The Book of Souls: General album discussion

I'm in the act of burning my The Book Of Souls 1 CD album containing these songs:

1. If Eternity Should Fail
2. Speed Of Light
3. Shadows Of The Valley
4. Tears Of A Clown
5. The Man Of Sorrows
6. The Great Unknown
7. The Book Of Souls
8. Empire Of The Clouds

This 1 CD version without any fillers would have been a stunning album.
 
Cosmiceddie said:
I'm in the act of burning my The Book Of Souls 1 CD album containing these songs:

1. If Eternity Should Fail
2. Speed Of Light
3. Shadows Of The Valley
4. Tears Of A Clown
5. The Man Of Sorrows
6. The Great Unknown
7. The Book Of Souls
8. Empire Of The Clouds

This 1 CD version without any fillers would have been a stunning album.
Click to expand...
Mine is CD2 + IESF and TBOS
 
While I love this entire album, I really believe the weak point is The Red and the Black. I don't think it's a great song and it totally ruins the momentum on the first part of the album. I feel the entire experience would be greatly improved by removing it entirely. I love the reunion era material but that song is like every single thing that most folks hate about songs from this era - overlong, unnecessary intro, too much repetition, strained vocals. The only thing that saves it is the solos at the 9 minute mark for me.
 
Cosmiceddie said:
I'm in the act of burning my The Book Of Souls 1 CD album containing these songs:

1. If Eternity Should Fail
2. Speed Of Light
3. Shadows Of The Valley
4. Tears Of A Clown
5. The Man Of Sorrows
6. The Great Unknown
7. The Book Of Souls
8. Empire Of The Clouds

This 1 CD version without any fillers would have been a stunning album.
Click to expand...

Switch SOTV for Death Or Glory and it's my pick too, albeit in a different order;

1. If Eternity Should Fail
2. Speed Of Light
3. The Great Unknown
4. The Book Of Souls
5. Tears Of A Clown
6. Death Or Glory
7. The Man Of Sorrows
8. Empire Of The Clouds
 
Cosmiceddie said:
I'm in the act of burning my The Book Of Souls 1 CD album containing these songs:

1. If Eternity Should Fail
2. Speed Of Light
3. Shadows Of The Valley
4. Tears Of A Clown
5. The Man Of Sorrows
6. The Great Unknown
7. The Book Of Souls
8. Empire Of The Clouds

This 1 CD version without any fillers would have been a stunning album.
Click to expand...
I burned all 11 songs after editing out some unnecessary parts and ended up with a perfect 82 minute CD.
 
Donner said:
While I love this entire album, I really believe the weak point is The Red and the Black. I don't think it's a great song and it totally ruins the momentum on the first part of the album. I feel the entire experience would be greatly improved by removing it entirely. I love the reunion era material but that song is like every single thing that most folks hate about songs from this era - overlong, unnecessary intro, too much repetition, strained vocals. The only thing that saves it is the solos at the 9 minute mark for me.
Click to expand...
Lol. It's a prefect song to me, if you just take out bass brackets and reduce the solos (they are overlong, not the intro). I don't see repetition here at all.
 
Donner said:
While I love this entire album, I really believe the weak point is The Red and the Black. I don't think it's a great song and it totally ruins the momentum on the first part of the album. I feel the entire experience would be greatly improved by removing it entirely. I love the reunion era material but that song is like every single thing that most folks hate about songs from this era - overlong, unnecessary intro, too much repetition, strained vocals. The only thing that saves it is the solos at the 9 minute mark for me.
Click to expand...
I don't see unnecessery parts in it... My problems with this song are different... See TRATB thread...
 
I really think there's a good 6 minute song there, it's just not nearly good enough to be 13 minutes. Definitely the most disappointing track on here.

But man I can't get enough of the rest of this album!
 
JudasMyGuide said:
I'm not saying I dislike the rest. I do. But the album would work better as a whole to me. It would even have a somewhat better flow, IMHO.

