The Red And The Black

How good is The Red and the Black on a scale of 1-10?

  • Total voters
    22
Viperlord said:
I have to say, a poster with an anti-Steve Harris agenda is probably the most counter-intuitive thing to encounter on a Iron Maiden fan forum.
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There is no anti-Steve Harris agenda here. It isn't our job to lick Steve's balls and worship everything he has written. If we don't like certain aspects of his songwriting, we are free to express our criticism's.
 
Babo 91 said:
There is no anti-Steve Harris agenda here. It isn't our job to lick Steve's balls and worship everything he has written. If we don't like certain aspects of his songwriting, we are free to express our criticism's.
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Given the fact that it wasn't your post I was replying to, you know perfectly well it wasn't addressed to you. You are burning a strawman here, I don't have a problem with criticizing Steve songs. I don't like To Tame A Land and Alexander the Great nearly as much as most here seem to, for example, and I outright dislike Don't Look To The Eyes of a Stranger. Saying he makes anything he touches worse, even with co-written songs, let alone based on pure speculation as to what parts of those songs are his, is just outright silly.
 
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I really love the music in this song, it's Iron Maiden to the core. At first, the song is so overwhelming that it's hard to pick it apart, but upon repeated listens I have one major comment: please stop singing over guitar lines, Bruce! I truly hate the sound of this. If it works better as a vocal melody, just have the vocal do the melody! You can lead into the vocal (or out of the vocal) with a repeat on the guitar, but why oh why must they put them together?! It never sounds good.
 
I like it sometimes. For slower melodies it works, for faster lines like the opening verse not so much. I thought it was really cool in WTWWB, more hit or miss on this one, and I hope Steve tries something else next time.
 
MrKnickerbocker said:
I really love the music in this song, it's Iron Maiden to the core. At first, the song is so overwhelming that it's hard to pick it apart, but upon repeated listens I have one major comment: please stop singing over guitar lines, Bruce! I truly hate the sound of this. If it works better as a vocal melody, just have the vocal do the melody! You can lead into the vocal (or out of the vocal) with a repeat on the guitar, but why oh why must they put them together?! It never sounds good.
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You should really write

"Please stop playing over vocal lines, jannick"

I know its probably Steve's decision but sometimes it just doesn't work well. Sometimes it does (Brave new world, SoTV, BoS). It's just really overused
 
Babo 91 said:
You should really write

"Please stop playing over vocal lines, jannick"

I know its probably Steve's decision but sometimes it just doesn't work well. Sometimes it does (Brave new world, SoTV, BoS). It's just really overused
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It's not Janick's fault, though, it's Steve's arrangement and Steve's obsession with everything being "just-so" that makes things sound this way.
 
I was very pleasantly surprised with this song. It, like many other songs on this album, is very energetic. It feels different than any of Steve's other epics in quite some time. The melodies, harmonies, lead guitar work and vocals are very upbeat and catchy. The instrumental section has so much feeling to it that the section from 11:54-12:30 kind of derails it for me. While the riffing is good and I wouldn't want it to be ejected from the song, it feels out of place and would have worked better closer to the beginning of the instrumental section so that it could have closed with those beautiful harmonies in my opinion. I would probably give this song an 8.5/10 for that and a couple other minor nitpicks I have, but other than that- a very fun song that I think it going to be a beast in the live setting!
 
this is one of the best tracks on the album; good musical ideas, and the transitions between sections not as awkward as other maiden transitions can be. what lets it down is - again - lenght for lenghts sake. if there were genuinely good musical ideas to sustain its running time, this would have been up with maidens best, but after the initial fine few minutes, it can drag, especially on repeated listening.

you could have one 90 minute song that is essential if it had great musical ideas behind it; "the red and the black" is a great maiden track lessened due to its running time being unnecessarily extended by a good 4 or 5 minutes.

i would still rate it near the top of this album; album itself is fairly pedestrian, but it does have some shining examples of melody, musical invention, and good ideas - and this is one of them (again, it is too long though!)
 
It's not repetition problem in this song, it's poor arangment, disconnected parts, bad transitions and that awful unison guitar and vocal parts, but this is a song with least repetitions on album.
 
CycleMotion said:
It's not repetition problem in this song, it's poor arangment, disconnected parts, bad transitions and that awful unison guitar and vocal parts, but this is a song with least repetitions on album.
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I have seen other posters mention the unison guitar and vocal parts, however, I like that aspect of the track. I think the arrangement is a bit off in respect of repeated sections, but the basic creative ideas are good. It is one of the divisive tracks on the album, I'm in the camp that rates it high in relation to some of the other tracks.
 
By far the best song of the album. A real standout.
Love the messy bass intro, love the various melodies, the guitar/vocal harmonies, the various riffs, love the feel and flow, love the guitar instrumentals. It's not just a song, it's a journey with lots of variety of sounds, rythms and timings. Its a really fantastic song for me.

da da dada da dut dut daaaaa, da da dada da dut dut daaaaa, da da dada da dut dut daaaaa, da da dadada dadada dadada da
da da dada da dut dut daaaaa, da da dada da dut dut daaaaa, da da daaaaa
 
After a few listens, this song is certainly growing on me. I wondered where the hell it was going at first. It now reminds me of an older style Maiden romp, and with the stereo turned up to 11 (especially for the 2nd half) I'm sure it's growing on the neighbours as well.
 
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