Your Maiden blasphemy

Zare said:
TFF contains some of their most heavy and most progressive moments. With 3 guitars and Steve's bass sound, it's a bit of a task. Not achievable if you approach the studio as a run in run out affair. When they released El Dorado, yeah it was a MP3 but I knew album won't sound as half as good as AMOLAD.

The worst end-product tho, Dance of Death. Instrument sound is OK. It's like a Brave New World tour live sound, but non-reverberated, dry. But then it got compressed to brick levels.

There's something iffy about DoD era overall, I didn't like it then I don't like it much now. The album tour wasn't big and it was put in between two sizable history legs. The album singles have a very "wide-appealing" lyrics and those "MTV ready" videos, especially Rainmaker. The whole "we have Eddie so we don't have to be fashionable" falls flat with the Rainmaker promo video. The overcompression of and album with overpopulation of "short rockers" reeks loudness wars to me and that's called being commercial, my friends.
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This is a pretty interesting take, but one that I feel ultimately falls flat because there's no real motivation for the band to go in that direction, since it's not like they had monetary or record company pressure. They tried wider appeal around the early 90s, it failed and then they stuck to doing their own thing. DoD to me seems more like a lack of clear direction or motivation; the songs on the album are kind of all over the place in many ways and overall the shorter songs are overshadowed by the epics on there.

It's like they just put songs together and there wasn't enough good material for a full album, so they let substandard tracks like Age of Innocence or New Frontier through. I don't know what actually happened, but I get this feel that the "MTV ready" videos probably followed from the lack of clear direction from the album itself - they just did whatever was suggested for the videos because they didn't have any sort of vision for them. And fashion wise, well they've always dressed up more for videos. Look at The Wicker Man for example. Or Bruce's hairstyle during the BNW era. It was terrible, but very much in line with early 2000s fashion.
 
Confeos said:
The Final Frontier is my least favourite album of the reunion-era, and, reading Shirley's diary, it does seem to have had the most troubled production of the post-2000 albums.
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I completely agree, Final Frontier is my least favourite of the new era. My main gripes are the lifeless production and somewhat tired sounding performances from the band, these diary extracts are interesting to me because they reinforce that idea of the band not being fully into the recording.
 
mihai said:
Playing something "better" is not always better ;)

Come on guys, cut it off. This fighting over Jan's skills, approach, sloppiness etc. is becoming toxic.
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Exactly. I was listening to "Gates of Tomorrow" the other day and it just made me feel really happy and excited about life. One of those solos that makes me catch my breath and whistle. When something makes you feel like that, who care if it does or does not tick off every point in "The I-Spy Book of Proper Guitar Technique"?

Fact is, Janick is a true original. He has music in his soul, and he plays with his heart on his sleeve. Anyone who dismisses him out of hand simply because he does not align to some arbitrary definition of "perfect" is missing out on one hell of a great musician. But that's their loss ...
 
My major problem with Final Frontier in addition to the production and less than stellar vocal performances is how few twin harmony guitar parts there are. Aside from, oddly enough, The Alchemist and The Talisman there are barely any twin lead parts. Those were all over AMOLAD and thankfully all over TBOS but it seems odd they abandoned such a key part of their sound on Final Frontier.
 
Ruflux said:
It's like they just put songs together and there wasn't enough good material for a full album, so they let substandard tracks like Age of Innocence or New Frontier through. I don't know what actually happened, but I get this feel that the "MTV ready" videos probably followed from the lack of clear direction from the album itself - they just did whatever was suggested for the videos because they didn't have any sort of vision for them. And fashion wise, well they've always dressed up more for videos. Look at The Wicker Man for example. Or Bruce's hairstyle during the BNW era. It was terrible, but very much in line with early 2000s fashion.
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Yeah I didn't accuse them of selling out just pushing more commercial aspects around DoD. I agree that the lack of theme or mood for an album is the root cause. I singled out Rainmaker video because there's slow motion MTV-style shots of Bruce Dickinson doing praying mantis Kung Fu style floating, while rain is falling on him.
 
CriedWhenBrucieLeft said:
There are ways to word things & that ain't it. The arrogance of that comment is breathtaking.
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If you could explain how it’s arrogant to essentially say “I’m not very good, but this arguably sounds worse than what I could do”, I’d be eager to hear it. That is not in any way a self-aggrandizing comment — quite the opposite, in fact.
 
Black Abyss Babe said:
When something makes you feel like that, who care if it does or does not tick off every point in "The I-Spy Book of Proper Guitar Technique"?
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Apparently half the posters in this thread do, because pointing out its quirks prompts the MJGA mob to reach for the tar and feathers.

