 think we're two minutes early. Okay, here we are, guys. Here we are, the threesome. The killer threesome, Alan, the killer threesome. Yeah, yeah, look at Martin looking fresh-faced and young and ready to go to tackle this big subject we have today. It's been too long since we had Martin on, so it's always a pleasure to have Martin pop off himself joining us. Yes, thank you very much, Alan, very cool. Yeah, I haven't seen you for a while, been on with Jimmy recently, but since I got you, I just showed you my my my latest acquisitions, one there, and of course, Metallica. Yeah, yeah, I've actually still got a supply of both of those. They've, that company's closed down their music book division, so no more Led Zeppelin, no more the ACDC album by album, no more the Pink Floyd, but the Queens available still got the Maiden, but yeah, too bad. They did beautiful designs of those, no more big book of hair metal either, so there you go. Unfortunate. It's a hardcover, too. Martin, you want to show what else you got before we start the show? What are you selling now? What's on the plate? What's on the storefront? Nothing really. What are you right heap? You told me about your right heap. Yeah, well, I do have that. It's somewhere here, and yeah, actually found, so we're not on air yet, right? We are on air. Oh, we are on air. Yes, we are. We're live, Martin. I was going to mention something that I probably shouldn't have. I have the heap. These are all over here. I got the heap. I've got the thin Lizzie. I've got the bluestar cult of Van Halen. Still got the sweet, still got the angel, still got the first two of the Maiden trilogy. The third one's out of print now, and I don't know if I'm bringing it back, Empire of the Clouds, but I brought this out because that's what we're talking about, and I've still got the first one as well, which is Where Eagles Dare, Iron Maiden, so any of that stuff, martinpopup.com. All right, this is part two, installment part two. First one was Advanced Singles. All right, now we're in the years, what do we say, 1988 to 1998, correct? Yep. Yes. These are the songs that came out before the albums were released. So we'll go round Robin, Allen, since he wasn't here last time, he'll go first, then I'll go, then Martin, and we'll give our ranking of the Advanced Singles, and then after that, we can sort of discuss, was that the right release? Should they have picked another song, or that was the correct single to pick? All right, you guys ready? I got to warm up my hands. Allen, worst to first, right? Five, four, three, two, one. Allen always gets a rock. No, I don't know. Okay, let Martin start off. I thought we were doing chronologically, my error. It's all right, Martin, you start off, this way, Allen will get the swing of things. All right, all right, I'll start off, and Allen can dig his list around a little bit there. Okay, so my worst one of these ones, and the reason we're doing this, of course, Jimmy, is because when the writing on the wall came out, we did the first edition, which was, because that is an Advanced Single, so we did the Advanced Singles of the modern era, and now we're going back. So my worst one I picked was Future Real. Really do not like the production on this, it's fast, but it's got the real clacky bass going, not a great vocal, kind of just not a good chord sequence. I didn't think it was a very inspired song, so that's the Advanced from virtual 11 came out, came out July 28th, 1998, and then the album is, is, no, I think, hang on, no, that's the album. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm reading your recent, you're worse than Allen. Yeah, I know. Okay, I'm going to move on to the next one. You won't bring me into this. Because it's fun. Okay, my number four out of the five in reverse order. Six, actually, okay, hold on. Let's just straighten this out here. This is starting up well. There's six. Virtual 11, X factor, fear of the dark, no prayer and seven son of the seven son. That sounds like five. Sounds like five, I guess I can't count. It is five, I think. Okay, seven son, prayer, fear of the dark, X factor, you're right, it is five. Okay, my bad. My number four, I went with can I play with madness? I mean, maybe this could have been higher because it is a very popular maiden song. But I've never been a big fan of the verse on this one. It's obviously got the great chorus and it's anthemic and all that. But I didn't think it was a particularly great song. I thought the two parts didn't go so great together. Very commercial sort of song, again, very clacky bass sound out of Steve on this one. Got the cowbell going. The odd kind of end of bar fill thing that happened. Number three, I went back to Blaze with Man on the Edge. It's got a very cool verse. It's got a horrible first 50 seconds, like one of these long I know Martin pause pause. I know why this is is going to hell. It's not five and it's six. It is six. And I'll tell you why. Okay, because there was an exception. Seven son released two advanced singles. Okay, before the album. So you had, can I play with madness and the evil that men do. And then the album came out. Right. All right. March. No, I'm wrong. I screwed it up again. No. Okay, just continue. Maybe I'll leave it come back in three hours. No worries. Okay, so so so Man on the Edge really do not like that whole intro part of it. Intros are obviously a big problem with with Maiden at this time. But it's a good fast one. And I just I think it's got a good anthemic chorus as well. I like that little volume