Author: bigbadburch

Led Zeppelin (Album of the Week)

On By bigbadburchIn Album of the Week8 Comments

Time to go all the way back into ancient history for the debut of one of rock’s most titanic bands. There’s plenty of blues, a bit of heavy metal and a whole lot of rock.

Led Zeppelin – self-titled

Released January 12, 1969 via Atlantic Records

My Favorite Tracks – Communication Breakdown, Good Times Bad Times, Dazed And Confused

I’ll sum this up as quickly as Page and company recorded the record – Jimmy Page had an obligation to tour with the Yardbirds but needed a band. He brought in Robert Plant, John Paul Jones and John Bonham to do it. After the tour the band self-financed a record and recorded this debut album in 36 hours of studio time. Page was the producer as well as guitarist. The band changed their name from The New Yardbirds to Led Zeppelin and got a major label deal with Atlantic Records that included creative freedom without even being heard.

Today’s album is 9 tracks with a 44 minute runtime. The album is a mix of originals and covers, and Jimmy Page’s long history with music copyright battles would begin on this very debut record.

Good Times Bad Times

The opener is a great introduction to Led Zeppelin – a noisy rocker that showcases bits of each band member at their strengths. Jimmy Page and John Paul Jones both leave some great embellishments through the song, pretty slick bass work from Jones especially. This is a general summation of the good and bad of relationships and it’s a pretty accurate look at things.

Babe I’m Gonna Leave You

This was originally written by Anne Bredon, Page and Plant were inspired to do the song based on a recording by Joan Baez. Zeppelin would not ply their trade in folk however, they doubled the length of the song and kicked up the ferocity several thousand times over. It shows that Zeppelin had more atmosphere to them and weren’t going to be a hard rock one-trick pony.

This one has an odd bit of trivia to it in regards to Anne Bredon’s proper royalties – Page was unaware of who originally wrote the song and Bredon was unaware of Zeppelin’s version for many years. Eventually she was properly credited and paid. This was more an honest mistake and a lot less messy than other “Who wrote this Zeppelin song?” fiascos.

You Shook Me

This is an early ’60’s blues tune written by Willie Dixon and originally performed by Muddy Waters. Again, Zeppelin take the original song and double its length and also run it through their own Zeppelin filter to distinguish it quite a bit from the original. It’s a pretty fun jam and Robert Plant really gets up to some vocal gymnastics here.

Dazed And Confused

This trippy jam was something Page did with the Yardbirds and wanted to bring to Zeppelin. Call it psychedelic, maybe, or perhaps acid rock, this song is a total journey. It keeps a fairly standard and slow pace for a bit, then starts jumping off the rails with crazy riffs and drum fills, and also Robert Plant sounding like he’s having an orgasm. This was a sterling showcase from Zeppelin and a song they would extend to a massive jam live, it also marks the band’s most-played live song.

This one has a contentious writing history – it was originally written by folk artist Jake Holmes, who opened for the Yardbirds in New York. Holmes would eventually have to sue Page in 2010 to get proper attribution. The case was settled out of court, so no specifics on how it played out.

Your Time Is Gonna Come

This is a bit of folk hard rock here with a jamming organ and acoustic guitar. The song has an uplifting and almost spiritual chorus, but is also admonishing a two-timing woman. It’s a study in contrasts to a degree. This song never got busted out much by the group but it’s a track I like quite a bit.

Black Mountain Side

This is a short instrumental piece that has the prior song bleeding into it. It’s a pretty standard acoustic thing up until a bit of Jimmy Page magic in a brief spot. It’s worth a listen.

Communication Breakdown

Here we get a very early example of an outright heavy metal song. Zeppelin’s blues-based rock would be a foundation on which heavy metal was built, but here they actually recorded the next step in the process. This brief song could also be considered a precursor to punk with its fast, static riffing along with all the damn noise Bonham is making. This song was an inspiration for future metal and punk bands, Iron Maiden and The Ramones among many others.

I Can’t Quit You Baby

This is another blues tune and another written by Willie Dixon. It was first performed by Otis Rush and Zeppelin’s interpretation is pretty faithful to the original. It does add a few minutes of space for Jimmy Page to get up to a few things on guitar but it’s otherwise a standard blues rendition.

How Many More Times

The album closes with a blues-based rocker that is an original band composition. This song is pretty jam packed with action for its 8 minutes. It gets a pretty long interlude before picking up the jam back into a whole other space and then revisiting the song’s beginning structure to close out on. The guitar tone here and song structure are a pretty good showcase of what Led Zeppelin would get up to on future albums.

Led Zeppelin was a pretty hot ticket right out of the gate. The album would hit number 10 on the US Billboard 200 and get number 6 on the UK Albums chart. It did pick up number 1 in Australia and Spain. Zeppelin would have a very successful US tour that kicked off just as the album launched and their interest in America and abroad grew quickly. All told the debut would be certified platinum 8 times in the US, 2 times in the UK and get a diamond certification in Canada. Nothing from Zeppelin has really stopped selling since they hit the scene, though of course exact sales figures from this era in music are difficult to track.

This one has always been one of my favorite Zeppelin albums. There’s something a bit different about this one before they really nailed down their winning formula. They’re credited with recording the perfect rock album, but there’s a charm to this one with its meandering through styles and clash of sounds.

I don’t see much point in getting into the legacy of Led Zeppelin – they’re one of rock’s most important bands. This was the start of their decade of domination and circumstances came together to make quite a debut.

A Real Dead One – The Iron Maiden Live Album Series

On By bigbadburchIn Iron Maiden Live Album Series18 Comments

On we plow through the 1990’s live Iron Maiden stuff. I didn’t pull punches last week when discussing A Real Live One and its awful sound quality. Does its companion album have something better in store?

