Infinite17
Invader
I always enjoyed Fear of the Dark, and think it *may* the most underrated albums in the Maiden cannon. It is a classic? Of course not. But its a solid album. Great cover to boot.
Whats wrong with NPFTD And FOTD albums?
- Thread starter RVD30
- Start date
Forostar
Ancient Mariner
Thank you! After my post I realized that it is especially the case for Fear of the Dark indeed. 5 songs without Steve. Think about that. The album with the most songs without Steve certainly backs up my point. Harris was not the sole captain on board again on these two albums. Production etc. is fine but songwriting is more important. On No Prayer, there were more songs without his input, than on SSOASS. Also relatively seen, there were more songs (30%) without him than on SSOASS (12,5%). And look what happened afterwards. Perhaps it's hard to call him sole captain when Smith contributed more, but Steve influenced more songs than in the nineties, in both absolute numbers and in relative percentages. And if someone does that, and is the only one doing that, you could call him "sole captain" from BNW til TFF, at least it is more justified compared to talk about that period, rather than doing that for No Prayer & Fear of the Dark.
Welsh Phantom
Ancient Mariner
Yes, I have both on vinyl and they sound great.
Incidentally, FOTD is a DOUBLE vinyl with gatefold sleeve ..... strictly speaking TBOS is not Maidens first ever double LP despite the claims.
Black Bart
Ancient Mariner
Well, let's say it proves your point for FOTD... I'm not convinced as regards No Prayer.
Black Bart
Ancient Mariner
Yes, I have both on vinyl and they sound great.
Incidentally, FOTD is a DOUBLE vinyl with gatefold sleeve ..... strictly speaking TBOS is not Maidens first ever double LP despite the claims.
Your theory doesn't stand, sorry, since FOTD was intended for a CD release. In 1992, vinyls were already marginal and on their way out.
Operations666
Educated Fool
It's a classic to me. I consider it a top 3 Maiden album. It was the right music at the right time as far as I'm concerned. Hell, I even have a Fear of the Dark tattoo!
Raskolnikov
The Evil That Men Did
TBOS has actually 4 Steve-less songs. Two of 'em written by Bruce himself (IESF and Empire) and other two by Dickinson/Smith duo (SoL and Death or Glory). So in terms of percentage it's the third album with fewest songs contributed by Steve (approx. 36%). That's pretty significant since on all reunion albums so far only one song wasn’t co-written by him (New Frontier, if I’m correct).
jazz from hell
Ancient Mariner
Fear of the Dark is a classic.
Black Bart
Ancient Mariner
Thanks for the correction, I had skipped the Smith/Dickinson collaborations. And you are correct about "New Frontier".
Welsh Phantom
Ancient Mariner
Your theory doesn't stand, sorry, since FOTD was intended for a CD release. In 1992, vinyls were already marginal and on their way out.
Well I guess it depends which way you look at it really. I bought it on the day of release as a double vinyl, as I did not yet own a cd player, as did none of my friends at the time
Every album since Fear of the Dark has been a double album in vinyl terms. I think it depends if you can pinpoint what the primary release medium is, and what the album is marketed as. I remember that in 1992, vinyl was considered outdated, and the CD was the medium everyone considered up-to-date. Case in point: The album Innuendo by Queen was releases in 1991 as a CD and vinyl version. The latter had a few tracks edited to make it fit on one record, which essentially means to me that they were pushing the CD.
Welsh Phantom
Ancient Mariner
Certainly in my neck of the woods cds were still considered the new kid on the block, and the 'go to' medium was still vinyl. My local record store only had a limited display of cds.
As far as studio albums go, I honestly think the next one (which was X Factor at the time) would have been considered a double album if cds had not been the main medium by then, and most live albums were considered double albums anyway.
I suppose only Maiden knew at the time whether they considered FOTD a double album or not, but it was definitely the 1st studio album that required 2 vinyl's which ever way you look at it.
I do get your point though
.
Black Bart
Ancient Mariner
I didn't either in 1992 (got one the year after). My first contact with Iron Maiden was actually the K7 of A Real Live One.Well I guess it depends which way you look at it really. I bought it on the day of release as a double vinyl, as I did not yet own a cd player, as did none of my friends at the time
I guess it has a lot to do with perception. They knew they had to release the album on vinyl because many of their fans did not yet have CD players, but they were already certain that vinyl was dying. The same way Rock in Rio was released both on VHS and DVD. VHS was still around in 2001, but everybody knew that it was only a matter of time until the last consumers replaced their VHS by a DVD player.
Welsh Phantom
Ancient Mariner
I find it quite ironic that all the fuss is now being made about vinyls being the best in terms of sound.
Something tells me VHS won't be making the same comeback!
Something tells me VHS won't be making the same comeback!
That's because the video was a terrible medium to begin with. It's bad both in sound and image and it keeps deteriorating. The cassette won't be making a comeback for music, if that's what you're concerned with. Vinyl, however, is capable of storing higher frequencies than the CD does, so it is indeed better in terms of sound. We have a few vinyl buffs here, I'm sure they'll be able to explain it.
averycopeland
Invader
On all the prior albums (especially all those with Bruce),
the band and their music somehow always seemed unique and larger-than-life.
On these albums, they mostly sounded like just another hard rock act.
the band and their music somehow always seemed unique and larger-than-life.
On these albums, they mostly sounded like just another hard rock act.
Yax
Ancient Mariner
Actually: The frequencies over 22 khz is pretty much just noise (and the amplitude of ultra high frequencies of vinyl is extremely variable. It will not accurately represent ultra high frequencies. ). Most preamps, microphones and mixers are't designed to deal with frequencies much higher than 22 khz and thus, even if the vinyl would be able to properly reproduce frequencies up to 50 khz it would not matter.
When the CD's came, the engineer's were dazzled by the clean top end they could produce, while the vinyl top end would have noise (which resulted in exaggerated top end in the early days of the CD. They got a new toy and they used it).
Second the average human hearing of a person at its hearing's peak, before it starts to detoriate, is 22 khz. The range of your hearing has already detoriated when you become an adult. I reached 18 khz four years ago. People just don't hear beyond 22 khz (now there is talk about how harmonics in the inaudible range could in some cases morph into audible harmonics D/A convertion blah blah Not proved and few people do research on it) which is why CD's roll off everything above it.
Third: The signal to noise ratio is poor on vinyl while superb on CD. The ultra top end is noise. The top end also physically wears off very quickly.
Fourth: Bass response. Bass is very problematic with vinyl. They require large grooves (to be able to store bass, vinyl records has a large bass rolloff, and the are amplified again during playback). It's quite easy to distort the bass. And the further in you get, the less space you get for the bass.
Now, vinyl is a charming format and sounds different, and some say, better. But it is technically inferior. Of course, the technical capabilities of the CD has been abused and beaten to death with all the over compression, but it remains a technically superior format. Vinyl has a lot more distortion, and the harmonic distortion is very nice to listen to. It's a lot of why the vinyl sounds like it does and why many consider it "musical" (edit: And especially when you use a tube preamp. Lots of cool harmonic distortion there). But it is, distortion.
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