 And here we go, on the metal voice today. Some good friends of mine thought we'd have a little chat about R.N. Maiden, been in the news lately, new album coming out. Sinjutsu, how do you pronounce that, Martin Sinjutsu? I don't know. I don't know anything about why it's called that or anything yet. So. Amen from Eon Music Editor. Hello. And of course, the one and only Martin Popoff. Martin, do you have your book there? Your R.N. Maiden album, my album? Yeah, I do have that one, the one that you're, by the way, are you recording? So I'm not seeing the little recording sign up. You know, I'm gonna do a recording right here too. Might as well record this. Recording in progress. Oh, there we go. Recording in progress. I don't think you were on. What? No, no, we're on live. We're live on YouTube and I'm recording it as a backup. All right, very cool. Yeah. Recording in progress. So I do have this. I wanted to clear up the supply of these books. So Iron Maiden album by album, which Jimmy is a star of. I do have a supply of this. Now, this, just so people know, is long out of print, but I have one copy in my rare books box so I can sell. It's not cheap, but I've got one copy there. And also along that line, there's the trilogy of the Where Eagles Dare. This is the story of Maiden just in normal form. Holy smoke, Iron Maiden, the 80s. Empire of the Cloud. So this one is now out of print. I don't think I'm bringing it back. I got two in my rare books box. So I could sell two complete trilogies of the trilogy, but these two are both available. And that's all martinpopoff.com. There you go. I love it, Martin. And one more time, show your album by album, Iron Maiden. Right. Just so we can see one more time. And just all the guests. Who are the guests? This is one of the only ones that's actually in print. This and the Queen. The other ones are all out of print because this book publisher closed down their music book division. So there you go. Yeah. You can buy that on all online purchasing, like Amazon and wherever else you can shop. All right. Today's topic, a very bizarre topic, but a very interesting topic at the same time. Me and Martin are on the phone this morning saying, we need something really interesting to talk about Iron Maiden since there's this new album coming out September the third. Sijitsu. Sijitsu? I don't know. Sijitsu. So we thought, why not rank the advanced singles that Iron Maiden have come out in the past, get this, 20 years or 21 years from 2000 to 2021. What did you think about this topic, Ayman, right off the bat? Oh, this is right off my street as a total maiden nerd. You know, I don't know if you know, I do the guitar lessons, I do Adrian Smith's guitar lessons online and I studied these songs a lot. I love this kind of stuff. Like we're all nerds, aren't we? Me, you, Martin, we're total music nerds. This is cool topic, great topic. I'm a metal nerd, definitely. I've always been a metal nerd. And Martin, you know, we know Martin. Martin's like the encyclopedia of metal nerds. Okay, here we go. We're going to rank this what we're going to do. We're going to rank from six to one because there are only six albums in this era. And on a side topic, after each one of us ranks from six to one, we're going to say, well, should have there been another single instead or we were happy with this single? Did that single, that advanced single, represent sort of what was coming with that new album or not? We'll just discuss that. All right, so we're going to start off with Martin. Martin rank it, advanced singles. And just to clarify, advanced singles means before the album was released, that was the single. Go ahead, Martin. Okay, so my number six position, last position I'm going to go with Wildest Dreams. I really do not like this song at all. I basically think it doesn't even have a guitar riff. So it came out September 1st, 2003. The album came out November 24th. This is Jimmy's find our research here and I'm taking credit for it by reading off these dates. You can use my stuff, you can use my stuff. But yeah, I really don't like this song. It's like Son of Wicker Man and not very good version of Wicker Man in a way, I think. But better production than Wicker Man, I thought, but similar tempo, kind of like I say, kind of a dull riff. My number five, I went with the Wicker Man. I was not very crazy about that song when it came out with its Doobie Brothers, China Grove riff. And again, I think it's barely even a riff at all. I didn't like the production of this record all that much. Pretty cool pre-chorus and then it goes into that halftime thing, which is really cool. It's got a good chorus there other than the dancing part by Yannick. Not crazy about that to it when you see it live sort of thing. But no, I'm not crazy about that song. Next I'll go with my number four is The Writing on the Wall. So this one actually sounds more like a deep album track that you'll get on any of these Maiden albums. It sounds like an actual Maiden song. It's long, it's Celtic. I described it as a little Southern-y, I thought. But, and I like the intro. The intro is a little bit of a fresh thing with that sort of, you know, desperado cowboy music acoustic thing going on. So that's my, in the middle of the pack. Next I'll go with number three, Reincarnation of Benjamin Brigg. I really like the riff on this. I think this is a super heavy song. I like that it had the kind of cool mysterious story about