A Real Dead One is in very similar fashion to its predecessor – this is a collection of songs from different stops on a tour. Most of the songs are culled from the A Real Live One tour in April and May of 1993, while 3 of the songs are taken from the same August 1992 tour that the prior live album was made of. 2 more cuts are from the same Helsinki, Finland show that was well represented on the prior album. The newer shows feature 2 cuts each from the same shows in Germany and Switzerland, while everything else is from shows represented once.

On to the cover art, again from the artist who brought Eddie to life, Derek Riggs. This features Eddie as a radio DJ in what I think is a very awesome piece of art. I always really liked this cover and total props for this cool art that’s a bit out of the way for typical Eddie portrayals.

The line-up is the same as the prior album, with Janick Gers in place at guitar in succession of Adrian Smith. There was a dark cloud over this tour however, as it had been announced previously that Bruce Dickinson was leaving Iron Maiden. He was burned out and wanted to truly explore a solo career, but he agreed to this tour so as not to leave the band hanging and also to bid farewell to his mammoth era in the group. In fact, Bruce was out of the group by the time this release hit store shelves in October of 1993.

The other quirk of this album is that it bookends its predecessor A Real Live One by doing the opposite of what the prior one did – while the former only featured songs from albums after Powerslave, this release only featured songs from that album and before.

I discussed last week how A Real Live One isn’t the cheapest set around – an original CD is easy to get, but the vinyl is not at all easy or cheap. This one is even worse by a fair magnitude – it’s a few hundred dollars in recent Discogs listings. These have never been reissued so the scarce ’90’s vinyl is the only option outside of unofficial copies if you want this on your turntable. Also there the double CD reissue with A Real Live One, called fittingly enough A Real Live Dead One. Great way to get both at once but that CD set is a bit more than the average CD.

Here’s the tracklist, then I’ll get into the song selection and the actual content.

The Number Of The Beast

The Trooper

Prowler

Transylvania

Remember Tomorrow

Where Eagles Dare

Sanctuary

Running Free

Run To The Hills

2 Minutes To Midnight

Iron Maiden

Hallowed Be Thy Name

The song selection is pretty cut and dried, this contains a fair few of the obvious Iron Maiden hits. A lot of these songs are in every setlist or are featured most of the time during tours even to this day, this is a foundation of Maiden classics.

But about half of this stuff is off the beaten path. Having songs like Prowler and Remember Tomorrow is pretty cool, those don’t pop up a lot. And the instrumental Transylvania is a very curious and also welcome choice, that is very out of the way and it’s something that makes this a pretty cool set.

The main knock on A Real Live One is the horrible sound quality – it doesn’t sound good at all. Those issues were rectified on this go around, as this stuff all sounds pretty nice. It’s clear and resonant, it isn’t a muddy mess like the first one was. It’s a massive improvement from the one before.

And the performances here are all solid, too. There’s nothing off or uninspired, every song sounds good. Bruce gets in some banter during Running Free as he usually does, and him introducing Transylvania is pretty funny as he has no role on that song.

The live stuff comes to a fitting conclusion with Hallowed Be Thy Name, long the consensus pick for Iron Maiden’s greatest song. The performance from Moscow is great and this was released as a single, finally giving the song a long overdue single release.

It could be said that the performances sound a bit basic or “meat and potatoes” compared to Iron Maiden’s more epic delivery in other eras, though that was the style they were operating in through the early ’90’s so it’s fair to expect that to come through live. It’s not anything really distracting but it is noticeable.

A Real Dead One didn’t set the world on fire sales-wise, but this was Iron Maiden’s career low point so it’s to be expected. Bruce was out by the time this hit shelves and a lot of classic era fans were left disenchanted, not only with Maiden’s happenings but with heavy metal’s fall from grace as a whole. This particular set does give some highlights from a dark time in the band’s history and helps cleanse the aural palette after the awful noise of A Real Live One.

The Iron Maiden Live Album Series

Live After Death

A Real Live One

A Real Dead One (you are here)

Live At Donington

Rock In Rio

BBC Archives

Beast Over Hammersmith

Death On The Road

Flight 666

En Vivo!

Maiden England ’88

The Book Of Souls – Live Chapter

Nights Of The Dead – Legacy Of The Beast Live In Mexico City

The Iron Maiden Live Album Ranking

The Maiden Live Album “Wishlist”

Beastie Boys – Sabotage (Song of the Week)

On By bigbadburchIn Song Of The Week12 Comments

The song pick this week is one of the more iconic audio and video clips from the early ’90’s. The song is fantastic and the video is totally unforgettable.

Sabotage was the first singe from the Beasties’ fourth album Ill Communication. The single was released in January of 1994, while the album was a few months behind in May. The single had a rather light performance conventionally, landing at 18 on the US Alternative Airplay chart and 19 on the UK Singles chart. The album was a smash success, claiming a Billboard number 1 and hitting 3 times platinum in the US.

The Beastie Boys were always a genre-bending outfit, combining elements of hip-hop, rock, metal, punk and whatever else around the house wasn’t bolted down. In the music environment of 1994, Sabotage simply qualified as a rap-rock song, nothing unusual to find on the radio or MTV at the time. Of course, the Beastie Boys were also one of the primary influences on the fusion of rap and rock, so no great surprise that another single of theirs would be right at home among a host of music they helped influence.

Lyrically, Sabotage is a venomous rant against the music industry and specifically a producer that had screwed the band over – except that nothing of the sort really happened. Adam “Ad-Rock” Horovitz relayed in the 2020 Beastie Boys Story documentary that they were simply spewing a fictional rant at Mario Caldato, the song and album’s producer. Caldato was not truly doing anything untoward, it was just a way that the Beasties came up with lyric ideas.