switch guitar solo thing that goes on in it. Kind of cool. Or no, hang on. No, that's no, I meant the Pickard solo feel of Holy Smoke. Forget that. The volume switch guitar thing I'm not crazy about in this one. Okay, so moving on my second from the top, I went with Holy Smoke. Harris Dickinson one didn't like the twin lead to open on it, but it gets better. I like the whole straight core rock and roll, you know, punk rock. I know Steve doesn't like that term, but it's it's got a nice straightforward, you know, rocking different feel for them. Bruce has a lot of vocal fry. He's kind of like screaming. He's got kind of a worn out voice, which works kind of cool on him. The video was kind of cool. It was a cheesy video, but it was cool to see Bruce literally in the studio actually singing the track. I'm pretty sure that is right. It was too good to be lip synced. I think that's literally him doing the track. So that was kind of cool to see. And this one's got that kind of Pickard area weird solo on it, which I thought was kind of cool. And then for the top one, I went with Be Quicker Be Dead from Fear of the Dark. I thought this was a really good heavy storming rock and tune. A nice way to come out of the gates. I remember when this came out, there was a lot of hope and a lot of energy for the album, which was sadly dashed. I didn't think it was that great an album. But I thought it was a good quick way to get us all excited about Pave again. And yeah, just a really good heavy one. All right. So let's recap. Okay, Be Quicker Be Dead was your number one. Number two was Holy Smoke. Holy Smoke. Yep. And then number three was Man on the Edge. Man, yeah. Four. Can I play with Madness? Play, yeah. And Future Real. And Future. Okay. All right, Alan. If you can follow all that. Well, I did get the memo, and maybe nobody got the memo today. By the way, this is starting out. But I did it a different way. I kind of went with a chronological order here. Okay. So, yeah, okay. Can I play with Madness? And Evelyn Mendoo, I'm looking at it. Jim, I don't think there's some great others. So Infinite Dreams maybe could have been a pre-release instead of Evelyn Mendoo. But, you know, I can't fault, I can't fault the two choices. At the time, can I play with Madness with Graham Chapman and Monty Python in the video? You know, it was a great video with the animation and everything. And for us, it was like, wow, this is really proggy. This is probably their progliest album ever that we've heard so far. So that was what struck me back in the day. And then, no prayer for the dying. We got, yeah, for me a holy smoke. I mean, when Adrian left the band, I kind of switched off there for a couple of years and went back to revisit them decades after. So again, tail gunner, possibly bring your daughter to the slaughter could have been a pre-release. Then, of course, Fear of the Dark. Yeah, I mean, you know, from here to Eternity, maybe instead of be quick or be dead. But again, I can't fault any of the choices they're doing. And of course, Fear of the Dark is the classic off of that album. So you don't want to kind of, you know, pre-release. You don't want to blow your wad too soon, as they say. Then you go with somebody else. The X Factor, the very controversial X Factor. Again, you know, man on the edge, can't fault them there. Anything else on there? That was the only one I would do in the pre-release. And, you know, these, like we spoke about this before, for us, you know, these might be some of the weaker ones with Blaze. But for our children's generation, that's how they got introduced to Mative, right? With the Blaze era. Future Real, you know, I love what I love about Future Real. It's finally, they're back to the two minute songs, you know, like Running Wild and The Early Maiden. So that's what I loved about that. You know, it didn't have to be seven minutes. And then of course, they've come back with the Angel and the Gambler, which is the complete opposite with, you know, how many times did they repeat that line 30 times? I think somebody counted. But I love that track. I love the track and I love the video. So I didn't know we had to rate them. Sorry, guys. I just kind of give you more. Don't read the memos. Don't read the memos. I just, you know, and again, yeah, but I can't, I can't fault any of the Clansmen. I just, I love that song. Well, not to tax you too hard, Alan, but at least, which would be your very favorite advanced single from this. There you go. It would be a tie, I think, between, can I play with Madness and Angel and the Gambler? Really? Okay, okay, hold on a sec. You know what, Martin, I think this is what another mistake is, and I'm pretty sure about this now. I'm pretty sure Future Real was, okay, so the album was released March 23rd. The advanced single was released on March 9th, which was the Angel and the Gambler. However, Future Real was released a few months later, so it was not the first one. Great song. Maybe it should have been released. That's the question, right? Yeah, I would agree with that. Oh yeah, Angel and the Gambler is March 9th. Virtual 11 is March. The album is March 23rd. Future Real, you've got down as July 28th, so. Yeah, I did a lot of homework there, Alan, and you didn't read my homework. But anyways, I did. It's okay. It's okay. Angel and the Gambler would actually stay in fifth place for me, so I could just switch out my Future Real for the Angel and the Gambler, and nothing would change here. My chart would stay the same. I like your chart. Hey, those are