Wasted Years

How good is Wasted Years on a scale of 1-10?

  • Total voters
    36
An absolute 10.

Though it is a little light for Maiden, I think it's one of the very best songs they've ever written. The music, lyrics, and melody are inspired.

H!!!
 
10.

Like the lyrics very, very much. And the music that goes with it is inspiring and carries the song in every way possible all the way through.

In the big picture of Iron Maiden's career I think Wasted Years is very important in that it shows that you can convince the fans with a more commercial rock song as long as you do it very well.
 
Forostar said:
Why do you think that is important if I may ask?
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Because it shows the band that they can be diverse, and do both epics and more commercially oriented songs. They had done shorter songs earlier, yes, but Wasted Years is both lyrically and musically a few steps further towards it. Some excellent ideas could otherwise be rejected because a band thinks "this is not what the fans want", "this is not what we do" etc.
 
I don't think Maiden ever really cared if they were commercial or not (and please note, I'm not suggesting anyone here has suggested they were), it's just that every so often the commercial catches up with what they are doing.

Wasted Years is one of my favourite songs.
 
Yes, I agree that it's important that Maiden have done what they want. But I find it less important that they convinced "the fans" with such a sidestep. If they and I like it, I am satisfied.

edit:
Additionally: I don't like it that Maiden mainly focus on their successes. The successful songs put other less commercial sounding songs in the shadow (read: hardly or never played live).
So there are two sides of the medal.
 
Forostar said:
So actually, I am saying that I am less happy with Maiden being influenced by their success.
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There are only a select few artists in any field that can even dream of holding on to the Romantic era's vision of an artist being in free expression. Whether a painter, an author or a musician - people still criticize artists for wanting success. And that is in a world where most musicians, also including many internationally known acts, earn far less than someone working in a more ordinary field of work - while many still believe they are making millions.

Artistic work is of course open to criticism, but some expects musicians to work only for the sake of art and expression and I do not think that such criticism is valid in the slighest. Iron Maiden is a business - driven by a strong vision, yes - but still under the pressure of market forces. They have once made the bold move of playing the then new album A Matter of Life and Death in its entirety live - something which seems to have been a successful move in the longer run (despite being heavily critisized at the time) showing that they still can write very strong material - but they wouldn't maintain their current and past success if they turned their back on the so called classics. And I don't believe that the band would retain good relations with promoters, management, labels or fans for much longer if they did.
 
I don't normally watch more than 20-30 seconds of those cover versions on YouTube but yes this one I watched to the end. Great playing indeed :okok:
 
It's amazing, and kind of makes me appreciate the original even more, somehow.

Edit: Mr K - baby pandas, or at least the newborn ones, are hairless and ugly
 
Idgaf how blatantly commercial this song is. The instrumentals are fantastic, Adrian's voice is amazing, and the chorus is so touching.

8/10
 
Ever wionder why they clled the song "Wasted Years"?

Because I'm so wasted I'm light years away from being soberr.
 
Along with Revelations, this song is another very popular song that I feel is great, but not GREAT. Due to the fact that I don't immediately feel it is one of the stronger songs on the album, I can't vote more than a 9/10. Adrian's guitar solo is amazing in this song.
 
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