Sabotage is inseparable from its music video, which was what truly launched the song into immortality. The clip was helmed by director Spike Jonze and was styled as the opening credits to a 1970’s-era cop show. Each member of the band played a member of the police force, with Adam “MCA” Yauch getting two roles in the video.

The video is simply amazing. It does truly look like a cop show from the time period it represents and could easily be mistaken for a trailer to a real show. Just ask Beavis, who is probably still wondering where the real Sabotage show is. All of the Beasties look the part and the high-flying action is captured perfectly. MTV did originally censor portions of the video, including the parts with bodies flying out of a car and off of a bridge, though it was abundantly clear that dummies were used in the “stunts.” The YouTube clip above features the full uncensored video.

The video was in constant rotation on MTV and was the catalyst to the song being played over and over again for anyone tuning in throughout 1994. The video was nominated for five awards at the 1994 VMA’s but was infamously shut out, mostly losing to Aerosmith’s Cryin’ video. That should be considered a crime, honesty. In 2009 MTV created a new award centering around videos that should have previously won awards and Sabotage was the winner.

Sabotage and Ill Communication would help turn the Beastie Boys into total household names, something they had been well on their way toward anyway, but the ever-present MTV video and success of the album would be the point of no return. No doubt that Sabotage is one of the defining songs and videos of the time period.

Judas Priest – Angel Of Retribution (Album of the Week)

On By bigbadburchIn Album of the Week9 Comments

Today it’s time to have a look under the hood of a milestone album in the Judas Priest catalog – this was the studio return of Rob Halford to the band after having been gone since 1992. Big things were expected, especially on the heels of England’s other huge heavy metal band having a very successful reunion with their legendary singer, so Priest was on the clock here to deliver.

Judas Priest – Angel Of Retribution

Released February 23, 2005 via Epic Records

My Favorite Tracks – Judas Rising, Revolution, Deal With The Devil

Judas Priest were busy touring after Halford’s return so it would take a little bit to get a new album out. The band worked with producer Roy Z on the effort. Roy had worked with Halford on his last few solo albums and was also instrumental in Bruce Dickinson’s acclaimed solo material. The band’s line-up was unchanged beyond Rob Halford – Glenn Tipton and K.K. Downing on guitars, Ian Hill on bass and Scott Travis on the drums.

One thing about the lyrics that I’m going to get out of the way now so I don’t have to bring it up every song – this is absolutely loaded with references to earlier Judas Priest songs. Soem stick out like sore thumbs, like nods to Stained Class and The Sentinel in Eulogy, while others are a bit subtle. I recall music critics pointing this out a lot and not always in a flattering way when this was released. I personally don’t mind but I’ll admit that it’s a lot.

The CD was originally released in one of two configurations – a two-disc set with an accompanying DVD documentary, and a DualDisc version with the DVD portion on the back of the music CD. Technology was really offering it up just before CDs became obsolete. The album is 10 tracks that clock in at 52:37, though a look at the final track’s runtime reveals the rest of the album is pretty lean.

Judas Rising

The album opens with a heavy track that re-establishes the band pretty well. This one maintains a bit of the heavy feel of the 1990’s, when Priest were a notch or two heavier. There is a lot of lightning and fighting with the fate of the world in the balance kind of stuff here, or usual fare for Judas Priest. This was a good way to kick things off.

Deal With The Devil

This more fast-paced track looks at the band’s early days, when they rehearsed in a school building next to a church. This has some nice solo work from Tipton and Downing and the song feels like it slots in well with the overall Priest catalog.

Revolution

This is more of a hard rocker than a metal track, it has a simpler structure. This was the album’s only single. This one works pretty well, even if it’s a bit outside the box for Priest. The sort of southern riff is very effective and the song’s beat pulls you in. The lyrics are about the heavy metal revolution, which Priest were a huge part of and heavy metal was on the way up again in the early 00’s when this song came around.

Worth Fighting For

This song has a feel of something off of Point Of Entry and that is apparently by design, as this is a companion of sorts to the song Desert Plains from that album. It’s about someone wandering the desert, looking for their lost love. While the song comes off as light compared to other material, it really brings out Priest’s “softer” side pretty well and is a good compliment to the era it recalls.

Demonizer

The intensity picks up here on this all out metal assault. It’s another all out war among celestial forces in this one, even the famed Painkiller makes another appearance here. This song doesn’t quite go as hard as Painkiller but this is still a worthy slab of metal.

Wheels Of Fire

Here the song keeps a middling pace but slams in with some very heavy guitar tone. This is another callback to Priest’s long flirtation with motorcycle culture, this is all about being out on the open road and the freedom of the journey itself. It’s not their best song and not even their best song on that topic, but it’s a pretty good listen.

Angel

It’s ballad time and this one is very forlorn and sad. This is very minimal and quiet, very slowly adding elements to get a power ballad feel in the song’s final minute or so. It is a nicely done song though also not one I or many others were expecting from Priest. Given that this album is a mixed bag anyway, it leads to an appreciation for this one. And curiously, this song is by far the most-streamed track from this album, dwarfing the other songs with over 21 million plays.

Hellrider

Another attempted scorcher, though this one feels like it could use more pace to really open it up. It’s another one about giant robot monsters fighting each other, Megatron is even mentioned by name here. Overall it’s pretty good but I’d like a faster beat to this one, all of these mid-paced bangers get a bit plodding all on the same album.

Eulogy

Here we have a more quiet interlude sort of thing. It’s pretty short and to the point, with a quiet piano bit and Rob keeping things on the quiet end of his delivery. It maintains its form throughout, with no big build-up to anything more powerful. It’s a nice piece but who knows what this is a eulogy to.

