The third Blaze-sung Maiden album: lyrically a fusion of Silicon Messiah and BNW, but musically rooted in BNW?

Both Maiden and Bruce were on CMC International in the U.S at the time, like Jer wrote. Virtual XI did way worse than any other studio album in the catalogue, but still good enough for the band to be signed on a smaller label, I believe. I can't imagine that CMC wanted to drop them.

Sale stats from 2005 for the CMC catalogue:
The X Factor (1995) - 112,710
Virtual XI (1998) - 65,243

Skunkworks (1996) - 20,361
Accident Of Birth (1997) - 45,921
Chemical Wedding (1998) - 41,363

blabbermouth.net

IRON MAIDEN: U.S. Album Sales Revealed

IRON MAIDEN fan site MaidenFans.com has published the latest Nielsen SoundScan figures for the entire MAIDEN catalog as well as MAIDEN singer Bruce Dickinson's solo releases and recordings issued by ex-MAIDEN frontman Blaze Bayley under the BLAZE banner. Note: the SoundScan numbers for MAIDEN's...
blabbermouth.net blabbermouth.net

Bruce lost his major label record deal in the U.S after Balls to Picasso.

CMC signed a lot of artists in the 90's like Bruce and Maiden who couldn't get a better deal:

CMC International - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org en.wikipedia.org


On a sidenote, a third album would have no similiarities with Silicon Messiah, because Blaze wrote the vocal melodies for that album, based on music that his band members came up (Wray, Slater, Naylor, Singer). Producer Andy Sneap also helped Blaze a little bit.
 
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CA Bryers said:
The story is, Nicko went to Steve with some soundboard tapes near the end of the tour, and basically showed him how well (or not) Blaze was singing. Steve notoriously doesn't have the best hearing, so I imagine Nicko played it for him assuming Steve thought everything was fine live. If I had to guess, Nick was probably fed up with the direction with Blaze--maybe playing to smaller crowds, getting bad reviews, etc.--and wanted a change.

Speculate all you want if there's any connection from the above to Nick's sort of half-assed complexity in his drumming on Virtual XI. Possible he didn't want to make the effort in a direction he didn't believe in that far back.
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I believe he also offered an ultimatum: either Blaze goes or he does. Losing Nicko would've pretty much spelled the death of the band anyway at that stage so there was no path forward with Blaze at the helm.
 
TheTalisman said:
Both Maiden and Bruce were on CMC International in the U.S at the time, like Jer wrote. Virtual XI did way worse than any other studio album in the catalogue, but still good enough for the band to be signed on a smaller label, I believe. I can't imagine that CMC wanted to drop them.

Sale stats from 2005 for the CMC catalogue:
The X Factor (1995) - 112,710
Virtual XI (1998) - 65,243

Skunkworks (1996) - 20,361
Accident Of Birth (1997) - 45,921
Chemical Wedding (1998) - 41,363

blabbermouth.net

IRON MAIDEN: U.S. Album Sales Revealed

IRON MAIDEN fan site MaidenFans.com has published the latest Nielsen SoundScan figures for the entire MAIDEN catalog as well as MAIDEN singer Bruce Dickinson's solo releases and recordings issued by ex-MAIDEN frontman Blaze Bayley under the BLAZE banner. Note: the SoundScan numbers for MAIDEN's...
blabbermouth.net blabbermouth.net

Bruce, just like Maiden, lost his major label record deal in the U.S after Balls to Picasso.

CMC signed a lot of artists in the 90's like Bruce and Maiden who couldn't get a better deal:

CMC International - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org en.wikipedia.org


On a sidenote, a third album would have no similiarities with Silicon Messiah, because Blaze wrote the vocal melodies for that album, based on music that his band members came up (Wray, Slater, Naylor, Singer). Producer Andy Sneap also helped Blaze a little bit.
Click to expand...
It's always interesting seeing sales for these smaller more niche labels. I imagine the label were quite happy with the sales on TXF. Nowadays on these smaller niche metal labels they'd throw you a party with a big cake if you sold over 100k
 
Ruflux said:
I believe he also offered an ultimatum: either Blaze goes or he does. Losing Nicko would've pretty much spelled the death of the band anyway at that stage so there was no path forward with Blaze at the helm.
Click to expand...
He couldnt sing many maiden old songs and sometimes he forgot lyrics of their own songs. The trooper was a disaster but the clairvoyant too 2 minutes to midnight and many others. Maybe wrathchild afraid to shoot strangers and heaven can wait but not more. He was shouting more than singing
 
TheTalisman said:
Both Maiden and Bruce were on CMC International in the U.S at the time, like Jer wrote. Virtual XI did way worse than any other studio album in the catalogue, but still good enough for the band to be signed on a smaller label, I believe. I can't imagine that CMC wanted to drop them.

