Great article on the Maiden X Factor disaster

[skinni]

great article! thanks for the link!

[CrankerBait]

Really good article. Thanks.

[GoodJudge]

Ahem. I posted that nearly 2 months ago. [wanders off mumbling about 'people today']
https://forums.metalsludge.tv/forums/vi ... 4#p7799234

[joey78]

I have seen this website before

Very informative website and the content as well, written lots of information that you wouldn’t otherwise get anywhere else on the web

All said and done , X factor and virtual XI are good albums that carried them through the 90s. Both fell short in production, though

[HueyRamone]

Good read. I liked that they held all their mistakes to task and didnt shy away from the indisputable fact that Blaze couldnt sing Maiden for shit, Steve was a fucking idiot in hiring him, and that the album was dark and uncommercial, and their fortunes plummeted.

[FreddyFender]

I just posted about this in the other thread, nice to see I'm not the only one shocked by it.... they were fucking morons with no idea how to produce a record on their own. Some of the best records of all time would be unlistenable if the vocals were dry, single tracked takes with no harmonies.

An added challenge for Bayley, and a somewhat bewildering production choice that must ultimately rest on Harris’ shoulders, was the aesthetic decision to avoid reverb or other effects on the vocals. Indeed, there would not be even a single instance of harmony layers on the entire album, and guitarist Dave Murray frankly admitted the consequences at the time:

“Blaze didn’t get a lot of favours. His voice sounded naked, like it is, and that’s OK for me because I think he sounds brilliant, with loads of deep sounds. Maybe it wasn’t right for his voice, but for that record it had to be done this way.”
Dave Murray

[HueyRamone]

Maybe it wasn’t right for his voice, but for that record it had to be done this way.”
Dave Murray

you left out the best part... the following line!

It begs the question: Did it really have to be done that way?

[FreddyFender]

You can’t read that article and not come away with the conclusion that some or all of them wanted Blaze to not work out. Either consciously or at least in the back of their mind.

They did everything they could to lessen the quality of the record/live show.

No producer, no production on the vocals, no rehearsals, no changing the keys to match the singer, no fucking guitars in the monitors when playing live???

[Love_Industry]

Good read. I liked that they held all their mistakes to task and didnt shy away from the indisputable fact that Blaze couldnt sing Maiden for shit, Steve was a fucking idiot in hiring him, and that the album was dark and uncommercial, and their fortunes plummeted.

I didn't realize until afterwards that they were in a nosedive already from the 7th Son tour in the US. Playing the same venues as before but now half empty even with at the time rather popular openers like Megadeth, Guns and Frehley's Comet. And Fear of the Dark bombed everywhere. So Maiden was in a bad place already before Bruce left, making things even worse for Blaze when he stepped in.

[El Vampiro Blanco]

So why wouldn't they give him guitars in his monitor mix?
Harry didn't want to hear guitars when he ran past Blaze? Wouldn't he hear those same guitars running past Murray and Gers as well?
Or are they not allowed to hear themselves either?

[Borges]

Great article, that site is really good. I love The X Factor, but I see how everything about it (the production, choosing Blaze, the change in the song writing with the long plodding songs, the imagery, the overall depressing vibe) conspired against whatever chance they had at commercial success. And as much as I like Blaze, live it was always going to super tough, but the choices they made about setlists were baffling...too many songs that he would have never able to do correctly, while leaving out Di Anno material that would've made much more sense.

In any case, I think Maiden were set to fail in the 90s, even if Dickinson had stayed. If you read the British presa they were already ridiculed and seens as relics of a bygone era by the early 90s. Even if they had released Number of the Beast Pt 2 or done the whole Live After Death recreation live in the mid90s they would have bombed and seen as totally uncool and out of touch. The nostalgia did not kick until the end of the decade, and thay have been absolutely brilliant in exploiting it since.

Another thing by looking at interviews during that time is that while Harris comes out as naive/stubborn/misguided, Dickinson is totally insufferable and a pretentious asshole.