Lochness

The album closes with something no one had on their Judas Priest bingo cards – a 13 minute long song about the famed Loch Ness Monster.

This is slow and plodding, and I mean if someone could take a picture of this song, it should be in the dictionary next to the definition of plodding. I guess a song about a mythical creature that may or may not (and probably does not) exist doesn’t need to be a metal barnburner, but man I’ve heard doom bands play faster than this.

This song was brutally reviewed when the album first came out. In years since a bit of an appreciation society has formed for it. I am not a member of that group, I think this is pretty awful. If the song were like half the length or even shorter I wouldn’t mind it at all, but this does not justify its use of 13:29 at all. This song is an anchor on the album, that is for sure. I could even call it an albatross around the album’s neck…

Have at it, if you have time to spare

Angel Of Retribution was welcomed by a listening audience ready for Rob Halford’s return and also well into a revival of the traditional heavy metal sound of the 1980’s. The album charted at 13 in the US, 39 in the UK and 2 on the UK Rock and Metal chart, as well as placing on at least 17 other music charts worldwide. No certification info is available so it’s tough to gauge any actual sales numbers.

This album is somewhat uneven and a very mixed bag. It has some metal, it has some more rock-oriented stuff that calls back to other points of Judas Priests’ fairly diverse catalog. There aren’t any massive triumphs here but there are songs worth a listen for sure. And of course it was nice to hear Rob Halford back at the band’s helm after a very long absence.

Judas Priest would go on to continue adding to their legacy and find more solid footing for future albums, though not without massive band drama. But a group has to start again somewhere, and Angel Of Retribution is as good a starting again point as any. It’s rather unheralded in their catalog overall but not “bad” by any stretch, save for what you might think about that thing at the end.

A Real Live One – The Iron Maiden Live Album Series

On By bigbadburchIn Iron Maiden Live Album Series18 Comments

I’m now on to the first of three 1990’s live Maiden releases. Maiden England will be covered later on as I’m recognizing the 2013 release, this is purely for simplicity’s sake.

A Real Live One was released on March 22, 1993. The cover art, again done by Derek Riggs, features Eddie playing with some power lines. Eddie can do this because he doesn’t have the mortality thing to worry about. It’s a pretty cool piece of art and one of the final pieces Riggs would do for the band.

This a collection of songs taken from various stops on a 1992 European tour in late August and early September. Out of the 11 tracks 9 are from different venues, with a stop in Helsinki, Finland having 3 tracks on offer.

This release is a bit different in a few ways. It was the first of two companion live albums – this one features only songs from Somewhere In Time through Fear Of The Dark, at the time the band’s most recent album. The companion album A Real Dead One would feature tracks from albums before and is obviously the focus of next week’s post. I personally have no problem with the approach, Maiden had 9 studio albums out by this point so doing this split era kind of thing is no skin off my back.

One other curiosity about these – getting them isn’t the easiest thing in the world. CD copies aren’t bad, and the odd cassette from the original release can still be tracked down. Vinyl, though is another story. This was only released on vinyl in some territories originally and has not been reissued to date. This one is fairly expensive to get, it’d probably set someone back $200, though some deals can be had if a buyer wants to risk shipping from countries with noted unreliable mail service. The release next week is another story in terms of price.

These two initially separate albums were combined in 1998 for reissue purposes, this is the CD I have in my collection. This was widely available in 1998 but is actually kind of scarce now, this 2 CD set is more expensive than just obtaining the separate original CDs. I am very much hoping that camp Maiden will see fit to put out a vinyl reissue of both these albums, I’m honestly uninterested in paying the high prices for scarce ’90’s vinyl.

That about covers the background info, I’ll post the tracklist then get into the gritty details of this release.

Be Quick Or Be Dead

From Here To Eternity

Can I Play With Madness

Wasting Love

Tailgunner

The Evil That Men Do

Afraid To Shoot Strangers

Bring Your Daughter … To The Slaughter

Heaven Can Wait

The Clairvoyant

Fear Of The Dark

First up, the song selection. Everything is from the four most recent albums. At the time that’s not a bad play, their only UK number 1 song is on here as is a wealth of stuff from their 1990’s output. Seventh Son Of A Seventh Son is also well-represented with 3 selections, while Somewhere In Time suffers with the lone cut Heaven Can Wait. But that was a function of most Iron Maiden tours before 2023, that stuff just wasn’t played much so there aren’t any other performances to put on a live album.

In retrospect the 1990’s are considered Maiden’s weakest period, but I won’t use that as a metric for judging the song picks here. That wasn’t really a consideration in 1992 when this tour happened and the songs were picked. I don’t fault doing a ’90’s era live album and I don’t mind the songs picked here. If anything, it’s kind of cool to have a few tracks from No Prayer For The Dying on here. While I’m not over the moon for that album I still don’t really mind it and honestly I don’t think they’ve played a single thing from that record since these early ’90’s tours. And the 5 cuts from Fear Of The Dark are stronger songs from that record, thankfully they didn’t air out any of the crap they also put on that album.

Now it’s on to the quality of the album itself. To be honest and blunt, this album sounds like shit. It is not a quality recording. It is very muddy and not clear at all. This isn’t universally true, some songs do sound a bit better than others, I think it was a reason they reached for more material from the Helsinki show. And a few songs work fairly well even in pretty bad sound quality – I thought From Here To Eternity was pretty enjoyable even in the muck, while Be Quick Or Be Dead seemed to really suffer for the recording quality.