Sale stats from 2005 for the CMC catalogue:
The X Factor (1995) - 112,710
Virtual XI (1998) - 65,243

Skunkworks (1996) - 20,361
Accident Of Birth (1997) - 45,921
Chemical Wedding (1998) - 41,363

blabbermouth.net

IRON MAIDEN: U.S. Album Sales Revealed

IRON MAIDEN fan site MaidenFans.com has published the latest Nielsen SoundScan figures for the entire MAIDEN catalog as well as MAIDEN singer Bruce Dickinson's solo releases and recordings issued by ex-MAIDEN frontman Blaze Bayley under the BLAZE banner. Note: the SoundScan numbers for MAIDEN's...
blabbermouth.net blabbermouth.net

Bruce, just like Maiden, lost his major label record deal in the U.S after Balls to Picasso.

CMC signed a lot of artists in the 90's like Bruce and Maiden who couldn't get a better deal:

CMC International - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org en.wikipedia.org


On a sidenote, a third album would have no similiarities with Silicon Messiah, because Blaze wrote the vocal melodies for that album, based on music that his band members came up (Wray, Slater, Naylor, Singer). Producer Andy Sneap also helped Blaze a little bit.
Click to expand...
Chemical wedding 60mil im sure thats what make bruce return and say that when i was out i realized how big maiden are.
 
dickinson1978 said:
He couldnt sing many maiden old songs and sometimes he forgot lyrics of their own songs. The trooper was a disaster but the clairvoyant too 2 minutes to midnight and many others. Maybe wrathchild afraid to shoot strangers and heaven can wait but not more. He was shouting more than singing
Click to expand...
Playing the songs live 25% faster than the studio versions and not tuning down to accommodate the baritone didn't help
 
FearOfTheLark said:
It's always interesting seeing sales for these smaller more niche labels. I imagine the label were quite happy with the sales on TXF. Nowadays on these smaller niche metal labels they'd throw you a party with a big cake if you sold over 100k
Click to expand...
I agree.

And let's say, if they continue after Blaze, with a completely new singer, perhaps someone who could do the Ed Hunter Tour classics well, and then release a decent album featuring Blood Brothers and some other good songs, there was surely some upside potential, remaining at CMC (and EMI in Europe). They would propably never become massive again, but still sell a decent amount of records.
 
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TheTalisman said:
I agree.

And let's say, if they continue after Blaze, with a completely new singer, perhaps someone who could do the Ed Hunter Tour classics well, and then release a decent album featuring Blood Brothers and some other good songs, there was surely some upside potential, remaining at CMC (and EMI in Europe). They would propably never become massive again, but still sell a decent amount of records.
Click to expand...
We could've had an interesting new era, one that would've undoubtedly continued the groundwork laid by the proggier nature of The X Factor, one pushed into different directions than the one we got thanks to the songwriting contributions of the new singer. I'm sure the most vital aspect was that live shows would improve. After Blaze, hiring a singer who sounded strong on all the material would have been the highest priority.

Tugging on the thread of that alternate timeline, we'd have new variables. Blaze might have forged a musical path similar to what we got, but Bruce? Several more albums with Roy, or would he have gone in another direction as he continued to spin his wheels sales-wise?

But I do agree, Maiden wouldn't have experienced the renaissance they did with the reunion. Live show attendance might've ticked up with a stronger singer and album sales too, but the reunion aspect and Bruce himself was vital to what came to be.
 
dickinson1978 said:
He couldnt sing many maiden old songs and sometimes he forgot lyrics of their own songs. The trooper was a disaster but the clairvoyant too 2 minutes to midnight and many others. Maybe wrathchild afraid to shoot strangers and heaven can wait but not more. He was shouting more than singing
Click to expand...

IMG-0712.gif
 
FearOfTheLark said:
It's always interesting seeing sales for these smaller more niche labels. I imagine the label were quite happy with the sales on TXF. Nowadays on these smaller niche metal labels they'd throw you a party with a big cake if you sold over 100k
Click to expand...

Senjutsu nearly got number one in America with less sales than those numbers for Virtual XI*

EDIT: *I don't know if those are only first week sales for VXI, but the are probably not, so it's not really comparable to be fair
 
srfc said:
Senjutsu nearly got number one in America with less sales than those numbers for Virtual XI*

EDIT: *I don't know if those are only first week sales for VXI, but the are probably not, so it's not really comparable to be fair
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The bar to get a number one in recent years sales wise has been shockingly low compared, but it also tracks given the rate at which people buy cds and records or however streaming is calculated into it
 
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