THE CRUSADE OF EPICS: Results -> A Change Of Seasons wins!

“Achilles Last Stand” has a fantastic solo section from about 3:45-5:10, and the outro is pretty cool, but the rest of the song just treads water. “The Great Misconceptions Of Me” is consistently interesting, rocks harder, and is fundamentally a much better written song. Blackie’s delivery is a bit overwrought, but there isn’t much else to criticize here. Sorry, Colligantium, but @The Dissident ’s choice is the clear winner here. Winner: W.A.S.P.
 
I really like Achiles, but frankly it is nothing comparred to the masterpiece that is The Great Misconceptions Of Me, which is a thrilling conclusion to a brilliant and dark album.
 
JudasMyGuide said:
Achilles and if it's seriously going to lose against fuckin' WASP I think I'm gonna take a break from the forum altogether already.
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Really? I mean, I understand liking one song over the other, but are you not able to at least appreciate the artist value of “The Great Misconceptions Of Me”?

This ain’t the W.A.S.P. of the “I FUCK LIKE A BEAST” days. This is a W.A.S.P. that has tried to move past its youthful inanity* and evolve into something more mature. You can really tell that The Crimson Idol came from something deep within Blackie Lawless. I mean, fuck man, it’s about a boy whose parents only care about what he could be, not who he is. He puts his passion in his guitar and just wants to be accepted, and gets that chance from a money hungry record executive who propels him to stardom. He engages in the rock star life — sex and drums drugs and rock n roll — but even as he gets exactly what he thought he wanted, he realizes that what he really needed was just to be loved for who he is. And it’s too late.

“The Great Misconceptions Of Me” is a summation of the guy’s life, and to that end, Blackie throws in a lot of motifs and lyrics from previous songs to really make it as if his life is flashing before his eyes. That altered chorus from “The Idol” that opens the song hits so hard. People don’t give Blackie enough credit; sure he’s imperfect and very rough but his voice has a lot of bite and actually a ton of emotion too. The chorus (reprised from “The Invisible Boy”, which also reappears later on) is really really good, really showcasing what was missing all that time. Near the end the guitarist literally hangs himself with his own guitar strings, a darkly poetic ending to a tragic existence.

This is a song that must’ve sprung from personal experience and I wouldn’t be surprised if writing out something this vivid helped Blackie Lawless down the road mentally. Sure the band eventually reverted back to being just... aggressive, but this album showcased a whole other side only hinted at by The Headless Children. Compare it to “Achilles Last Stand”, which is some groovy proto-metal and has its moments, but by the end I’m just checking the time to see how much more there is. And to be clear: I used to listen to Zeppelin a lot, and I like a good chunk of their material, but “Achilles” never did it for me and I probably like it more now than I ever have. Maybe if “Kashmir” was here instead I’d have a tougher time voting. But there’s just no real soul in that song. Its competitor, meanwhile, is all soul. And it’s powerful.

The Great Misconceptions Of Me.

*Even though I do like that, but chalk that up to me digging hair metal in general. They did have bite though.
 
Brigantium said:
Well damn. I nominated Achilles because I find it has great 'epic' credentials, structure and drama. But I'd vote for Great Misconceptions up against so many of the other nominations, that's a cracking big finale song. I'm really torn.
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Hearing it for the first time and this is great fantastic, indeed.
 
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Forostar said:
Hearing it for the first time and this is great fantastic, indeed.
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You should check out the whole album then, it makes it even better. There’s a reason The Crimson Idol has been deemed one of the best metal concept albums, and even holds a 96% rating on Metal Archives. This isn’t just a dumb hair band, this is something so much bigger than that.
 
Jer said:
has a fantastic solo section from about 3:45-5:10, and the outro is pretty cool, but the rest of the song just treads water.
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You're saying this like it's a bad thing. There are 3-5 songs on every Maiden album from the past 25 years that you could make the same statement about.
 
Achilles Last Stand has a cool main riff, but is otherwise ruined by awful vocals and over repetitiveness. If it had someone who can actually sing over epic music, like Nemtheanga from Primordial, and if it was cut by a few minutes, it would've been a great song.

The Great Misconceptions Of Me is pretty cool. For a start, it has a good vocalist, better production, but suffers from repeating sections from The Idol too much. Admittedly, pretty good sections, but still... Either way, it's more enjoyable than Led Zep.
 
Sorry, I'm just not in the mood for overly dramatic epics. I might have voted for The Great Misconceptions Of Me some other day, but for now, my vote goes to Achilles Last Stand.
 
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