What type of Blaze-era Iron Maiden fan were you?

What type of Blaze-era Iron Maiden fan were you?

  • Listened when new, liked Blaze era based on merit

    Votes: 34 26.0%

  • Listened when new, disliked Blaze era based on merit

    Votes: 19 14.5%

  • Listened when new, liked Blaze era based on loyalty to Iron Maiden

    Votes: 9 6.9%

  • Listened when new, disliked Blaze era based on loyalty to Bruce

    Votes: 1 0.8%

  • Discovered later, liked Blaze era

    Votes: 52 39.7%

  • Discovered later, disliked Blaze era

    Votes: 16 12.2%
  • Total voters
    131
Apologies to all Blaze fans, I've never liked him. Sorry.

I never heard him before until I bought X Factor when it was released. I was certainly willing to give him a chance as I was a bit wary when Bruce replaced Paul (and that worked out okay...:bigsmile:)

On first listen I thought the vocals were appalling and couldn't get into the album (over the years I have since grown to like most of X Factor, still don't care for the vocals though). I went and saw them when they came to my town. It was a small club, small crowd. Blaze lost his voice near the end of the set and literally croaked his way through the encores. It was fucking depressing thinking how far my favorite band had fallen.

I bought Virtual XI out of sheer loyalty to Maiden. It is the only Maiden album I never listen to. Only like Futureal and Clansman.

Needless to say I did backflips when I found out Bruce and Adrian were coming back.
 
There are several Maiden albums I never listen to; Iron Maiden, The Number of The Beast, No Prayer, Fear of The Dark, Virtual XI, Dance of Death...
 
I got into Maiden when Piece of Mind was their latest, just before Powerslave came out. At this point they were my favorite band to the point that I rode my bike 5 miles to buy Somewhere in Time when it came out because I couldn't wait for my parents to drive me to the store.
I was pretty disappointed with No Prayer, but thought "Maiden's back" the second I heard Be Quick or Be Dead. I found Fear of the Dark better than No Prayer, but between the weak Real Live/Real Dead live albums, the horrid spectacle of Raising Hell, and drifting away from listening to metal at all, I met the Blaze era with trepidation.
I knew Blaze from Wolfsbane and owned Live Fast Die Fast, but was not enamored with it at all. That said I was open-minded toward the "new" Maiden, but did not like Virus (aside: I know Virus better from Godspeed You Black Emperor's "cover" --if that's even the right word--of it called Blaise Bailey Finnegan III) and found X Factor un-engaging and tired. By the time VXI came out, I had pretty much written Maiden off, and seeing the video for Angel and the Gambler did not change my view.
After Bruce and Adrian re-joined I was back on the Maiden bandwagon. I saw them live, and liked the Clansman and Sign of the Cross, I bought the various CD singles and liked Futureal and Man on the Edge well enough. I periodically revisited X Factor but could not get into it at all. I don't think I have ever listened to it from beginning to end.
Based on my experience with X Factor and the general view that Virtual XI was worse, I never even bothered with it until a few years ago (maybe 2012-ish?). Surprisingly, I found it better than X Factor and really like When Two Worlds Collide and Lightning Strikes Twice and the others that Bruce did live. Despite this, I would rank X Factor, No Prayer, Fear and Virtual XI as my bottom 4.
 
GhostSword said:
I know who it was written by. And I also know who it was sung by...it doesn't make it a good song either way. The hardest part is hearing Blaze's voice repeat the same thing....ad nauseum ad infinitum.

If they re-released both Blaze era albums with Bruce on vocals...they would be AMAZING.
#agreetodisagree
Click to expand...
Fixed! :P
 
I'm 22 and I got into Maiden in 2012, discovered the Blaze era later on, really disliked at first but now I like most of the songs on TXF and VI. So I voted for "discovered later, disliked"
 
I got into Maiden when I was 16 and around the time Rock In Rio was released so I discovered the Blaze albums later.

TXF is one of mu favourite albums and resonates on a personal level with me. VXI is probably their weakest album (although I do like a few of the tracks), to me it sounds like they were trying to go back to a “Bruce” sound but with the wrong singer, BUT for me the worst thing about VXI is the drumming :yawn:.

I have throughly loved everything Blaze has done since with the exception of the King of Metal
 
Hard question.

I first heard Iron Maiden around Virtual XI album but I started from NPFTD album and go with all Bruce albums. Then, around BNW i heard Blaze stuff and was like "who the hell is this guy?". I didn't like it very much. But after some time I can say that I like his voice and this albums. I meet Blaze some time later, he was amazing guy so I'm sold now - he's not my first choice as best Iron Maiden singer but I will always defend him.
 
Got into Maiden when I bought A Real Live One. Got The X-Factor and liked it. At the time though I was also a very non-critical teenager though I just loved it because it was Maiden and supported them fully. Wrote letters to the fan club around that same time, picked up Man on the Edge single on a school trip to Berlin etc in like 1996!
 
I would say discovered later, liked it. I was there but to young to understand it was a different singer.
 
Discovered later, liked Blaze era

Truth with some modification, but still the most accurate.

First Maiden record I bought was Brave New World and I was at the time under the impression that it was their latest one. I have no way of checking, but this must have been 2003-ish. First time I heard Blaze was on the first version of Edward the Great. Liked "Man on the Edge" then but did not really like the vocals much. It used to drive me nuts that he pronounces "down" differently every time on the chorus... Still find it very weird and badly produced.

Then I got into pretty much all of the albums, minus Iron Maiden, Killers, No Prayer and Fear of the Dark. (I still can't say which songs are on these albums, with a few exceptions - I love "Wasting Love", "Childhood's End", "Judas Be My Guide" and "Wasting Love".)

Anyway, enter Blaze Bayley's Promise and Terror on release in 2010. This album I loved, and still do. I believe it was from there on I discovered the rest of his solo material, and also found that The X Factor actually might be the best album Iron Maiden has ever done...

Virtual XI I like to some extent. Performances are okay, songs are good but rough around the edges and the whole thing would have benefitted from a proper production. I mean, have a producer guide you through recording and remove the things that do not work. Hint: Chorus on "Lightning Strikes Twice".

Which brings me to my main point - incompetence. The whole idea of hiring Blaze as a singer with the intention of continuing to play the same songs live just reeks of incompetence. A competent band leadership would have reinvented the band around The X Factor and never played the old stuff. That could have worked. Probably would have cut off 95% of their fanbase and not have gotten any new ones in to replace them at that time, but still. What they did instead... It was never going to work. I don't understand how anyone in the band could go up on stage and play along with the nuclear meltdown that was Blaze singing "The Trooper" or "Hallowed By Thy Name". Let alone Blaze himself.
 
They should have dropped trooper and hallowd absolutely.

There were a few songs blaze could do:

Wrathchild, Sanctuary. He was alright on “iron maiden”. I didn’t hate his version of rue morgue.

Afraid to shoot strangers was great. On the 98 tour he was reasonable on heaven can wait at times.

Also he sounded good on eveil that man do in gothernburg 1995

But I agree. If they weren’t going to tune down or adjust the set massively then it would struggle to work.

Also I don’t know what Steve was smoking on Vxi:

Terrible production.
Football based promotion was pretty lame.

Sure he wrote Clansman and Futureal which rule but he damn near killed the album with Angel and the gambler and eyes of a stranger. Horribly repetitive, ludicrously overlong songs.

Also the unsingable chorus of lightning .

Also insisting Angel and Gambler instead of Futureal be the first single.

So many bad decisions.

Add in not tuning down for their baritone sI get and still keeping something like trooper in the set after hearing blaze struggle on the x factoid with it was craziness
 
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