my words. Okay, the Angel. That was very controversial, right? As a single, the pre-release of Angel and the Gambler because of the length, they try to get Steve to edit it down. And of course, no way, it's my way, and this is how the record's built. And you know, looking back, was it the right call? I kind of agree with Martin. I think Future Real would have been a stronger one to lead off with on that album. I had a hard time even doing that second, the middle maiden book, because of this period. And I wouldn't even have got through it had Bruce not been making records at the same time. And most of that second book is about Bruce's solo catalog. All right, so here's my rank, and I'm going to rank them here. I'm going to rank them correctly. Number five, Angel and the Gambler, like Martin, even though Alan thought it was the greatest song ever on his number one list there. And I think the video, I think the video was an edited version of the actual track. So they cut out a couple of, don't you think I'm an, you know, what is it? Oh, I forgot the line now. What's the line there? They repeat a thousand times. Don't you think I can save you? They cut out that it's a little bit shorter. The it's an animated Jurassic Park, Eddie CGI kind of video. And I think at the time, it just kind of, I didn't, it just didn't connect with people. Holy smokes was for for me, like you guys all said, great song. Can I play with madness? I'm going to correct everybody here. Now the video was basically what they did. And I was very, very disturbed at the time when that song came out. They actually used the number of the beast footage. And they sort of tried to re-sync it as live footage on that video. If you remember correctly, there's an old man with a, you know, some sort of big cloak over him and the Monty Python right angle there. Bottom line is they tried to re-sync the video using the number of the beast video live footage that they took. If you look really carefully and other, and I believe from Power Slave and they're just taking bits and pieces of live performances and they're adding them and re-syncing that video. They probably didn't have enough time to actually make that video. Man on the edge. Man, that's made and at their best. I don't see why Blaze didn't get a bigger following because of it. And be quick or be dead would be my first one because, you know, they just knocked it right out of the park. It's a great tune, right? Yeah. Where did you have Holy Smoke? I had Holy Smoke at number four and you had it at number two. And Alan, where would you put Holy Smoke? I wouldn't make my list. Really? Yeah. Okay. It has to be somewhere on your list though. That's the rule. That's the rule. Okay, it'll be last. It'll be last. Now, here's the question to you, Alan. If the Klansmen would have came out instead of The Angel and the Gambler, would the album, would it changed the tone of the album? Would have people been more interested? Would have been more epic? For me, there's two things. It's like, you know, there's album tracks, there's deep album tracks, and then there's singles, right? So I think Future Real would have been the one to lead off on that one. And my favorite song on that album is The Klansmen. So I don't think that needed to be a pre-release though. All right. And what about you, Martin? Do you think that Klansmen would have changed the trajectory of the album versus coming out with, you know, The Angel and the Gambler? Well, didn't the fame for The Klansmen really start picking up when Bruce decided? It did. It did. It did. Yeah, yeah. Really? I mean, it's not that standout attractive using those production values and those performances, right? It probably takes off later. So I don't know. I mean, again, you know, as Alan says, it would have been nice to have single edits for some of these things, right? Yeah. Okay. So then Fear of the Dark. Now, Alan, you were talking about Fear of the Dark. What if, and so this was, this is what was happening in North America. Son of the Seven Sun, everything started going downwards, right? And then No Prayer, Fear of the Dark, things were like, they're bottoming out, basically. They're going from platinum albums to gold to not even registering, you know, on Fear of the Dark, right, in the US and Canada. Well, and more in the US. So things are going downward, right? Now, if they would have released instead of Be Quick or Be Dead, Fear of the Dark, would that have changed things? Or is there another song on the album that would have changed the dynamic? Look, you tie in these real pre-releases. But as you mentioned, Jimmy, the videos were so important too, right? So you had From Here to Eternity, Be Quick or Be Dead with a lot of quick cuts and Bruce running around and jumping around. And so the videos kind of tied in. Whereas Fear of the Dark, I don't even, I don't, I didn't know they did it live in Brazil. They released that years later. I don't even know they did one at this time. No, they didn't. But if they was released as a single at the time would have changed everything. Martin? It would have given the album more recognition because it is the name of the album at the same time. So that might have helped. But it was just, they just weren't a very good band at that point. I mean, they weren't competing with what was out there in 1992. I'm convinced they hired Blaze because, you know, you had the 80s where there was these soaring tenors. And then you had the grunge that hit in like 91, 92, I guess, with the baritone, the deep dark tones. And