There is a lot of talk from this era about the band themselves being down, there was stuff slung around about Bruce mailing it in and stuff like that. I don’t necessarily hear anything like that, nor would I blame new guitarist Janick Gers for a slip in quality. I think this album’s fatal flaw is the recording quality, the performances themselves honestly come off fine and the crowd sounds like they’re into it all. These might be more basic outings than the more epic feel Maiden had live in the ’80’s but the albums they did around this time were stripped down and basic anyway, so it’s not a surprise that such things would come through live performances to.

It’s hard to pinpoint one real highlight here. I do think that the stuff from Fear Of The Dark comes off a bit better than the other songs, but that’s more a vibe check than anything. And the low points aren’t songs in and of themselves, it’s more that the recording is a bucket of ass and some of these songs get lost in a buzz that shouldn’t be there.

Truth be told this album shouldn’t have been released. Quality control really wasn’t there. It’s nice to have as a document of an unheralded era, but as we’ll see in two weeks, we already have that in better sounding form. For me A Real Live One should be on the scrap heap. We’ll see next week if its companion album fared any better.

The Iron Maiden Live Album Series

Live After Death

A Real Live One (you are here)

A Real Dead One

Live At Donington

Rock In Rio

BBC Archives

Beast Over Hammersmith

Death On The Road

Flight 666

En Vivo!

Maiden England ’88

The Book Of Souls – Live Chapter

Nights Of The Dead – Legacy Of The Beast Live In Mexico City

The Iron Maiden Live Album Ranking

The Maiden Live Album “Wishlist”

Fight – Little Crazy (Song of the Week)

On By bigbadburchIn Song Of The Week6 Comments

Our song this week comes from Fight, the early 1990’s project of the metal god himself, Rob Halford. Rob had left Judas Priest in 1992 in order to “spread his wings” and do some solo stuff. The story is that Rob had only wanted to do a side project and the rest of Priest was cool with it, but someone in band or label management screwed it all up and Halford’s letter of intent to do another band turned into him resigning. Judas Priest has some messed up management gaffes but that’s all for another time.

Halford’s first post-priest project would be Fight, a band a little more “with the times.” This band was heavy with a groove edge. It was reminiscent of Pantera, who were quickly becoming heavy metal’s most talked about band around this time.

Halford didn’t come from Priest alone – along for the ride was drummer Scott Travis, who did double duty in Priest and Fight, though Priest was not doing much at the time. Rounding out the band were bassist Jay Jay and guitarists Brian Tilse and Russ Parrish, the latter who you might know today as Satchel from Steel Panther.

Little Crazy was the second of three singles from the band’s debut album War Of Words. The album sold rather softly but did generate good critical and fan buzz. Halford’s gamble on updating for the times did pay off, at least in reputation. The videos from this album got pretty good airplay on MTV and there still was a good noise around the group, even if true commercial success was elusive.

This song isn’t a ballad by any means but it’s a slower tune, a bit “in the pocket” for a metal band. It does kick hard though, there’s no doubting its ferocity even in its middle pace. The riff here is totally southern deep fried, like this song came straight off the bayou. Everything here is played fantastically and the recording was fantastic.

Rob Halford keeps it subdued here, at least in terms of his general wail. Of all the renowned heavy metal singers, Halford is the one that can really take his voice to some different places. Here he keeps things on the level but it fits the song perfectly.

The song’s theme is exactly that of the title – it’s all about going crazy, or in fact being crazy. It isn’t the kind of hyped up, hey I’m batshit and going a million miles an hour kind of crazy often portrayed in old entertainment and especially metal songs. This is the creepy, crawly kind of crazy that is more like what going crazy is truly like (so I’ve read).

The music video fits the song very well and is also a product of its time. It features mostly shots of Halford writhing around as if he is slipping into the abyss, and some brief clips of the band playing. It’s all cut apart and pieced together with multiple angles in one frame, it’s very ’90’s and the sort of thing young, dumb meatheads like me ate up on MTV at the time.

Little Crazy wasn’t a hit in the commercial sense of the word. It did place at number 21 on the Mainstream Rock Chart, which is a bit of a feat for a debuting band, even one with a legendary singer in front of it. But this song was a hit with us at the time, the end of Generation X growing up on the alt-metal videos sprouting up around then. Fight would do one more album before folding, but their brief time around produced some pretty cools songs, and Little Crazy might be the biggest gem in the bag.

Bruce Dickinson announces new solo album The Mandrake Project

On By bigbadburchIn Upcoming Music6 Comments

Last Thursday, September 21 finally saw a long-awaited reveal, as Iron Maiden directly released information about Bruce Dickinson’s seventh solo album. It is titled The Mandrake Project and is slated for an “early 2024” release. More specific information will be forthcoming, of course.

In addition to the album, Bruce has also announced a small run of solo shows in Mexico and Brazil in late April and early May of next year, giving us a guess that the album will release sometime before that small tour.

This is Bruce’s first solo record in a long time – have to go back to 2005’s Tyranny Of Souls for the last one. It’s also only his second one since returning to Iron Maiden in 1999, clearly his main gig and host of other jobs like flying, beer selling and sword fighting keeps him busy.

Not much music has been made available yet, there is a small snippet of instruments in a video on Iron Maiden’s social media pages but that’s all for now. I’d expect a full song to be previewed soon, maybe when the release date is revealed.

There also isn’t a whole lot to say about the upcoming album yet, other than Bruce is again working with his longtime collaborator Roy Z. That’s good news to anyone attuned to Bruce’s solo outings, as Roy Z helped craft some amazing albums with Bruce.

