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Released: 1978
Tracks: Radios in Motion; Cross Wires; This is Pop; Do What You Do; Statue of Liberty; All Along the Watchtower; Science Friction; She’s So Square; Dance Band; Hang on to the Night; Heatwave; Traffic Light Rock; Instant Tunes; Into the Atom Age; I’ll Set Myself on Fire; I’m Bugged; New Town Animal in a Furnished Cage; Spinning Top; Neon Shuffle
Best track: New Town Animal in a Furnished Cage
Tracks to skip: I’m Bugged, I’ll Set Myself on Fire
I guess the first thing I can say about this is that depending on your tolerance for New Wave (more on the punk side than pop), that’s where your enjoyment would lie for this album. New Wave isn’t something I can listen to all of the time. I mean, it’s really skittish, a bit atonal, quite frantic and often just weird. But then again, if you’re in the right mood, it’s a ton of fun. That’s this album to the core. It’s difficult to listen to every day, but when you’re in the right mood…holy crap is it a lot of fun. This album shows that Andy Partridge and Colin Moulding always had their songwriting chops fully intact. True it’s not as refined as it would become within the next ten years, but there are still plenty of examples here of good songwriting.
I think my favorite on the album is New Town Animal in a Furnished Cage…it sticks in my head for days and it’s a great song. This is Pop is the same way – a very strangely constructed song, but it’s so fun and highly addictive. The other songs I really love from this album are Radios in Motion, Statue of Liberty, Dance Band (hilarious) and She’s So Square. The only songs I really didn’t care for are a couple that were on the original Side Two of the album: I’ll Set Myself on Fire and I’m Bugged. Other than that, everything’s pretty solid. Those last three on the album, New Town Animal, Spinning Top and Neon Shuffle are a great way to end the album.
I got into XTC through Skylarking and when I first heard this I was totally thrown for a loop. I knew they started out as a New Wave band, but I wasn’t prepared for this. White Music seems to be much brasher than the “clean” and poppy new wave that was generally played on pop radio in the 80’s. It honestly took me a long time to do this review – I was never in the mood for this album and it took me almost a year before I really sat down and gave it a go. You know what? I was pleasantly surprised. Granted, I was in the right mood for some quirky New Wave stuff, so that helped. I’m sure I’ll be visiting this one more as time goes on.
Rating: 84
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Released: 2010
Tracks: Satellite 15…The Final Frontier; El Dorado; Mother of Mercy; Coming Home; The Alchemist; Isle of Avalon; Starblind; The Talisman; The Man Who Would Be King; When the Wild Wind Blows
Best track: either Coming Home, The Man Who Would Be King or Isle of Avalon
Track to skip: none
This entry qualifies as a “2-in-1”, because The Final Frontier was my favorite album of 2010. More importantly than that, though, is that it’s just a plain old GREAT album. I always get excited for a new Maiden album – of course I do, they’re my favorite band – and Final Frontier was no exception. El Dorado was a great choice for the leadoff single and teaser during the tour that preceded the album’s release. It’s a great track, nice and heavy, that was inspired by the housing crisis and shady individuals that caused it. Where the previous album, A Matter of Life and Death dealt with War pretty much exclusively, The Final Frontier is much more science fiction oriented. I love how Maiden can pull off both sides as lyricists and songwriters – they can tackle serious subjects and can just as easily make great sci-fi. For the most part this album packs a more immediate punch than the last few albums. Where before most songs featured long, drawn-out intros and outros, on The Final Frontier many of these songs are just like swift punches to the face. I absolutely love Maiden when they’re in this mode…relentless, heavy, no messing around.
The organization of this album, Maiden’s longest, is wonderful. It’s essentially a double album, or would’ve been if it was still the 80’s. Tracks 1-6 make up “disc 1” and function as a great album with an excellent epic as the closer, Isle of Avalon. “Disc 2” contains 4 epics (!!) and that’s something the band has never done. As a CD you can look at the first 6 tracks (splitting up Satellite 15 and the title track) as shorter, more direct songs and the last 5 as epics. I love the sequencing of this album.
The guitar playing is superb throughout and probably my favorite of the “3 Amigos” albums. Adrian Smith comes off as the winner (Satellite 15, Mother of Mercy, Isle of Avalon)…until you get to Dave Murray’s The Man Who Would Be King and the absolutely stunning solo section featuring slide guitar. Murray doesn’t write too many songs, so when he does he really makes them count. All around, the music on …King is possibly the best he’s ever written. Of course, we can’t forget about Janick Gers’ contributions here, the pound-you-in-the-face Alchemist & Talisman. I’ve really enjoyed his songs for the past few albums and he shows without a doubt that he belongs with Smith and Murray. I was possibly his biggest critic over the years, but I now view him as an integral part of this band. Took me a while to come around! While this is a very guitar-heavy album (insanely excellent soloing throughout…check out Smith’s lead on Coming Home), the other three don’t slouch here either. The whole band sounds very inspired on the album and honestly I think in general the band is as good as they’ve ever been. There’s a fire present in the band nowadays that they had lost for a decade or so and it’s so great to see them play and write with such passion.
The Final Frontier is an excellent follow-up to the superb A Matter of Life and Death and is quite honestly Maiden’s best album since Seventh Son. The songs are all great and some of them, Coming Home, Isle of Avalon and The Man Who Would Be King, rank with some of the greatest that the band has ever written. Coming Home in particular is a phenomenal composition and one that I always find myself singing. An absolute classic. Hell, the whole album is an absolute classic, bursting with passion, attitude and intensity.
Rating: 95
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