Tournament of Iron Maiden Solos: 2nd poll (qualification stage)

Which solo do you like the most? (pick your favourite)

  • 01. Seventh Son of a Seventh Son, 1st solo (see 1st link)

    Votes: 3 60.0%

  • 02. Seventh Son of a Seventh Son, 2nd solo (see 2nd link)

    Votes: 1 20.0%

  • 03. Mother Russia (see 3rd link)

    Votes: 1 20.0%

  • 04. The Educated Fool (see 4th link)

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Total voters
    5
  • Poll closed .
When I listen to Janick's Fugitive lead I do indeed think I should have made room for it. Then I think: what lead would I sacrifice to put it in there?, & I'm struggling. It was in the running. Both Janick & Dave's NPftD leads were also in contention, but just didn't make it.

I might do a Forostar --& discuss a few that just didn't make it, but are worthy of mention...
 
This could go on forever. We'd add ten more solos that didn't make it on the list but are still good. Then we'd start thinking about the remaining solos that we think are good but didn't make that second list, so we'd have to make another one, etc. Here's a different question - can you name a solo that you most definitely don't like?
 
Adrian Smith: Hallowed Be Thy Name

Actually most solos Adrian Smith does on the The Number of the Beast album. Surely it's the album with his worst guitar leads. His solo on Hallowed is weak and apart from a few nice moments on 22, The Prisoner and Children of the Damned there isn't much to write home about. His licks in Wrathchild, his sparkling solos in The Ides of March, Prodigal Son... now we're talking. Killers (title track) is quite cool as well. Naturally Adrian became better and this can already be heard on Piece of Mind. I guess it also might have to do with the sound and the production of Beast and Adrian's lead sounds on it: thin, cringing and crappy.

Janick Gers: No Prayer for the Dying (messy).
Dave Murray: not sure yet, but I also do not like his wild unmelodic solos in No Prayer for the Dying.
 
Forostar said:
Adrian Smith: Hallowed Be Thy Name

Actually most solos Adrian Smith does on the The Number of the Beast album, the album with his worst guitar leads. His solo on Hallowed is weak and apart from a few nice moments on 22, The Prisoner and Children of the Damned there isn't much to write home about. His licks in Wrathchild, his sparkling solos in The Ides of March, Prodigal Son... now we're talking. Killers is quite cool as well. Naturally Adrian became better and this can already be heard on Piece of Mind. I guess it also might have to do with the sound and the production of Beast. A thin, cringing sound.

Janick Gers: No Prayer for the Dying (messy).
Dave Murray: not sure yet, but I also do not like his wild unmelodic solos in No Prayer for the Dying.
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What about Adrian's NOTB solo itself? Funny, I like Janick's on No Prayer..., though.
 
I love his live solos from NOTB. Especially since he came back to the band. The studio version is a bit pale compared to it.
 
My contemporaneous notes (this is genuinely what I wrote [typed] at the time! :p) to myself for the first three albums were:

Iron Maiden:
DM: Prowler the standout --90's live is improvement. Also Phantom & Strange W. pretty good
ST: no real standout

Killers:
Surprising lack of standalone leads; especially from AS, who has nothing decent. Nothing really up there with 1st album, except maybe DM Wrathchild.

The Number Of The Beast:
DM: NotB, RttH & HBTN are all great leads; despite overplay
AS: Prisoner is H's standout; his best early lead
JG: his live HBTN on RiR, one of my fav. live leads

I'd say tNotB is the best of the three. Killers had nothing, for me. Dave has some pretty decent stuff on IM. I agree that Adrian's tone/sound suffered in earlier albums --his playing is okay, but the mix isn't always very good. Dave, on the other hand, always stands out better; to me anyway.

I agree with Forostar: I think Adrian's HBTN lead is mince.
 
I think it's been mentioned before, but Dave's For The Greater Good Of God lead (JG > AS > DM) is, for him, pretty awful. In fact the tone/sound of his guitar is so uncharacteristic of his usual sound (when has it ever sounded this bad?) that, I have to admit, I didn't actually think it was him the first couple of times I listened to the album.
 