We can also speculate that one song we already know will appear on the album. Bruce has been working on a concept album for years, dating back to when Iron Maiden recorded The Book Of Souls album that released in 2015. That opening track, If Eternity Should Fail, was originally written by Bruce and intended for this new solo record when Steve Harris heard it and asked for it to be on the Maiden record instead. In fact, the somewhat incoherent babbling about “Necropolis” and all that at the end of the song is a tie-in to the story for this Bruce solo album. While nothing official has been said yet, I’d place bets that If Eternity Should Fail winds up on here too, though I’m sure it would be a redone version of it.

There’s not much else to do right now but sit and wait, this will be a highly anticipated release for me. Well, I guess there is one more thing we can do and that’s gawk at that somewhat awkward promo photo, with Bruce totally photoshopped over a mystical alien door of some kind. I’m assuming and hoping that’s just a promo photo and not the true album cover, a bit of chatter in spots on social media seem to support that theory. People have had a field day with this shot, some even remarking that it’s as bad as the infamous cover to Dance Of Death. I think this is a goofy photo but it’s not anywhere near the level of bad that Dance Of Death has for a cover.

Now with that out of the way, I truly can sit and wait for more news and some previews of this new Bruce album. It’s been a long time and I’m looking forward to another entry in his outstanding solo catalog.

Metallica (Album of the Week)

On By bigbadburchIn Album of the Week10 Comments

It’s time for one of the biggest albums in music history. This record literally conquered the world and made its makers one of the biggest acts in music history, a status they have not relinquished 32 years after the album’s release.

Metallica – self-titled, aka “The Black Album”

Released August 12 1991 via Elektra Records

My Favorite Tracks – Wherever I May Roam, Sad But True, The Unforgiven

Over the course of their prior two albums, Metallica had been stretching their songwriting and making longer and longer efforts with progressive twists and turns and other assorted things. When it came time to do the follow-up to And Justice For All, the group wanted to ditch the longer and complicated concept and keep things simpler.

The band hooked up with producer Bob Rock, based on what they’d heard from Mötley Crüe’s excellently-produced 1989 album Dr. Feelgood. Rock has recalled through interviews and documentaries that the process was long and difficult, not helped by the fact that 3/4ths of Metallica were going through divorces at the time.

In the end, Metallica got their album recorded and history was on offer. This has 12 songs at 62 minutes so there’s a bit to go over, not to mention the insane amount of accolades this album has racked up.

Enter Sandman

The lead single and one of the most-played songs in history (no citation for that, but it has to be). It is in stark contrast to stuff from the prior two albums – this is a simple riff and the song is basic as can be. But it works very well, and that’s why legions of people tuned in to Metallica when this song first hit in the all-important summer of 1991. Even though this is overplayed to absolute death I honestly still don’t mind hearing it.

Sad But True

This is another single and one of the album’s heavier tunes. It’s about the seedier side of life and being pulled into it by grim influences, it was apparently based on some old Anthony Hopkins movie I’ve never seen or heard of. This song absolutely crushes and is the true nexus for the marriage between ’80’s Metallica and ’90’s Metallica.

Holier Than Thou

This one holds a pretty good pace as it deals with self-righteous people in a religious context. I like the lyrics quite a bit, the song itself is ok but not my favorite. It is really, really simple and sometimes that can be a detriment, but there’s still a listenable quality to it.

The Unforgiven

Metallica have done ballads before and would again. Here the band flipped the typical ballad formula – it was hard-hitting verses and a quieter, somber chorus. This one is all about the perpetual struggle against the forces of control in life, and in this case it’s a losing battle. The picture is painted vividly through the words and music, this is truly soul-crushing stuff. Kirk Hammett reports struggling a lot with this solo before finally getting it right based on feel more than notation, something that would transform his guitar playing moving forward.

Wherever I May Roam

This gem features a few exotic instruments but is still fairly standard metal stuff. The song is all about its title -truly being a free wanderer who is at home wherever he happens to be. Perhaps this song indirectly inspired all of the van life stuff going around, or perhaps that’s our shitty economy, I don’t know. Awesome song here, though.

Don’t Tread On Me

A bit of good old American exceptionalism here, as James Hetfield crafted a song that pulls concepts from the American Revolution and celebrates the “kick their asses” mentality of US diplomacy. While today the phrase “don’t tread on me” has negative political connotations, this song was from a time well before anything said was taken as an absolute political stance so I don’t see it as a big deal. I also don’t see the song itself as that big of a deal, it’s fine but it’s not much to write home about.

Through The Never

This one is pretty hard-hitting and has a bunch of philosophical stuff in it that’s honestly above my head and probably also below my knees. I think the song is fine but I’m fairly indifferent to this one too, don’t go out of my way to hear it.

Nothing Else Matters

This was the really big topic of discussion when the album came out, Metallica had done a full on ballad – not the heavy metal sort of ballad they’d put on offer before, but just a regular old ballad. While my fandom usually falls on the metal side of things, this is a pretty well done song. Sure it was different, but a good song is a good song.

Of Wolf And Man

A mid-paced stomper about turning into a werewolf. It’s ok but doesn’t do a lot for me.

The God That Failed

This is a very nice, slow and heavy song. It deals with the let down of a god not providing the healing asked for, something that affected James Hetfield in his childhood. His mother died of cancer after not seeking treatment due to her strange sect of Christianity. The topic is grim and the song is pretty great.

My Friend Of Misery

This song’s about one of those awful people who drag everyone around them down. I like the concept and lyrics a lot. The song is a bit plodding but still pretty decent.

The Struggle Within

The closer gets a bit thrashy in spots as the bands kicks it in high gear to the finish line. Not entirely sure what’s going on lyrically but it’s clear someone is screwed up in the head to some degree. Pretty nice song to end on, I do go back and forth on how I feel about it at times.

