Vocalists that were auditioned for Bruce Dickinson's replacement in 1993

Number 6 said:
But then again, we wouldn't have "Man On the Edge", or "Futureal", or "Como Estais Amigos".
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Your point is??? Man on the Edge is good...but better with Bruce, Futureal is Meh! and Como Estais Amigos is a dainty song and SO skippable, unless you are one our spanish speaking brothers...then it's probably a great song for you guys! :P
 
Lightning Strikes Twice, When Two Worlds Collide, both great songs in their own regard plagued by the production. Live - kickass. The Clansman.
And I won't even start about The X Factor
 
They should have auditioned a girl singer (maybe the lead singer from the Iron Maidens ~Kirsten Rosenberg aka "Bruce Chickinson") at least she could hit the high notes #wouldhavebeenbetterthanyouknowwho
 
GhostSword said:
Agreed...'Most' Maiden fans world wide knew that Blaze was a mistake and Steve and the guys realized it too. The numbers don't lie either...see attachedView attachment 6836
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I think you're missing the point "Blaze-defenders" or whatever make.

NO-ONE has said that the era was succesful - it wasn't. Sure, they could have sold better with a different singer. No-one has denied that live performances left a LOT to be desired, even though Blaze pulled off a couple of very good ones too, in my opinion; I get it if some people disagree, that's ok and Blaze himself has admitted that he wasn't nearly as skilled singer as nowadays, his delivery of emotion etc. has evolved a lot.

Anyway, many people appreciate The X-Factor nowadays and the fact that it didn't sell that well doesn't make it any less good. It's a good, dark album with some impressive songwriting going on. I have no problem with a lot of people disagreeing, but it's safe to say that the album is pretty appreciated now and Blaze brought some great stuff to the band.

He didn't fit into those boots Bruce left, but pretty much no-one would have fitted in. As I stated some time ago, Blaze's dedication is something that should earn the respect of ANY Maiden or metal fan and has nothing to do with commercial success.

And Blaze being a "mistake"... Well, things didn't go as they probably would have wanted, but they did a lot of great stuff too and considering how great things turned out later with Bruce and H coming back, I'd just say that things had to happen the way they did.

It was a mistake from a certain point of view, but I still think they did fairly well and in terms of quality, there wasn't that much if any drop from the earlier 90's albums. Live performances are, of course, a different story, but as also stated before, Steve and others didn't really make it easy for Blaze.
 
I always wondered how Blaze would have faired if he hadn’t come in to maiden during a period when the tradional metal sound was out of vogue. The 1990’s was dominated by grunge and nu metal. The more extreme stuff was having a good time of it from the likes of pantera and machine head to the death metal of the tampa giants plus the doom death coming from the U.K. and then the Swedish death metal boom from the mid to late 90’s.

Bands like maiden, Saxon, Priest and the like were not popular at all. You could argue that the big resurgence in trad metal was when Bruce came back to maiden as there was so much hype that other trad metal bands kinda jumped on the wave plus bands like hammer fall were getting bigger around the same time and suddenly trad metal was back in style.

I often wonder if Bruce had stuck around a bit longer in the 90’s and left just before the 2000’s if trad metal was getting bigger would blaze have faired better in a different musical climate if he came in during the early 2000’s.

As it stands I think the X factor is a masterpiece and a top 5 maiden album for me and I’m thankful he kept the good ship maiden sailing during troubled times as we might not have what we have now.
 
GhostSword said:
Agreed...'Most' Maiden fans world wide knew that Blaze was a mistake and Steve and the guys realized it too. The numbers don't lie either...see attachedView attachment 6836
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I love it when people mesure the quality of music in terms of sales. If that's the scale for how good music is, why dont you head over to the Beyonce forum?:D

The problem was never the quality anyway. One reason why was as Wayne said:
Wayne Bond said:
I always wondered how Blaze would have faired if he hadn’t come in to maiden during a period when the tradional metal sound was out of vogue.
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Many of my favourite bands never had any success in selling albums. Tank is one of my all time favorite bands, I'd be surprised if they sold over 10 000 albums in total. The work Blaze did in the studio was nothing short of amazing, but I do agree that Blaze never was technically qualified to take over from Bruce in a live situation (at that point). I admire them, the fact that they didn't go the Judas Priest way and hired a vocalist with exactly the same sound as the previous one. Priest played some amazing shows with Owens (98' Live Meltdown, what a live album!), but the studio work was not great. Cathedral Spires is the only studio song from that era I still listen to. I'd rather have the Maiden situation where we got great original music! Could'nt agree more with this:

