Tron's Maiden Countdown - ROTAM and AMOLAD win

Re: Tron's Maiden Countdown!

#2 - The Talisman - Another driving epic, i love the slow intros and this perfectly sets the scene at a harbour come dawn, it puts you in the characters shoes brilliantly with the mans story telling us they run from tyranny in their homeland and expect a free plentifull life across the seas.  The instruments all come in full force as we contrast that last thought to where they are hours later, no longer free and happy they fight for their lives against the might of the sea. Bruces voice exudes fear and emotion while the instruments drive in a more powerful way than i can remember from theres noone going back/spirits sails they drive us on, also i think bringing in the imagery of the spirits of those you failed to make the crossing almost taking the lines with them was amazing and worked well with their just causes. The song has a real sense of desperation and entrapment they just cant get away fom the eye of the storm and while the birds outsoar it they can only look on in desperate envy.    Then of course the westward erupts in the darkness to the churning guitar that follows before again driving onward with the drums. Theyve finally made it to their new shoreline of promise but only once to my reconing theyve drifted there having passed away at sea.    chilling, and in terms of the countdown theres been a big clue in my sig for a while now =p
 
Re: Tron's Maiden Countdown!

Forostar said:
Tron, am I close when I say I have the idea that you're not much into lengthy, dark / (doomy) atmospheric songs, released in the eighties and nineties? You might like some of them, but Maiden made more and they really ended up low in the list.

The following could even be a better guess:

You especially prefer the songs Maiden made with the current line-up (you mentioned less than 5 of them up til now!).
In fact, I'm going to count the amount of 2000-2010 songs in your top 50, to see if I'm right.

If I counted right you have 26 songs from the current line-up in your top 50.
That's a lot of songs from a relatively small amount of albums and relatively seen not many songs from lots of albums.

To be precise:
26 songs from the 4 latest albums and
24 songs from 11 older albums

Well Tron, you put lots of work in this, well done! And ehhh, your number one rules!  :ok:
 
Re: Tron's Maiden Countdown!

why thankyou, nice to be appreciated ;)    And its been fun exploring the whole collection.
Thats probably right, though particularly Brave new world tracks are in some cases beginning to wear thin. particularly i predict wicker man, blood brothers and brave new world to sink. The other three post 2000 abums im quite secure on (may have underestimated DoD).
On the albums prior im givin SiT another chance lately so that may change but otherwise im happy.
    I may do an update in years to come
 
Re: Tron's Maiden Countdown!

Tron said:
[...] particularly Brave new world tracks are in some cases beginning to wear thin. particularly i predict wicker man, blood brothers and brave new world to sink.

Hope so, as they ain't that good!  :D

Tron said:
On the albums prior im givin SiT another chance lately so that may change

Woohoooo! SiT is a masterpiece.

Your countdown has been superb. A lot of stuff I really like you've placed quite high up. Always going to be disagreement over order --but not many blasphemies for me.
 
Re: Tron's Maiden Countdown!

#1 - Rime of the Ancient Mariner - This sat around 8th until a few months ago i read the poem and it made me bring the song back out. It follows the story and its emotions brilliantly. Beginning with a welcome to the tale with huge drum beat as the ship sails on to the land of snow and ice and the albatross. The song moves wonderously to the killing of the bird and quickly gets to the curse of the thirst with the moving intruments continuing through lyrical reference to the poem. The song picks up into the ghostly drive of the ancient ship before to a building sound the crew drop dead leaving but one. The instruments run away to a galloping instrumental that brings the song through.
A mood builds to the sound of the bass (live the fog helps) and more referencing to the poem with the crew dropping. The emotion in this section captures brilliantly the eerie feel when reading the rime and thats another great draw of maiden, their ability to transcribe other arts. The drawn out guitar creates the feeling before haulting and ushering in the best part of 80s maiden, the mood continues but with building drums to give the image of our lone seaman on sea with nothing but the slimy creatures. It all builds (rightfully so) to the RAIIIIIN coming and that glorious release of the thirst theyve gone through.
This brings in an epic thunderous instrumental like a storm that is mindblowing it moves through varying levels of speed and complexity with huge power before the bodies rise to take the ropes before the curse is lifted and the ship is lost with its story.
The song ends brilliantly with the man becoming a sort of ecological messiah to love all of gods creatures like the lonely albatross
Beautiful song aided greatly by Samuel T. Coleridges poem (recommended)


Album #1 - A Matter of Life and Death
A-matter-of-life-and-death-cover.jpg

A massive album (yes TFF is the biggest album is but this is titanic) the only song that hasnt quite clicked with me is the pilgrim which i still see as high average. Everything else kicks my ass. Different world giving a hindsight of everyone being their own person before the contrast of war and pain through the album. The proud These coulours dont run into Brighter than a thousand suns making a brilliant start to the album with those epics thumping in, a shorter section of the pilgrim, then the longest days masterpiece and a calmer interlude out of the shadows. The last four songs are perfect in many ways... breeg builds some mystery and FTGGOG introduces a religious view on the pain on earth before continuing with lord of light and as the album began legacy rounds up all the stories that have come to surface throughout.
A really dark and spiritual album and by fa their best for me. its filled with crushing guitar work and brilliantly descript lyrics with soaring vocals. the masterpiece by far and ties together perfectly.


Thanks for keeping up with this guys, and now you know my take on maiden. Hope youve had as much fun as me and hopefully ill come back round to some updates in the future. Maybe    :lol:
 
I didn't follow the countdown like I said right at the beginning (after you put SSoaSS on the 129th place) but you got the first place exactly right. Good job and congratulations for being the first one to finish a full list.
 
Can't disagree with AMOLAD. My favourite album too for precisely the same reasons. There's a reason Maiden played it in its entirety on tour. Masterpiece!
 
And i torture myself everyday for missing the 06' tour just because at 12 my parents thought i was too young  :S  probably was but c'mon i missed an amazing show  :down:          hope theres a pro dvd out of that tour eventually.
 
Tron said:
And i torture myself everyday for missing the 06' tour just because at 12 my parents thought i was too young  :S  probably was but c'mon i missed an amazing show  :down:          hope theres a pro dvd out of that tour eventually.

Oooh Hard luck sir. I was fortunate enough to catch it here in Dublin and it was amazing. Frack me the band really got off on the AMOLAD stuff, was great to see.  :shred:
 
Glad you enjoyed it yah tease  :lol:
coincidentally, dublin was where i saw my first maiden gig in 2010 having convinced them i was old enough and that getting 3trains and a boat, staying at a hotel and seeing maiden all solo had no risk to my health atall. (The walk from the docks to the point is a bit longer than it seemed on google maps  :lol:) And to a loss of about £260 bankrupting myself but the best show ive seen yet so it was worthit.
 
Tron said:
Glad you enjoyed it yah tease  :lol:
coincidentally, dublin was where i saw my first maiden gig in 2010 having convinced them i was old enough and that getting 3trains and a boat, staying at a hotel and seeing maiden all solo had no risk to my health atall. (The walk from the docks to the point is a bit longer than it seemed on google maps  :lol:) And to a loss of about £260 bankrupting myself but the best show ive seen yet so it was worthit.

Yeah I went through something similar on the Brave New World Tour when I went to see them in Birmingham. It all seems so easy when you plan it out :) Like you said though, totally worth it!!!
 
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