Typing the above was actually a pretty difficult experience for me, just there...
...but I just about pulled through (--criticising the mighty Dave.) :p
 
CriedWhenBrucieLeft said:
Killers:
Surprising lack of standalone leads; especially from AS, who has nothing decent. Nothing really up there with 1st album, except maybe DM Wrathchild.

The Number Of The Beast:
DM: NotB, RttH & HBTN are all great leads; despite overplay
AS: Prisoner is H's standout; his best early lead
JG: his live HBTN on RiR, one of my fav. live leads

I'd say tNotB is the best of the three. Killers had nothing, for me. Dave has some pretty decent stuff on IM. I agree that Adrian's tone/sound suffered in earlier albums --his playing is okay, but the mix isn't always very good. Dave, on the other hand, always stands out better; to me anyway.

I agree with Forostar: I think Adrian's HBTN lead is mince.
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I think Killers has much better leads than Beast. Adrian's solo in Prodigal Son is by far better than anything on Beast.
 
Honestly, I have never thought much of Dave's solo on For The Greater Good Of God not because it's not up to his usual standards but because to me Adrian's solo totally overshadows the other two.

You might need a drink or two, Cried. Speaking of Dave in such a way! What is this world coming to...
 
Maturin said:
I think Killers has much better leads than Beast. Adrian's solo in Prodigal Son is by far better than anything on Beast.
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Seconded. I didn't want to say it yet (spoiler for my list ;-) but it looks like most of the forum was sleeping when being busy with these lists (imo of course, please do not take offense! :D ). And so is Stratton's solo in Strange World. Dave's slow solo in 22 is pretty memorable though.
 
Adrian's solos really do overshadow Dave's and Janick's solos after Reunion, especially on A Matter of Life and Death. I can barely remember Dave's solo on These Colours Don't Run because Adrian's solo is incredibly superior. Janick's solo on Brighter Than a Thousand Suns is pretty good but again gets overshadowed by Adrian's. Same goes on the solos for For the Greater Good of God and Lord of Light. The only exception is the solos on The Longest Day but there's a minute difference between Adrian's and Dave's solos on that one so that may be doing it.

H's solo on Prodigal Son is awesome, but it has nothing on The Prisoner's solo, sorry. :p
 
AMOLAD is probably the best album in terms of solos. Different World, Benjamin Breeg and The Legacy all have remarkable leads.
 
I do not count the melody before his solo as a part of the solo itself, if you know what I mean. ;-)
So, it's not the greatest. Pretty standard, though the ending is quite nice.
 
Ariana said:
AMOLAD is probably the best album in terms of solos. Different World, Benjamin Breeg and The Legacy all have remarkable leads.
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Somewhere in Time is, but AMOLAD is pretty good, too.

Forostar said:
I do not count the melody before his solo as a part of the solo itself, if you know what I mean. ;-)
So, it's not the greatest. Pretty standard, though the ending is quite nice.
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That solo sends shivers down my spine every time I hear it. Include the part before it, or not.
 
I don't know, Ariana, Janick's is pretty decent. But, yeh, Adrian's is certainly better; then comes Dave's train crash. How do you know I've not had a couple of drinks? It might explain my inexplicable criticism of Dave...

Killers better leads? --I can't agree with that. There's fuck all on Killers --half the tracks don't have leads proper. (Perhaps a slight exageration.) I think tNotB leads (Dave's) suffer from overplay, but they're pretty decent.

And, as I said in my top ten introduction, I don't find much from recent albums (from any of them) that stands up to SiT material --purely from a lead perspective.

EDIT: The lead work overall on AMoLaD is incredibly consistent; right up there with SiT.
 
I need to hear everything properly again, but I'd say TFF was more impressive on the solo department when we look at Adrian. Janick and Dave might have been more impressive on AMOLAD, indeed.
 
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