, Reunion Era, 7.26)
The Fallen Angel (Brave New World, Reunion Era, 7.20)
Can I Play With Madness (Seventh Son of a Seventh Son, Experimentation Era, 7.16)
Invaders (The Number of the Beast, Golden Era, 7.12)
Another Life (Killers, Origin Era, 7.06)
Innocent Exile (Killers, Origin Era, 7.02)
Sun and Steel (Piece of Mind, Golden Era, 7.02)

Short songs in okay range (6.01-7.00)
Wildest Dreams (Dance of Death, Reunion Era, 6.98)
The Fugitive (Fear of the Dark, Decline Era, 6.76)
Public Enema Number One (No Prayer For the Dying, Decline Era, 6.73)
Iron Maiden (Iron Maiden, Origin Era, 6.59)
Gangland (The Number of the Beast, Golden Era, 6.42)
Fates Warning (No Prayer For the Dying, Decline Era, 6.34)
Holy Smoke (No Prayer For the Dying, Decline Era, 6.22)
Quest For Fire (Piece of Mind, Golden Era, 6.04)
Be Quick or Be Dead (Fear of the Dark, Decline Era, 6.03)

Short songs in bad range (6.00 and below)
Tailgunner (No Prayer For the Dying, Decline Era, 5.85)
Bring Your Daughter... ...To the Slaughter (No Prayer For the Dying, Decline Era, 5.51)
Chains of Misery (Fear of the Dark, Decline Era, 5.33)
From Here to Eternity (Fear of the Dark, Decline Era, 5.09)
Hooks in You (No Prayer For the Dying, Decline Era, 4.92)
The Apparition (Fear of the Dark, Decline Era, 4.27)

Literally for every legendary song, there is a stinker. For every great song, there is an okay song or one near the end of the good range (which, I think Innocent Exile or The Fallen Angel being in the "good" range argues we need to change the ranges, but this kinda how I have always considered it). And for every high-ranked album like Killers, there is a No Prayer. Short songs are hit and miss.
 
Interesting to look at, but now you're also cutting the songs very precisely..For example in the "experimentation" era there's some songs that are 5 min and 6 seconds, or 5 min and 5 seconds or 5 min and 30 seconds etc that you didn't include...

I think the point is that in the 80s there were more shorter songs on average. I mean, The Final Frontier has 6 songs that's very close to or over 8 mins in length....
 
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mckindog said:
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.
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It will indeed be interesting to see if their respective solo efforts have been of influence.
In respect to PRR, it was just great to hear H writing & playing like this.
 
I love an album like The Number of The Beast for example because it's just right. It's 40 min attack, the album grabs you from the get go of Invaders and doesn't let go until the final crescendo of Hallowed. Not one boring moment in there. It flows so nicely and the longest song and epic Hallowed is *only* (by modern Maiden standards) 7 min long!
 
Forostar said:
Yep, to make a good soup with less ingredients, is more difficult than making one with more ingredients.
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Not necessarily. When given many ingredients it's difficult to find ways to use all of them efficiently without getting in the way of other ingredients or making them seem arbitrary.

The point I'm trying to make: Long songs and short songs are two different challenges, to say one is more difficult to write than the other is unfair. There are so many different methods and styles of songwriting that you can't say that any type of song is more difficult to write than another. On top of all that, it all comes down to the strengths of the composer.
 
SixesAlltheway said:
I love an album like The Number of The Beast for example because it's just right. It's 40 min attack, the album grabs you from the get go of Invaders and doesn't let go until the final crescendo of Hallowed. Not one boring moment in there. It flows so nicely and the longest song and epic Hallowed is *only* (by modern Maiden standards) 7 min long!
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except that invaders makes me want to saw off my gentleman's vegetables. I think the only albums that grab me are Killers, Powerslave and Somewhere in Time
 
Don't know if I'm just rambling now, but in some genres, like folk and rock...if you have something you want off your heart, a statement you want to make, it's more of a challenge ( I think) to say it precisely, caring about every single word and making it poignant in 3 min instead of writing and explaining too much in 8 min....Make it simple and make it effective.
 
SixesAlltheway said:
Don't know if I'm just rambling now, but in some genres, like folk and rock...if you have something you want off your heart, a statement you want to make, it's more of a challenge ( I think) to say it precisely, caring about every single word and making it poignant in 3 min instead of writing and explaining too much in 8 min....Make it simple and make it effective.
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Exactly my point.
 
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