SixesAlltheway
Ancient Mariner
It's exactly like that!
"The Book of Souls" - Official pre-release thread (CONTAINS ALBUM SPOILERS)
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Maturin
Sköldpadda
That's not what arrangement is. Arrangement is taking melodies and deciding which instrument plays them, adding harmonies, writing a bassline and the drum parts etc.
I'd say the arrangements are super-cool. Look at the harmonies in "Montsegur" or "The Legacy". Or the intro and vocal harmony in "Gates of Tomorrow". Hard to say who came up with those... Could have been Kevin Shirley for all we know.
But yes, Steve structures the ideas and writes the lyrics - and that's what his co-credit probably is given for. (I say probably, for unless someone makes a court decide where credit is due, they could decide to give it to whoever they want.)
And I agree on one point - it would be interesting if Janick actually did write a song by himself, from idea to complete song. If you look at the songs he's written, he has a very distinct way of writing melodies - but the structuring of it all is mostly Steve Harris Epic Song Template A.
SixesAlltheway
Ancient Mariner
Gk1
Here I sit in a serenade of glory!
SixesAlltheway
Ancient Mariner
So..Bruce writes Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star on his Guitar and Maiden turns it into Starblind. But Bruce gets all the credits. OK, Got it.
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Thanks Foro.
The opening riff to Flash — something Bruce came up with noodling on his dad's old acoustic?
Chained Prometheus
The Spiral King
Has Bruce ever mentioned what his favorite Jethro Tull album is?
EDIT: I'm doing some digging; so far it seems that Bruce's listened to Aqualung (dunno if that's his favorite Tull album), and also was a fan of Emerson, Lake and Palmer's Tarkus album and the various works of Arthur Brown.
EDIT: I'm doing some digging; so far it seems that Bruce's listened to Aqualung (dunno if that's his favorite Tull album), and also was a fan of Emerson, Lake and Palmer's Tarkus album and the various works of Arthur Brown.
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I wonder if that's a Carl Palmer thing - he played drums for Crazy World of Arthur Brown.
SixesAlltheway
Ancient Mariner
Honestly can't remember where but I seem to remember reading that Bruce listened to Quadrophenia by The Who a lot when they did...I think Piece of Mind.
Chained Prometheus
The Spiral King
Might be. I remember reading that Bruce was a fan of Brown back when I first got into The Chemical Wedding a few years back, but I never realized that he ever dabbled about with the space rock/prog rock genres. Obviously looking at these bands and albums that Bruce is fond of could easily be irrelevant, but I think it's worth checking out just to get an idea of where Bruce's headspace might be in regards to "Empire of the Clouds."
I never knew that! I'm hoping we get some interviews with Bruce really soon. I'd love to get some comments from him on this particular new song.
EDIT: Apparently Bruce is also a big fan of Van der Graaf Generator. I'm not at all familiar with them, so I'll be giving them a whirl soon.
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SixesAlltheway
Ancient Mariner
EDIT: Apparently Bruce is also a big fan of Van der Graaf Generator. I'm not at all familiar with them, so I'll be giving them a whirl soon.
Great band! Peter Hammill on vocals. He had a good solo career too.
Chained Prometheus
The Spiral King
It's funny; I was actually hoping we'd get more input from Bruce and H, without Steve arranging their works. Never thought it'd actually happen, much less Bruce being the one who'd ever dare to make a bigger epic than "Rime!"
EDIT: I'm currently listening to Generator's Pawn Hearts album right now and I have a feeling that this is almost definitely a big favorite for Bruce. I can definitely see how he'd be influenced by this band's vocalist. Very dramatic/operatic stuff going on vocally and the music is wonderfully chaotic.
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Forostar
Ancient Mariner
Me too. This was my "own made up" upcoming album:
No solo Smith songs, but instead Bruce! And also looooong songs. And the word "Unknown" in a title.
No solo Smith songs, but instead Bruce! And also looooong songs. And the word "Unknown" in a title.
SixesAlltheway
Ancient Mariner
Forostar
Ancient Mariner
Of course Bruce wrote a great deal of The Book of Souls, since he wrote very long tracks, but when we just look at the amount of songs, as part of all the tracks on the album (the proportion ==> number of songs with credit : total amount of songs = 4/11) this is the album that features the least Bruce credits since Somewhere in Time (0/8).
This is the first album since Fear of the Dark, so basically, the first time since Bruce has returned to Maiden, where he has credits without having collaborated with Steve!
This is the first album since Fear of the Dark, so basically, the first time since Bruce has returned to Maiden, where he has credits without having collaborated with Steve!
Chained Prometheus
The Spiral King
I'm really curious to find out what it was that led to Steve being a bit more hands-off on this album than he's been the past several entries. Did Bruce and H just put their feet down and ask for some space, or was Steve just really impressed by the stuff that they composed without him and decided against putting in any input on the material?
CriedWhenBrucieLeft
Meme Only Account
Is is possible we're comparing apples & pears? Maybe in the decades since the 80's (or 90's, or even the five years since TFF) Maiden have changed, maybe just slightly, how they assign songwriting credits.
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