they probably hired subconsciously or consciously Blaze because he had that baritone voice. Plus he looked like Bruce and he came from a cool band. And he was a great front man. He was a great front man. Bruce Bain was a great band, right? Yeah, yeah. I mean, everybody loved Wolf's Bain, right? So he's coming in with all this, all this great, well wishes, right? And like I say, he looks like Bruce. He looks like a younger, you know, more energetic, you know, not not more energetic, but as energetic person version of Bruce. You know, he said, he said in one of our interviews, there were some people in Brazil who didn't even know it wasn't Bruce in the band. They thought he was Bruce. Yeah, it is possible. Allen. Well, I would have fear of the dark as a third release, instead of afraid to shoot stranger. That's for sure. Yeah. What about was, is there any song that could have saved no prayer for the dying? Man, I went through them all. I couldn't really pick anything. Bring your daughter to slaughter, maybe. Yeah. I don't know. I think it was it was a joke at that time, right? Books in you a little bit, you know, not not terrible. But now not not really, you know, that is just just so many bad decisions and just not changing, not doing anything new or or even not doing anything like a better version of Iron Maid. It was just getting to be a worse and worse version of Iron Maid. All right. Let's talk about the X factor. I think that's the only one we haven't spoken about the X factor. It releases mad on the edge. There's a little bit of momentum there, just not enough. The sign of the cross to me has always been one of the big epic tracks. But I think if they would have did a single edit, like you guys said, they could have, you know, packaged it a lot cooler. And I think the main fans would have been more excited, I guess. What do you guys think? Yeah, whole raft of single edits. That would be pretty cool. They should have done a bunch of that stuff because it's almost like getting a new song, right? But or maybe even single mixes, right? I mean, that a single is kind of an opportunity where you could improve on the mix of the album, right? That sometimes and that gets people talking about things. So yeah, there might have been things that could have been done, but just just these long intros and stuff and just the scrappy I listened to it before coming on the show. And like Martin said, that whole period, the drums on that sound absolutely terrible. That snare drum. It's like, is this and then a few of the song, you know, I never thought this album was as bad as everybody made out. But the more I listened to it, I think I might agree with people. This is this is not really a very good album. And when there's keyboards, they're they're horrible, right? These weird keyboard choices of sounds and why to put it in and why not to put it in. They're in so sparingly and then they show up and they and they just and they just sound like, you know, from 1981. So so somewhere in time was a platinum selling album in the US and then suddenly seven sun comes out in 1988 and it goes gold. I mean, what do you guys remember from that time? Well, I mean, that was, you know, I think somewhere in time is going platinum. It's a little bit of the hangover from the excitement from the live from the tour and and from all the great wishes in from the previous three albums at that point, right? It's actually a really good album. I'm quite into it. I when I was working on all this maiden stuff and doing the books and even the one Jimmy that we all did together and and listening to that stuff again, that was that was the last one until the modern era, like not seventh son, somewhere in time. It really has some great deep tracks on it. I thought it was a pretty cool album. But then but so many people love seventh son, right? If you're a little bit younger than us, people think it's this absolute classic, right? And Alan, it only went gold. Did you go to that tour? Yeah, guns and roses open. Yeah, that's what I remember about it. You know, the album, again, like I said, it, you know, somewhere in time, okay, we got a little more of the keyboards and synth guitars. Okay. And they did a much, much more better way than Judas Priest did. They used the way they use them. And then this came out, you say, okay, it's it's more proggy. It's but like, you know, Steve, I think it's his favorite second favorite album because of that. So an Adrian says, okay, now we're going to take it to another level. And Steve said, no, we're going to get it back to basics like we did on killers and that. Hey, we're, we're all so close to reaching our, you know, we were potential and you want to take it back. So that's why he left the band. So and I can't say that he was wrong either. It's not, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's not one of my top made an album, but it's, it's a solid album. There's a lot of good stuff for me on there. So a lot better than what was coming in the next next two or three releases. I don't, I don't hate the stuff afterwards. I mean, Seven Sun is always one of those albums I never reach for. But I, when I put it on, I do appreciate it. You know, I don't know if that makes sense. The evil that men do is probably one of the best tracks on the album. I just, it's, you know, and I guess it's a testament as they keep playing it on the shows and their shows, you know, forever since then, right? Let's say, here we go. You asked me if I saw that tour. Here's the ticket right here. A whopping $19.50 to see Iron Maiden with Guns and Roses opening back on March 17th. Canadian. 