[Borges]

You can’t read that article and not come away with the conclusion that some or all of them wanted Blaze to not work out. Either consciously or at least in the back of their mind.

They did everything they could to lessen the quality of the record/live show.

No producer, no production on the vocals, no rehearsals, no changing the keys to match the singer, no fucking guitars in the monitors when playing live???

I think Smallwood was planning the reunion from day one, so he just let Harris and co run the ship until everybody cooled off and the time was right for Dickinson to come back. Maiden probably would have not become as big as they have been this century if thay they hadn´t done the separation/reunion routine.

[HueyRamone]

You can’t read that article and not come away with the conclusion that some or all of them wanted Blaze to not work out. Either consciously or at least in the back of their mind.

They did everything they could to lessen the quality of the record/live show.

No producer, no production on the vocals, no rehearsals, no changing the keys to match the singer, no fucking guitars in the monitors when playing live???

I think incompetence is more the reason than self-sabotage.

Maiden/Harris are good at some things, but, the lack of Birch's, Dickinson's (and maybe Smallwoods) brain involvement in this era are dramatically visible to see.

[FreddyFender]

I think incompetence is more the reason than self-sabotage.

Maiden/Harris are good at some things, but, the lack of Birch's, Dickinson's (and maybe Smallwoods) brain involvement in this era are dramatically visible to see.

As far as the vocals go - not a chance.

If you took any of Maiden's big albums with Bruce and stripped all the harmonies, double-track layers, reverb, delay, etc. off the vocals, those albums sell as badly as X Factor. You would have never heard of the songs "Wasted Years" or "Number of the Beast" outside of maybe some obscure compilations if they had been released like that. Broadly speaking, people don't listen to records with completely dry vocals dropped in. That's not how making records works, certainly not rock or metal records.

Zero chance the engineer who produced that record with Steve thought that was an artistic choice. There was another reason. and they did it again on Virtual XI.

It's the equivalent of making a metal album and saying, "Okay, no distortion on the guitars on this one. That's the way it has to be done."

[Borges]

I think incompetence is more the reason than self-sabotage.

Maiden/Harris are good at some things, but, the lack of Birch's, Dickinson's (and maybe Smallwoods) brain involvement in this era are dramatically visible to see.

As far as the vocals go - not a chance.

If you took any of Maiden's big albums with Bruce and stripped all the harmonies, double-track layers, reverb, delay, etc. off the vocals, those albums sell as badly as X Factor. You would have never heard of the songs "Wasted Years" or "Number of the Beast" outside of maybe some obscure compilations if they had been released like that. Broadly speaking, people don't listen to records with completely dry vocals dropped in. That's not how making records works, certainly not rock or metal records.

Zero chance the engineer who produced that record with Steve thought that was an artistic choice. There was another reason. and they did it again on Virtual XI.

It's the equivalent of making a metal album and saying, "Okay, no distortion on the guitars on this one. That's the way it has to be done."

I am prety sure the sound was a statement and a conscious choice, like Metallica´s trash cans drums in Saint Anger. I mean, they releeased Virus as a single in 96 and they chose the same approcha to the vocals and the overall sound as the X Factor.
I see no way in which Harris would willingly sabotage himself, but he was clearly not thinking straight (hello The Angel and the Gambler) and nobody else at the band had any say at that point. And probably Smallwood chose to step aside and leave things be until the inevitable reunion.

[HueyRamone]

I think incompetence is more the reason than self-sabotage.

Maiden/Harris are good at some things, but, the lack of Birch's, Dickinson's (and maybe Smallwoods) brain involvement in this era are dramatically visible to see.

As far as the vocals go - not a chance.

If you took any of Maiden's big albums with Bruce and stripped all the harmonies, double-track layers, reverb, delay, etc. off the vocals, those albums sell as badly as X Factor. You would have never heard of the songs "Wasted Years" or "Number of the Beast" outside of maybe some obscure compilations if they had been released like that. Broadly speaking, people don't listen to records with completely dry vocals dropped in. That's not how making records works, certainly not rock or metal records.