Wayne Bond said:
As it stands I think the X factor is a masterpiece and a top 5 maiden album for me and I’m thankful he kept the good ship maiden sailing during troubled times as we might not have what we have now.
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fekso said:
I love it when people mesure the quality of music in terms of sales. If that's the scale for how good music is, why dont you head over to the Beyonce forum?:D

The problem was never the quality anyway. One reason why was as Wayne said:


Many of my favourite bands never had any success in selling albums. Tank is one of my all time favorite bands, I'd be surprised if they sold over 10 000 albums in total. The work Blaze did in the studio was nothing short of amazing, but I do agree that Blaze never was technically qualified to take over from Bruce in a live situation (at that point). I admire them, the fact that they didn't go the Judas Priest way and hired a vocalist with exactly the same sound as the previous one. Priest played some amazing shows with Owens (98' Live Meltdown, what a live album!), but the studio work was not great. Cathedral Spires is the only studio song from that era I still listen to. I'd rather have the Maiden situation where we got great original music! Could'nt agree more with this:
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What people forget is…your favorite band (and their management) care about their record sales...no booming sales, no income = no amazing tours. Soooooo, when the Blazer came in, the fans largely reacted by not buying albums and Maiden struggled (especially here in the USA) to fill small venues. The point is - record sales matter and are a ‘BIG DEAL’ for any band and their management, especially that of the caliber of Maiden (whether you want to face the truth or not). Iron Maiden in their brilliance saw the issue after 2 slumping albums and dealt with it. PERIOD

Maiden is a 'brand' at this point and marketing in all sorts of different ways: from music, concerts, games, comic books, merch up the wazoo...they are in money making machine right now.
 
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GhostSword said:
What people forget is…your favorite band (and their management) care about their record sales...no booming sales, no income = no amazing tours.
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Of course they do. Money is important to everyone. That's not the point :) I'm sure Iron Maiden could have continiued with Blaze for the rest of their lifes, but the tours would have become smaller and smaller.

GhostSword said:
Soooooo, when the Blazer came in, the fans largely reacted by not buying albums
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I did'nt realize you lived under a rock. If selling just under 1 million copies is 'largely not buying albums' then you should have a look at album sales over the last 15 years. It's a nightmare out there my friend.

GhostSword said:
The point is - record sales matter and are a ‘BIG DEAL’ for any band and their managemen
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I play music because it's fun, not because I make money from it. But I don't buy music because the artist is a best seller. My lastest order was the new Praying Mantis album, I'm sure they wont sell over 1000 copies of that. My problem, and the point is - record sales should not have an affect on someone's judgement wheter music is good or not. Someone said Blaze is horrible and you took that and made a reference to album sales, which didnt make sense to me because there are so many great artists that don't sell. Freak Kitchen, Praying Mantis, Tyketto etc etc. The fact that the Blaze era resulted in lower sales could be explained by the fact that it wasn't the classic lineup. They lost market value, like every other successful band that replaces a key member. That's business, not music. It is true that Blaze sometimes was horrible live, but what difference does it make to how great of an album The X Factor is? And the fact that Blaze sung those songs should qualify him as something else besides horrible.

If you base your judgement regarding if music is horrible or not on album sales you are gonna miss some amazing music :)
 
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fekso said:
That's not the point :)



I did'nt realize you lived under a rock. If selling just under 1 million copies is 'largely not buying albums' then you should have a look at album sales over the last 15 years. It's a nightmare out there my friend.



I play music because it's fun, not because I make money from it. I don't buy music because the artist is a best seller. My lastest order was the new Praying Mantis album, I'm sure they wont sell over 1000 copies of that. Point is - record sales should not have an affect on someone's judgement wheter music is good or not. Someone said Blaze is horrible and you took that and made a reference to album sales, which didnt make sense to me, because there are so many great artists that don't sell. Freak Kitchen, Praying Mantis, Tyketto etc etc.
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Record sales reflect the fans reaction to the music of the band. If your band sucks, you don't sell records and you don't have many fans (except your mom and your girlfriend). It is clear you don't understand the music industry. The music industry is a BIG business and Maiden is a business....as well as they love making music for themselves and for their fans. And when the fans don't buy albums, the management/record companies get concerned, sooooo...that is what happened when their sales went way down (comparitive to their previous success) in the charts. See attached ~again~ (remember you need to compare the success from previous albums, then to the 2 that struggled, and then after they got Bruce back... The record sales tell the story).

I think a lot of people on here just like to argue for no good reason, when it is SUPER CLEAR there was a problem with the Blaze era, so Maiden and their concerned managment fixed the problem for the better (for them musically, their record sales and their fans). #nobrainer
 
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