The Red And The Black

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

  • Total voters
    22
Collin said:
The Red and the Black is a 10/10. All other scores are unacceptable.
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I gave it a 10 initially but it has probably slipped down to an 8 or 9 now.
 
If the Red and the Black came on the radio... which I’ve never experienced, I would turn it up. But by Maiden standards, it is .001/ 10. Near the very bottom. That is as close to a compliment I can muster.
It is my least favorite song on my least favorite album of the reunion. But it is Maiden.
 
Kalata said:
the bass outro is kinda unnecessary
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Hey @Diesel 11 , you know that Steve has a tendency to end a song just the same way as it starts - especially on the epics written all by him and especially on the reunion era. I like the bass intro, a nice note to BOTWH classic intro, but I find the outro kinda unnecessary.
 
Realised I never posted my thoughts on this.

It was a hard sell, but worth it. Mostly. I thought this song was a total mess when I first heard it, but once I heard it a few times I started to really enjoy it. I love the "Ancient Mariner"-esque pace of the first half, the guitar melody is great, but doesn't work so well as a vocal melody. There's an excellent (albeit shortened) cover of this song by Steven Battelle, I'd give it a listen if you haven't already. He ever so slightly changes the vocal melody so it isn't following the guitar exactly, I find it works so much better.

I find the first "Whoa-Oh" section, sans the actual Whoa-Oh's, a bit odd. Why are the vocals omitted for just this part? Still, it's a good melody. Thank Christ, because we hear it a lot!

The title-drop and the instrumental section that follows the solos are both awesome. Great melodies that make me think back to Virtual XI or Dance of Death, they have the same upbeat feel as those albums. Steve may not write riffs so much anymore, but he knows how to write a damn good melody.

The solos themselves are a mixed bag. Adrian's first is fine, but just kinda "basic-Adrian", somewhat unnecessary and massively overshadowed by his stellar second solo. Jan's is great, he really picked it up for this album. Dave's... again, it's a bit "basic-Dave". Nothing special, but it's a big improvement over his efforts on the last two albums.

The ending suffers the same way that a lot of this album's songs do, it's just too abrupt. The great heavy riff suddenly slams to a halt, we get another load of whoa's and then the song's over. I do like the bookend effect with the bass solo, like "The Book of Souls" it makes you reflect on everything that came before.

In all, perhaps with a few minor tweaks this could've been a flawless song, but I'd still rank it as one of Steve's best epics and one of my favourite songs overall.

8/10
 
Edington said:
The title-drop and the instrumental section that follows the solos are both awesome. Great melodies that make me think back to Virtual XI or Dance of Death, they have the same upbeat feel as those albums. Steve may not write riffs so much anymore, but he knows how to write a damn good melody.
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I wholeheartedly agree.
 
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Edington said:
The solos themselves are a mixed bag. Adrian's first is fine, but just kinda "basic-Adrian", somewhat unnecessary and massively overshadowed by his stellar second solo. Jan's is great, he really picked it up for this album. Dave's... again, it's a bit "basic-Dave". Nothing special, but it's a big improvement over his efforts on the last two albums.
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Honestly, I’m with you when you say the solos are a bit basic, but for me it’s fine because the energy itself transforms that instrumental section from “basic” to “fantastic”.
 
The bits that are reminiscent of DOD, are similar to the very worst parts of DOD. It’s as if there was some reason to recreate the flawed sections of Gates of tomorrow, plug them in to a forced jumble of scrap parts being passed off as an epic. Yah right, epic.... look no one loves Maiden more than I. But TRAB misses. Again, some very melodic parts. But overall it isn’t a cohesive song, after years of listening now. It still seems too long and forced. Blown away by BOS and empire on the album. IMO...
 
The instrumental 6 minutes is flawless. However, I'm not a huge fan of the bass solo, the tongue twister lyrics or reprising the "woah oh-ohs" at the end, it would have been better to end with a bang a la SSOASS. However the good parts are so good it gets an 8
 
Song is so unbelievably bloated and overlong.

At one point about five minutes in I said out loud "come on Steve, another verse?"

Nice melodies and all that over the same old chord changes but I do like that actual riff that shows up near the end.
 
naranja said:
Song is so unbelievably bloated and overlong.

At one point about five minutes in I said out loud "come on Steve, another verse?"

Nice melodies and all that over the same old chord changes but I do like that actual riff that shows up near the end.
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:facepalm::facepalm::facepalm:
 
Ancient Mariner said:
With every listen I'm more and more convinced that this song is a masterpiece.

It isn't conventional Harris. He has absolutely succeeded in making something slightly different and yet retaining the typical quality of beauty of his songwriting.

I don't want to rank songs in the album but this is one of the best in it.
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No offence.but you don't get more conventional Harris than this tune
 
Eh. Lovely melodies at the end. I love the riff near the end too. Nice to not have a chorus repeated over and over and I think Steve might even change to a major key for the chorus but the rest of it doesn't really do it for me
 
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