Your Maiden blasphemy

Dunno, I like her vocals a lot. I can understand why one would find it samey though, and it does take some getting used to.

And yes, "thank u, next" is great. So is "7 rings", and pretty much all of the songs on the thank u, next album.
 
It's really not that she's a bad singer, it's just that that style really grates on me.
Like I said, I get where you're coming from. I used to feel the same way actually, wasn't the biggest fan of her style. I really only started listening to her albums in January, after hearing both "thank u, next" and "7 rings", and that's when I started to warm up.

My main issue with her voice is her enunciation. I have a hard time understanding what the heck she's singing about without written lyrics to guide me through.
 
Lightning Strikes Twice has some decent stuff going for it, most of my problems with it come from the piss-poor production and cut-and-pasted sound of the guitar melodies. Calling it one of the "better" tracks on the album isn't saying much, but I'd put it among them.

Lightning Strikes Twice is abysmal. The lyrics aren't even metaphorical, they are literally about a lightning storm.
 
Like I said, I get where you're coming from. I used to feel the same way actually, wasn't the biggest fan of her style. I really only started listening to her albums in January, after hearing both "thank u, next" and "7 rings", and that's when I started to warm up.

My main issue with her voice is her enunciation. I have a hard time understanding what the heck she's singing about without written lyrics to guide me through.
The Megadeth thread is about Metallica. The Metallica thread is about Iron Maiden. One of the Iron Maiden threads is about Ariana Grande. ::):facepalm:
 
Not so sure it's the most, but for sure is very underrated. The song has an amazing melodies and the fast melodic part after the repetition of the chorus is beyond amazing. I really love the VXI album. For me the worst song on it is Como Estais Amigos.
@Diesel 11 in 3...2...1...
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Revalations a waste of space in a setlist
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Will state that I've never heard it live, but the studio track doesn't give me much hope

While I do like the studio version too, I think the song really stands out when played live. The intro and the riffs sound very dynamic live and Bruce doing the "O GOD OF EARTH AND ALTAR, BOW DOWN TO HEAR OUR CRY..." is a huge moment. :) I totally get if you don't find it that exciting, but I believe you might find the song rather enjoyable in a live setting - it's a powerful live number and Bruce's delivery alone is very evoking.

Regarding The Apparition discussion: I've admittedly been in a "haters club" pretty much right from the start when I first heard it. Over the years I've managed to understand the song a bit better, but I still find it very weak and I never really want to listen to it. Whether it's weaker than this or that song which is also widely considered as one of the weaker efforts by the band is, in my opinion, rather irrelevant (my incapability to make solid rankings comes to play here! :D); I do get that some fans enjoy the hard rock style approach of it and some other FOTD stuff, but all things considered, I find it as one of the weakest Iron Maiden songs out there. Would it get a pass if it was on a different album by a different band? Maybe. And it's not necessarily a complete garbage, just very below mediocre effort that neither exploits band's greatest strengths or manages to successfully do something very, very different. Personally, I have hard time thinking of Maiden songs that I "enjoy" less than The Apparition. I'm not a big fan of Drifter or a couple of other songs, but of that small pile of unpleasant Maiden songs (for me), The Apparition might be the one I find most unnecessary to appear on it's representative record.

Aaand, to actually include some "blasphemy" here:
...well, perhaps it's not really a blasphemy but more of a unpopular opinion (that some fans here seem to share though). I also join the The Angel and the Gambler & Don't Look to the Eyes of a Stranger fan clubs - granted, "fan" is a bit too strong for it though. With TAATG, I really dig the attempt of creating a groovy, somewhat lighter arrangement that flirts with 70's with rather interesting and well-written, even if not the most ingenious, Steve lyrics that bring a darker edge to the song. As mentioned in this very topic, it's a bit too easy song to bash around. The narrative of the song is a good one and I really dig some of that groovy guitar work but the production manages to kill some of the charm here. It could've been turned into a much more punchy. The infamous chorus isn't that good or bad, it's just... there. And gets repeated too many times, but I guess everybody knows it by now. Blaze's monotone delivery doesn't really help either. I get that maybe they wanted the chorus to be more of a mantra than an actual dialogue with "the angel", but I might have preferred the latter with a chorus growing into a bit more outrageous and desperate towards the end. Blaze has incorporated that idea in his own live performances though!

So yeah, not that good, not that bad, but overall enjoyable if you don't take it too seriously.

Don't Look to the Eyes of a Stranger makes better use of the repetition but that goes a bit too far as well. Unlike @Kalata, I'm not the biggest fan of the instrumental break; there's some good stuff, but there should have been a bit more punch in the solos and something else to make it a bit more memorable. It's not bad, but it's not quite there either. The harmonies and spooky atmosphere are the strongest assets of the song so it's a pity that the instrumental break doesn't really make a proper use of those. You can think what you want about Fear is the Key, but it definitely handled the mentioned issue much better. But yeah, I like the way Blaze sings the chorus, the opening riff is cool and overall, all the various repeats (that are too many, but that's not the point) of the song title are sung well and harmonies during those parts sound very good. It's the verses and the instrumental break that are the weak link here. As I stated, I don't find them that bad, just below average and not capable of serving the strenghts of the song well enough. Some re-arranging and better production might have done the trick with this one too... :)
 
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TAATG - while I still like it - hasn’t seemed to hold up that well for me (and it’s more of the performance than the song actually being bad). DLTTEOAS, meanwhile, only gets better with each listen. The atmosphere is absolutely intense on that song and I love it. I used to think the instrumental break was a bit meh but the more I listen to it the more I really really like it.
 
On the other hand, I disagree with TNOTB. For example COTD was one of the first solos with tapping done by a British guitarist before the whole EVH worship and superstrat era reached the UK.

Actually, EVH's Eruption came out four years before NOTB.

The point is moot, though. The Edgar Winter Group's Frankenstein features the tapping technique, and it was released in 1972, four years before VH's debut album.

Not as sloppy as Janick's but I'm really not an expert when it comes to guitar soloing.

Me neither. However, I am an expert at listening to solos. I know a good solo when I hear one.

*I'm also an expert air guitarist. So much so that I look up solos on YouTube.

For all you fellow air guitar addicts, I think you'll find this site very helpful It show how at full speed then half speed:





Oh, and BTY...a couple pages back in this thread there was some Ariana Grande discussion. As soon as I saw it, I went outside to see if Hell had indeed frozen over.

Then I read that there is an Ariana Grande thread in here, I had a series of mini strokes and threw up a little in the back of my throat.


What is wrong with you people??!!
 
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