Your Maiden blasphemy

A different singer may sound better on a technical level, but none will have the same spirit, the same passion, the same emotion as Blaze singing “Como Estais Amigos” himself.

I think it may be forgotten but it was Blaze's actual generation, and I believe a few mates, who fought in the South Atlantic. So there's far more sincerity involved than in most Maiden war songs.
 
I think it may be forgotten but it was Blaze's actual generation, and I believe a few mates, who fought in the South Atlantic. So there's far more sincerity involved than in most Maiden war songs.
The Argentinian-English conflict (aka the Malvinas or Falklands war) took place in 1982-83, Blaze was 20 years old so yes, he might have had friends or acquaintances directly involved in it.
 
A different singer may sound better on a technical level, but none will have the same spirit, the same passion, the same emotion as Blaze singing “Como Estais Amigos” himself.
This, exactly. Music is all about emotions and to do justice to a song emotionally I think you need to be in a position where you can understand what the writer meant when he/she wrote the song.

I'm not saying that it's not possible for performers other than the writer to achieve this, as for example Bruce singing Steve's lyrics. But Bruce, talented though he is, can only give his own interpretation of what he thinks Steve was thinking and feeling when he wrote the song. Take "Blood Brothers" for example - Bruce does a good job but if Steve was to sing it for us just once we would learn far more about the song's real meaning than in ten flawless performances by Bruce. (Even though the singing might not be as good ...)

But irrespective of this, I don't understand how anyone could fault Blaze's singing on CEA - even if they could fault everything else he ever did. Every detail of that song is perfect.
 
I never disliked the Apparition and the solo section is quite good. It should've been a chug driven song but the production is wrong for that type and Nicko basically kills the song (in a negative way) with his Virtual XI level of enthusiasm. I don't usually give much flak to drums (or lack of) on VXI because they simply took a wrong production choice, but here we have a candidate for his worst performance off the career.
I think it would be the tempo issues of "Chains of Misery" between 2'42 and 2'52.
Not fixing it by recording it again suggests they really didn't care. :(
 
I think it would be the tempo issues of "Chains of Misery" between 2'42 and 2'52.
Not fixing it by recording it again suggests they really didn't care. :(

Meh, I don't mind small tempo changes like this and it's probably intended. Slightly increasing or decreasing the tempo when going into another part can have a nice effect sometimes.

As for my Maiden blasphemy, Hooks in You is a really fun song.
 
Meh, I don't mind small tempo changes like this and it's probably intended. Slightly increasing or decreasing the tempo when going into another part can have a nice effect sometimes.
Sure, but in this case, I think it is more actual wobbling than artistic license. ;)

Apart from that, I really like "Hooks in You" too.
 
I don't think NPFTD has a single bad song on it. Yep. Not a one! And Mother Russia is my favorite track on the whole thing.
Apart from "Pass The Jam" and "More Tea Vicar" (and to a lesser extent, the babbles included "Roll Over Vic Vella" and the likes), I don't think Maiden has any "bad" song as such, at least musically speaking (mind you, I am not a native English speaker so I hadn't really paid attention to the lyrics until I was around 15). It is just that some have boring, rehashed, uninspired or poorly arranged (i.e unsingable) parts.
 
I think I would judge No Prayer harsher if it didn't sound like it was exactly what Steve wanted to do. When you think about how he wanted to make a more raw album like Killers, and realize they already had seven albums of experience under their belt as well as a much better singer, No Prayer is exactly what it was meant to be. And it's totally ok to say that's not a direction preferred over their previous stuff, but I eat it up. And lastly, it's easier to enjoy those sort of weird/outlier albums now because they charted a course back to their 80s sound and then right past it in terms of progressiveness. All their albums are gems for me, and when I want to listen to Maiden just kick ass and take names with a street feel, then I go to their first two and NPFTD and FOTD. Of the four, I think NPFTD is my favorite.
 
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