If what you say was the case people shouldn't hate FOTD album, because you can skip Chains of Misery, The Apparition and Weekend Warrior and it would be instantly better, right? It seemed to me here on this forum we usually rate an album in its entirety. I'm used to listening to whole albums. You shouldn't have to make you own playlists out of albums, IMHO.

Again, it's not as if those other songs are bad, it's just that the perfection is distilled a tad ... instead of an album to end all albums from start to finish, it's "only" great.
Click to expand...
At the time when FOTD came out, there was no mp3 or any media manipulation software for that matter )
 
JudasMyGuide said:
I'm not saying I dislike the rest. I do. But the album would work better as a whole to me. It would even have a somewhat better flow, IMHO.

If what you say was the case people shouldn't hate FOTD album, because you can skip Chains of Misery, The Apparition and Weekend Warrior and it would be instantly better, right? It seemed to me here on this forum we usually rate an album in its entirety. I'm used to listening to whole albums. You shouldn't have to make you own playlists out of albums, IMHO.

Again, it's not as if those other songs are bad, it's just that the perfection is distilled a tad ... instead of an album to end all albums from start to finish, it's "only" great.
Click to expand...

I think you've both got a point. As an overall album to rate you shouldn't just ignore any songs you dislike. Taking it to an extreme it can just become rating the best song on each album.

This said on a double CD if a couple of songs aren't to your taste and you can remove them and still have a great 60+ min left to listen to then you should do so. Those other songs potentially ruin the album for you but they will make it for others, and I don't think they should have been left off the album.
 
I pretty much just remove When The River Runs Deep and The Red & The Black from the playlist when I play the album, flows much better. Those two songs aren't really bad, it's just that they are much weaker than the rest of the album and I'm always impatient to get to the title track after The Great Unknown.
 
There was certainly "media manipulation" software, for that matter. Sound Blaster was introduced in 1989, Gravis Ultrasound in 1992. PC software tools were in their infancy but adequate for cut/copy/paste jobs.
Not that you'd need any of that in 1992. You'd buy a FOTD record or tape and you'd put it in your "Hi-Fi", and record a tape copy in the recording deck, skipping songs you don't like if that's your thing.
 
Of course you make you own collections and playlists! Espically nowadays when you don't have to record them on casette or burn a cd I make a lot of temporary lists, putting the songs in different order (listening to a record bakwards often brings a new light to some songs) mixing different albums with wierd criteria etc.
But that has nothing to do with the record and how I view it: a record is the whole deal, no changes of any kind, when comparing to other records or talked about its always in an unaltered form. Even if I would have done things differently it has nothing to do with the original product or how I view it, it is what it is and my own fooling around is for my own pleasure, nothing else.
Hope this makes sense, I have a bit of a fever right now....
 
Ersatz Maiden.
You wanted a Snickers but cheaped-out and bought the supermarket own brand.
As you gnaw through your 'Peanut Bar' you're initially amused by its cheeky attempts, but you eventually realise that you're chewing a brick of lard and wasting your health.

It's also a bit like Maiden Theory 101...Ah!101!
You could study this album and get an A-level in Iron Maiden without ever hearing the meat-and-potatoes good stuff.

I seem to be in the minority, or maybe the silent majority.
I thought I may be too old, but Killers still sounds great to me. And TFF.
 
Zare said:
Switch SOTV for Death Or Glory and it's my pick too, albeit in a different order;

1. If Eternity Should Fail
2. Speed Of Light
3. The Great Unknown
4. The Book Of Souls
5. Tears Of A Clown
6. Death Or Glory
7. The Man Of Sorrows
8. Empire Of The Clouds
Click to expand...
Switch The Great Unknown for Shadows of the Valley and it's my pick too, albeit in a different order;

1. If Eternity Should Fail
2. Speed of Light
3. The Book of Souls
4. Death or Glory
5. Shadows of the Valley
6. Tears of a Clown
7. The Man of Sorrows
8. Empire of the Clouds

Looks like we three are divided on Death or Glory (liked by Zare and Forostar), The Great Unknown (liked by Zare and Cosmiceddie) and Shadows of the Valley (liked by Cosmiceddie and Forostar), but we have in common that the absence of TRATB and WTRRD would improve the album.
 
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