The Angel and the Gambler

How good is The Angel and the Gambler on a scale of 1-10?


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    36
I was lucky, just when I started amassing Maiden albums, and becoming a fan, realizing that "Bruce is gone and they'll never be like that again", him and H returned. Splendid timing.
 
I remember when Virtual XI was out... I wasn't that impressed with X Factor, but the return of epic long songs was good, the new vocals was different but not bad... and then this came out, a watched the video... and all my world falled down. Awful song.
 
Ew.

Don't get me wrong, I love Virtual XI and Blaze Bayley to pieces. But there's no saving this song, it's total crap.

The cheesy keyboard synth in the beginning makes me cringe. Also, Blaze's vocals sound like a long monotonous drone, like he's really bored and wants to go home (and I honestly couldn't blame him if he were recording this song). The structure is painfully predictable, riffs are completely uninspired, and the icing on the cake is repeating the chorus a bajillion times.

1/10

Other than this (and DLTTEOAS) though, Virtual XI is one gem of an album and one of my favorites.
 
Hard to rate the most hated and most loved songs in the catalogue, because your are so influenced by what other says. And this is one of the most hated, if not THE most hated song in Maidens catalogue. The question is... does this song deserve it?

The answer is both yes and no I guess.

The happy tone though out the song makes it sound kind of cheesy and the added synth in the beginning only reinforces that feeling. The verses and pre-chorus feels uninspired and the riff is kind of boring. Then we hit the chorus, the famous chorus everyone laughs at. But the chorus is good I must say! It's catchy and should have worked... if it weren't repeated so many times! Come on! What were they (Steve) thinking!? What saves if from being painful is that the chords and dynamics changes and builds underneath the vocals (the guitar lick at 5:14 is actually pretty cool) . The solos are also good (maybe because it is a welcome pause from the chorus).

So no, it isn't THAT bad, but yes it's absolutely one of Maidens worst tracks.

4/10
 
I can only take this song as a joke. I am sure Steve did that on purpose so we all have a laugh.
 
This song is to Steve Harris and Iron Maiden what Jar Jar Binks was to George Lucas and Star Wars. However, Steve thankfully wised up and got everything back together (and there's some great stuff on VXI itself).
 
When I first heard VXI, this song immediately stood out as non-Maiden-like, and easily hateable at first. For a lot of the reasons posted here by those who only heard the song a few times.

But I kept coming back to this song because I couldn't fathom why Iron Maiden would create a song like this, and I needed to keep hearing it until I understood. One day I discovered the single version, and it was easier to digest, and I came to prefer that version for a while.

Recently, however, I rediscovered the album version, and noticed the things that are missing from the single edit. The single edit now seems too abrupt for me, and is lacking that middle ROTAM-like interlude.

Eventually I found out what SMX et al. have discovered; this song is actually pretty good.

I don't hear the choruses as the same chorus repeated 22 times. As it says in the song, "The Angel on one side, the Devil the other", I hear the choruses alternate in meaning. In one the angel is saying "Don't you think I can save you?"; in the other the devil is saying "Don't you think I can save you". Whether that was intended or not, that's how I hear it. Notice: 22 / 2 is virtually 11.

I also noticed the 17th chorus is slightly different from the others. Not sure if it was intentional or a mistake, but here (at 8:03) Blaze starts the chorus with, "Don't you think I can save you" instead of the usual "Don't you think I'm a saviour".

As for the repetition, "save your life" only appears 22 times in this song. In another classic Maiden song, "die" appears over 50 times.
 
I can only take this song as a joke. I am sure Steve did that on purpose so we all have a laugh.
I bet he's checking up on the forum from time to time and is all like: "Blimey, some people are really defending it!" TAatG is probably Steve's revenge on all the critics hating TXF. It's like: "Been bored by TXF? Eat that shit!"

Kinda liked Blaze's version from Music from the Beast Fest though. I mean... he seemed to really enjoy it.
 
Easily the worst song on VXI. I sometimes wonder why even it becomes a single?!!! Glad that the other songs there so much better!
 
God knows I've tried with this song, but I just can't like it. I think it's my all-time least favourite Maiden track. This or Gates of Tomorrow
 
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