Zero chance the engineer who produced that record with Steve thought that was an artistic choice. There was another reason. and they did it again on Virtual XI.

It's the equivalent of making a metal album and saying, "Okay, no distortion on the guitars on this one. That's the way it has to be done."

I am prety sure the sound was a statement and a conscious choice, like Metallica´s trash cans drums in Saint Anger. I mean, they releeased Virus as a single in 96 and they chose the same approcha to the vocals and the overall sound as the X Factor.
I see no way in which Harris would willingly sabotage himself, but he was clearly not thinking straight (hello The Angel and the Gambler) and nobody else at the band had any say at that point. And probably Smallwood chose to step aside and leave things be until the inevitable reunion.

Yeah. I wonder if Steve listened to In Utero or something and thought "Okay, raw is popular. We'll do Maiden... but raw".

[FreddyFender]

Respect everyone's takes. But even on Utero's, the vocals are "raw sounding" but still have the usual vocal harmonies, delays, reverb, and double tracking, etc.

The insane vocal mixes on the Maiden albums combined with the article saying Blaze could only have bass and drums in his stage monitor sure sounds like intentional sabotage to me.

Either way, it's some of the craziest shit I've ever heard.

[HueyRamone]

Respect everyone's takes. But even on Utero's, the vocals are "raw sounding" but still have the usual vocal harmonies, delays, reverb, and double tracking, etc.

The insane vocal mixes on the Maiden albums combined with the article saying Blaze could only have bass and drums in his stage monitor sure sounds like intentional sabotage to me.

Either way, it's some of the craziest shit I've ever heard.

I think Steve just didnt know what the fuck he was doing in the producer's chair, having never done it before. He wasnt smart enough to know what he didnt know.

This is just a triple thread of moronitude, though:

A. Hire a guy without the range as his predecessor, who he'll be constantly compared to, and make him sing the back catalog nightly
B. Refuse to tune down to his range
C. Done give him the monitor mix he needs for success.

I think Steve kind of wanted to stick it to bruce, and for some reason thought that Maiden was more the music than the vocals. He ended us sticking it to himself.

[Love_Industry]

I think incompetence is more the reason than self-sabotage.

Maiden/Harris are good at some things, but, the lack of Birch's, Dickinson's (and maybe Smallwoods) brain involvement in this era are dramatically visible to see.

Steve Harris ruined Iron Maiden. There, I said it.

Rejecting ALL of Dickinsons ideas for Somewhere In Time was a terrible move. But it showed what Maiden was for Harris. A product with a formula you can't deviate from. This explains the five or so same sounding post-reunion albums. Maybe he thought they could be some sort of prog AC/DC.

With Dickinson contributing and the band taking more chances they could have become Metallica in the 90s, instead it took ten more years and full on nostalgia before they were packing stadiums and arenas again.

[Canadian dirtbag]

It's a shame that "The History of Iron Maiden" dvd documentaries ended after the third chapter.
Chapter 4 would have picked up with Adrian's exit in 1990, and would probably have gone through to the 1999 reunion era.

[jens]

I think Smallwood was planning the reunion from day one, so he just let Harris and co run the ship until everybody cooled off and the time was right for Dickinson to come back.

Nah, not at all. He's not some kind of Clairvoyant (sorry).

Bruce and the band were sick of each other, and music was getting darker and more serious. Nobody really saw the nostalgia boom of the 20's coming, they just had nowhere else to go.

[Psychobolia.com]

That Virus video and song is some of the worst crap I've ever been subjected to.

Priest picked a far better replacement singer. I wonder how Maiden would have fared with Ripper instead of Blaze. Probably a lot better, as Ripper can sing, his version of Flight of Icarus is better than anything Blaze could pull off:

https://youtu.be/j8OT2HoM7Bg?si=QNihCaV3oxeiwCdC