“The Black Album” was every bit the success anyone hoped it would be, and then some. It debuted at the top spot on the Billboard 200 and stayed there 4 weeks. It would remain on the Billboard 200 for a very long time, being the second-longest charting album in history, behind only Pink Floyd’s Dark Side Of The Moon.

In the US the album has been certified platinum 16 times and is likely up for 17 now. It is the best selling album of the Nielsen Soundscan era, outpacing ’90’s titans like Shania Twain and Alanis Morissette. Worldwide Metallica has sales over 30 million copies. It is truly one of popular music’s most accomplished records, and Metallica have been mainstay titans of music ever since.

Of course the debate over this album takes on another turn when it comes to the older part of Metallica’s catalog. A fair few of the band’s legions felt betrayed by the switch away from thrash and complex song arrangement. It’s no doubt that this album is a lot less, uh, noisy than the band’s first four. In fact a good portion of “first four fans” would pop up as Metallica grew in stature exponentially with the Black Album’s success. That argument still rages today, even though we’re now 30 years removed from the “big switch.”

For me personally I have no big beef against this album. This came out a week before I turned 14 and just before I started my freshman year of high school, so it was perfectly positioned to be a game-changing album for me. My friends and I played this over and over again, though I did wear out on it long before they did. While many others were still playing this multiple times daily in 1993, I was off chasing down heavier stuff like death metal. I do much prefer Metallica’s first four, as my ranking from awhile back clearly illustrates. But there’s enough good stuff here to appreciate this album too. I have literally heard this album to death and honestly I’ve only played it a handful of times in the 2000’s, but there is no arguing the mark this record made.

Live After Death – The Iron Maiden Live Album Series

On By bigbadburchIn Iron Maiden Live Album Series21 Comments

The Iron Maiden live album series kicks off with the first official full-length live release and it is a doozy. Live After Death was recorded during the band’s World Slavery tour in 1984 and 1985 and has gone on to be a hallmark of Maiden’s catalog as well as live albums in general.

The band line-up was the classic Iron Maiden configuration – Bruce Dickinson at vocals, Dave Murray and Adrian Smith on guitars, Steve Harris on bass and Nicko McBrain behind the drums. The band plowed through 187 concerts in 331 days, a total marathon that would later lead to exhaustion and tensions, with a break that would inform the band’s following “synth” phase. The stage set and production were replete with Powerslave-themed pieces and of course the band’s revered mascot Eddie.

The bulk of the album comes from four performances at the Long Beach Arena in California from March 13th through the 17th. The final five tracks are from earlier shows at the Hammersmith Odeon in London, England from October 8th through the 12th.

Figuring out what song came from what show is an arduous task. It’s back to the primary source for Iron Maiden information – the tome Run To The Hills – The Authorized Biography by Mick Wall. In order to tell this story quickly, Steve Harris states that audio was recorded on two nights and video was also recorded on two nights, but apparently not the same two nights. Bruce references Sunday and the fourth performance during Running Free, the only clue present on the album. Video cues offer different suggestions but again, video was reportedly done on other nights so it isn’t a good source to identify the audio. It’s a little bit of a mystery with some other sources indicating that more than one night’s worth of audio is on the Long Beach portion of the album, but it’s too much detective work for me.

Also from Mick Wall’s biography, Steve Harris emphatically states that the band did not make any corrections or overdubs on the live recordings. Producer Martin Birch mixed the album while Maiden were still on tour and the band would get a few tracks at a time to approve. While overdubs are a very common part of live albums, things had been taken a bit far at times. Judas Priest’s Unleashed In The East found Rob Halford re-doing all of his vocals in studio due to source tape issues, and there was a fair bit of buzz about that and other live albums that weren’t quite “live.” Maiden were bold in their stance that this be a truly live album – produced for the best possible content, certainly, but not corrected after the fact.

Before getting into the album itself, it’s mandatory to discuss the cover art, done as usual by Derek Riggs. This is a classic piece of Iron Maiden art, with Eddie bursting out of his own grave, and even getting the full name “Edward T. Head.” There is plenty more to check out on the back, as the piece wraps around with plenty of tombstones inscribed with various easter egg phrases. It is yet another iconic entry into the Eddie art gallery and one of the more popular Maiden posters around.

Live After Death was officially released on October 14, 1985. While most versions include all 18 tracks, it is worth noting that some older CD editions cut off the London portion of the set to save space. Most any modern-era CD reissue presents the concert in full. To my knowledge, any official vinyl and cassette releases present all tracks in full. The track list is as follows –

Churchill’s Speech (intro)

Aces High

2 Minutes To Midnight

The Trooper

Revelations

Flight Of Icarus

Rime Of The Ancient Mariner

Powerslave

The Number Of The Beast

Hallowed Be Thy Name

Iron Maiden

Run To The Hills

Running Free

Wrathchild

22 Acacia Avenue

Children Of The Damned

Die With Your Boots On

Phantom Of The Opera

After all the build up and speculation about exactly what performances these songs came from, let’s actually get into the songs. The song selection is absolutely stellar here. Maiden had the advantage of being only five albums into their career at this point so it was far easier to present a “please everyone” setlist than it is now with them being seventeen albums deep. All of the essential cuts are here from this point in the band’s history, and there some excellent secondary songs presented as well. Stuff like Die With Your Boots On and Children Of The Damned are real treats, as they only get aired out sporadically.

The performances on this album are fantastic, the band is playing with great energy. In what has become Maiden tradition, the songs are amped up a bit and they go by at a faster pace than their studio versions. Take the band’s epic Rime Of The Ancient Mariner – on Powerslave it is a 13:45 track, while here it clocks in at 13:03. The band are truly plowing through the songs here, which has been a criticism for some fans but a selling point for others.