17th of May. I don't know. It must have been 88, I guess. All right, guys. $19.50. That's always gets me compared to what we're seeing tonight. I'm amazed how regular, like when you went and did this exercise, like Maiden was really good with this advanced single thing. I don't think anybody is, was, was this consistent with actually doing advanced singles every time, right? But when you think about it, like when I took it apart, like I said this last time, they would do one advanced single, release the album, and then do another single. And it was just, that's always been the format for Iron Maiden with one or two exceptions. So they're very, they're like, you know, boom, boom, boom. They're just very mechanical in that sense, right? Going back to the early 80s, right? I remember some of the fantastic album covers like Purgatory and all these maxi singles was what they were calling it. And you always had the cover version, right? Like Cross-eyed Mary from Just Hotel and stuff like that. That always made it very interesting stuff that you wouldn't, that they were, you know, UFO and various groups like that, that we weren't particularly interested in or even knew about. And because of Maiden, we got to discover all these other bands because of these cover songs that they did. Yeah. So we're, we're in the dark period right here. We're in the Maiden dark period and hopefully things will find a light. We got that done because it was a little more fun again. I think we're all a little down. Yeah, yeah. Well depressed. Maybe depressed. Could, could the, when you take the two Blaze Bailey albums, Martin, and if you were to remove some of the tracks that, you know, are not as favorable, could you make one incredible album out of those two? No, not the way they're produced or, or performed. Really? No, I don't think so. And, and, and I mean, you really have to, you know, you need, you need one of those producers that comes in like a, like a Bob Ezrin, who will take the songs apart and move parts around on you and then put the best parts together and the parts that lead into, into other parts perfectly, like literally tear the songs apart and, and rebuild them with all the best parts and the ones that go in the right place. And I, I think that's what could have improved these records and then record them properly. Alan is fear the dark and no prayer for the dying better than the two Blaze Bailey albums, in your opinion. No, but if I get it, we're talking writing and songwriting and the actual songs or recordings. That's, I'm just talking about the whole package. I'm talking about the, the, the two albums versus those two albums, are they better than the two worst already made albums, which would be fear that, at least the fan say the fear of the dark. I'd reach for this over any of the other three. That's not the question though. By that, yeah, I think they are actually. But, but again, like Martin said, it's hard to get past the production. It really is. I would think like I would listen to the Blaze albums and I would definitely put them way above no prayer and fear the dark. And even though the production is a lot better on fear the dark, I don't know. Maybe it was just time for something new when Blaze came along, you know, and they needed that sort of, and it brought in more of a progress or progressive element, right, in the band. And the vocals did change the dynamics and the songwriting. I don't know. I kind of enjoy them. I just kind of like every time we talk about made and repeating boring parts over and over and over and over again, we call it progressive. I mean, we love that progressive album, you know, and none of these are progressive albums. They're just out there. They're just albums with songs that are eight minutes long that have enough parts for a three minute song. Yeah, do it over and over and over. That's right. I'm good. Our sections have extra bars to them and stuff like that. Right. Isn't that what progressive rock was? Just 20 minutes of just repeating the same bars over and over again. Oh, that's the point. I mean, I mean, Maiden has really never been that progressive in too many spots. They're just, they're just, they just need editing. They're just long songs. I agree. I agree wholeheartedly. Like the sign of the cross is one perfect example of here's a great chorus, a great verse. And then they just put all this stuff in the middle and they just have that bass part at the beginning or it's just, it's just, why are they doing this? It's just for the sake of being long, right? That's all it is. It's just. And every song in that album starts the same, right? Yeah. Then the crescendos and glaze comes in. It's almost talk singing at the beginning. Well, Bruce does that too. No, but there's like three or four songs. It's all the same. It starts, everyone starts the same. It's a guy, you know, change it up a little bit. All right. Well, now that we put everybody in a bad mood, hopefully next time on this one, a great band, just as we're talking, unfortunately, one of the weaker periods of the band. That's all. Yeah. Yeah. And yeah, kind of depressed now. I think I'm going to go eat something. Guys, I think that's it. I'm going to wrap it up. Okay. All right, everybody. Tell us what your favorite tracks and how you ranked them, those advanced singles that we got completely wrong. All right, everyone. Have a great night. Martin, thanks a lot. Okay. We'll talk to you again. Next release. Okay. Bye.