When did the world get so thin-skinned...?
Anyone who dismisses him out of hand simply because he does not align to some arbitrary definition of "perfect" is missing out on one hell of a great musician. But that's their loss ...
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Reductive, passive-aggressive comments directed at people supposedly on your ignore list. Very classy.

News flash: There are people in the world that will disagree with you. This is OK, and it doesn’t make them bad, or inferior, or worthy of baseless attacks. This is a core tenet of free speech that everyone should embrace.

Perhaps we should rename this thread “Janick Fan Safe Space”.
 
Dr. Eddies Wingman said:
I can imagine it. The song starting with Bruce singing, then on the first calm repetition of the chorus ... Blaze walking on stage, while taking over the singing.

During the guitar solo, Bruce running around while Blaze shouts "come on!", then the two of them finish the song as a duet.

Beautiful.
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I woke up this morning and remembered this and I was suddenly struck by a bizzare vision of Bruce and Blaze singing the Pearl Fishers duet, with their arms round each other's shoulders like Andrea Bocelli and Bryn Terfel ...

No idea where that came from!
 
Black Abyss Babe said:
I woke up this morning and remembered this and I was suddenly struck by a bizzare vision of Bruce and Blaze singing the Pearl Fishers duet, with their arms round each other's shoulders like Andrea Bocelli and Bryn Terfel ...

No idea where that came from!
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Crazy dreams thread?
 
Jer said:
Apparently half the posters in this thread do, because pointing out its quirks prompts the MJGA mob to reach for the tar and feathers.

When did the world get so thin-skinned...?

Reductive, passive-aggressive comments directed at people supposedly on your ignore list. Very classy.

News flash: There are people in the world that will disagree with you. This is OK, and it doesn’t make them bad, or inferior, or worthy of baseless attacks. This is a core tenet of free speech that everyone should embrace.

Perhaps we should rename this thread “Janick Fan Safe Space”.
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No, please continue @Jer - don't let the dementors derail you. They just don't like being pulled out of their spam threads to deal with real contrary opinions.
 
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It's quite Ironic really that the people who accuse others of not accepting someone else's viewpoint feel the need to go on and on and on in tedious posts repeating the same thing over and over (but using different words) just because someone else does not agree.

This is not specifically aimed at either camp btw

Just move on folks, knowing that you hold and have communicated your own views.

Opinions are like arseholes (we all have one and think everyone else's stinks etc)


Merry Xmas Maiden Brothers and Sisters (we are all in the Maiden family after all) :)
 
Bugger moving on; Jer was being deliberately contrary! :p
Jer said:
If you could explain how it’s arrogant to essentially say “I’m not very good, but this arguably sounds worse than what I could do”, I’d be eager to hear it.
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It's no biggie, but this (^) is literally a textbook example of arrogance i.e. "having or revealing an exaggerated sense of one's own importance or abilities." Jer basically said he's "not very good" at playing guitar, but Janick "sounds worse than what I could do". I'd say that's talking up one's own abilities beyond reality. Or... the only other explanation is that he's not overestimating his own abilities (as a guitar player) but is massively & deliberately underestimating Janick's. Neither of those views are particularly endearing. I'd also say it's needlessly disrespectful to Janick. And the only irony here would be if Cried failed to sense Jer's tongue-in-cheek throughout this discussion. Maybe I'm wrong, but I'm not really feeling it...
 
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CriedWhenBrucieLeft said:
The only other explanation is that he's not overestimating his own abilities (as a guitar player) but is massively & deliberately underestimating Janick's.
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This one is the closest to the truth. I would disagree with the characterization that I’m deliberately underestimating his abilities — it’s more that the end result, deliberate or not on Janick’s part, is often indistinguishable from the mistakes of an amateur. Others obviously disagree with that assessment, which is fine.

My main sticking points were that I pointed to some objective elements of the recordings that I felt supported my point of view, and that led to a wide variety of hysterical responses ranging from insistence that those things weren’t actually in the recording, to accusations that I was claiming Janick was “objectively bad” (which I was very explicit that I was not saying), to attempts to use pseudologic to try to prove me wrong a priori or something, to flat out insults and mic drops around putting me on an ignore list. All because I had the gall to vocalize and defend an unpopular opinion in the blasphemy thread! The horror.
Neither of those views are particularly endearing.
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I was going for substantive discussion, but had difficulty finding it. And there was plenty of non-endearing behavior to go around.

I’m more than happy to drop it, as I have been for days. But as long as people keep mischaracterizing my point of view or lobbing molotovs in my direction, I will offer what I feel is an appropriate response.

(And yes, my new picture and profile comment are intended in jest.)
 
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