It is in this frantic pace that the band’s magnum opus truly shines – Hallowed Be Thy Name is a spectacular cut from this live album and it has a whole new energy not present on the original studio version. It stands to reason that what is widely considered Maiden’s best song would shine here, but it truly opens up and becomes an even greater entity on this record.

There are some unique moments to be found beyond the songs themselves. Opening the set is the famous speech Winston Churchill gave to English Parliament in 1940 as World War II was in full swing. This has become “married” essentially to Aces High, itself about the Battle of Britain. And for stage banter, look no further than Running Free. Instead of getting the song overwith in a few minutes as it typically runs, there are about five extra minutes added on. This is a long section where Bruce plays with the audience to see who can scream the loudest and he has quite a bit of fun with it. At the end of other songs Bruce famously implores the crowd to “Scream for me, Long Beach!” This is now a common part of Iron Maiden and Bruce Dickinson lore.

Live After Death did very well on release. It charted at number 2 in the UK, number 19 in the US and appeared on charts in 11 other countries. It has been certified platinum in the US and double platinum in Canada, as well as gold in the UK and in 4 other countries.

And beyond the welcome sales numbers, Live After Death is a true hallmark in both Iron Maiden’s lexicon and in live music in general. This was praised by critics and is hailed by fans as one of the band’s best works. A few other live records coming up also vie for the title of “Best Iron Maiden live album,” but the general consensus holds this one up as the winner.

That just about does it for the first entry in the live album series. A few more months of sorting through Maiden’s quite extensive live catalog lay ahead, then at the end we’ll all see if I think this one is the best or if I have a rogue pick. Until then, scream for me, Internet!

The Iron Maiden Live Album Series

Live After Death (you are here)

A Real Live One

A Real Dead One

Live At Donington

Rock In Rio

BBC Archives

Beast Over Hammersmith

Death On The Road

Flight 666

En Vivo!

Maiden England ’88

The Book Of Souls – Live Chapter

Nights Of The Dead – Legacy Of The Beast Live In Mexico City

The Iron Maiden Live Album Ranking

The Maiden Live Album “Wishlist”

Cannibal Corpse – Hammer Smashed Face (Song of the Week)

On By bigbadburchIn Song Of The Week4 Comments

Before I get into it, yes, you very likely have heard this song before, even if death metal never touches your ears. I’ll get there in a bit.

Today’s song is from Cannibal Corpse, who stand today as titans of the death metal scene. In fact they will release their 16th album, Chaos Horrific, in a few days on this coming Friday. But today’s song is not about that, as only two current members of the band were present back in 1992.

Hammer Smashed Face hails from the band’s third album Tomb Of The Mutilated. The album is noteworthy for the cover alone, it was one of the sickest things ever to sit on a record store shelf. It is present in the thumbnail to the video in all its gore and depravity right below.

This was the opening track to the album and was also the first time CC released a song as a single. The single release included two cover songs, one from death metal inventors Possessed and another from Black Sabbath in the Ian Gillian period. It was again released later as an EP with a few older Corpse tracks thrown on as well.

This song is totally brutal death metal, there’s no doubt about it. This is not the kind of stuff most people want to listen to. Even among people who do like heavy metal, this is another degree past tolerance. It is fast, bludgeoning and rough. Nothing beyond a few guitar notes get above the low end of the spectrum and even when they do, it is dissonant and discomforting.

But, it’s also kinda catchy. That intro riff and drum sequence stands out right away and it makes its way back into the song several times. It definitely grabs the ear. And, if people are like me and enjoy the sinister sounds of death metal, those dissonant guitars and slamming drums are a welcome presence.

I don’t suppose there’s much need for lyrical analysis. This song is literally about beating someone’s head off with a hammer. There isn’t much else to go over – all Cannibal Corpse songs are like miniature horror movies.

This song and third album would mark the end of work for the band’s original line-up – Chris Barnes on vocals, Bob Rusay and Jack Owen on guitar, Alex Webster on bass and Paul Mazurkiewicz on drums. Rusay would leave the band and the death metal scene altogether after this album. Barnes would be around for one more seminal album before a divorce that shook the death metal world and redefined Cannibal Corpse for the years to come. Jack Owen was in the group quite awhile longer, eventually departing in 2004. Alex and Paul remain as active and founding members.

So, let’s get to where you have probably heard this song before. Remember the Jim Carrey blockbuster Ace Ventura – Pet Detective?

If so, then you likely recall the scene where Jim as Ace walks into a club for a metal show. Ace is looking for someone named Greg to help him track down the whereabouts of the Miami Dolphins’ mascot, a live dolphin named Snowflake. Ace asks a headbanger if Greg is in, and takes the headbanging as a positive response. The band in the scene is Cannibal Corpse and the song they’re playing on stage is Hammer Smashed Face. I’ll post the clip below but I won’t place bets on it remaining up given YouTube’s AI-driven copyright hunt.

This movie placement was a bit of a coup for Cannibal Corpse, as Ace Ventura did big business and Jim Carrey became a huge star out of it. And while I can’t track specific sources to express the degree to which this happened, but Carrey either already was or did become a fan of Cannibal Corpse and death metal in general. It is something he has discussed in his numerous late night talk show apperances over the years but it’s not like I can remember which ones.

Hammer Smashed Face became a signature tune for Cannibal Corpse, helped along by unexpected movie success but also propelled by the band’s growing propensity to write songs with catchy hooks. Corpse would take this to the next level on their following album The Bleeding, crafting music and vocals that human ears could understand and accessing new scores of fans. Even through major line-up changes, Cannibal Corpse have continued to climb ranks and have reigned for awhile now as the top act in death metal. It is a legacy forged in brutal riffs and gory lyrics, and that legacy continues on this coming Friday.