it. It's not very Maiden-like. So I thought it was quite uncharacteristic of even the album and anything Maiden would do. It's just this really cool, interesting, odd, really bottom Andy riff. Great slow speed groove from Nico on it. You know, a complicated, slow galloping part later on, I thought. So that was Matter of Life and Death. El Dorado, I'm picking my second favorite. Killer Rocker, just a good, heavy song, just a good kind of universal world lyric on it. Weird chords for the chorus. The solo part I don't like very much on it, but the other kind of late music edition parts which you expect from Maiden I thought were really cool, but a great heavy tune. And for number one, I went with Speed of Light from Book of Souls. That was advanced August 14th, 2015. The album came out just like two, two and a half weeks later kind of thing. You know, that cowbell intro, really rock and rollsy, but gnarly. It sounds literally like a song that could have been lifted right off a peace of mind. I just think it's just a great heavy, heavy rocker from Maiden, but also with that little rock and rollsy and this thing and great, great groove on it and good bottom end. So that's my sixth. So Martin, I'm just gonna, I just wanna write him down so I can understand what you had. You had Speed of Light is number one. El Dorado is number two. Number three was? Benjamin Brigg. Ben, okay. Number four was? Writing on the wall. Writing and then Wicker Man and Wildest Dreams. Yeah. All right, Amon. Okay. Well, some very interesting points there made by Martin. I'm gonna go the same number six, Wildest Dreams at the bottom. I know there's a lot of debate around that song. A lot of kind of hate for it. I think they were just trying to go for something commercial. That's their writing of single. But it's definitely my number six out of all of these. A very interesting thing to note actually about all these singles is I'm pretty sure they're all have an Adrian Smith and Bruce Dickinson co-write in there with a few anomalies. The Wicker Man was Smith Dickinson, Harris. Yeah. And I think Dave Murray has a co-write on Benjamin Brigg. But immediately before the writing on the wall came out, I knew, I was like, they always go with a Smith Dickinson or a Smith Dickinson, Harris. And sure enough, that's what happened. But that's an interesting thing to write when they're, I think we all know that when they go for kind of commercial, Adrian Smith's gotta be in there. Anyway, I digress. My number five is Benjamin Brigg, I think because it's kind of one of these slower tracks as well. It's not a punchy album, you know, album launcher. So that's why it's my number five. Number four, for the same reason, writing on the wall, the new track. I think to be honest with you, none of us really have had a lot of time to let it sink in. And if we do this ranking in two years time, it might change. But my first thought when I heard it was that it's an unusual track to go with your right, Martin. It is a mid-paced album track. But when you combine it with that video, what an event we had last week, it was so exciting to see. And I think it's really too early to go just here as a song. I think maybe later on I might rank lower. Number three, it went for El Torado. I thought it was a brilliant, brilliant song to launch Final Frontier with. I was really excited by it. Again, I know that's one of the albums that there's a little bit of, it's probably everyone's least favorite reunion album. And I disagree with that. Number two, I went for Speed of Light, which was Martin's number one. Fantastic song. That's an Adrian Smith classic that is beautifully written, catchy. It's got everything you want for a lead single. Amazing. And number one had to be the Wickerman. For me, that is as strong as anything that released in the 80s. That was the one that relaunched the band in 2000 after the blaze years and everything that happened. And they needed to relaunch with something massive. And by God, they did it. And it's still, to this day, I think it's the best single that released easily since those days and even could compete with some of their bigger songs. So that's my top six. All right, I'm gonna summarize for everybody. Wickerman was number one. Number two was Speed of Light. Number three was El Dorado. Number four was Writing on the Wall. Benjamin was number five and six was Wildest Dreams. So there seems to be a little commonality here on the last pick. Everybody seems to be thinking Wildest Dreams or saying that Wildest Dreams is their worst pick. I'm gonna give you my six. You guys pretty much covered everything in these songs. There's not much more to say. But number six for me would be Wildest Dreams, like you guys. It was like, to me, was just a boring, terrible song with a boring, terrible video. It just, I don't know. It just didn't showcase me at their best. Number five was Speed of Light. I find it's a flat song. The production is horrific. I don't know. I just think they could have come up with something a lot better as an advanced single. I think the rest of the album is great, but I just think that song is just, it missed the mark. At the time, I was very excited because, wow, we got some new made in music. Oh, wow, this is the best thing ever. But then over time, you realize, this isn't so great. Number four, The Reincarnation of Benjamin Brieg. I'm a very, huge on Prague. But I think it was so complicated this song that it kind of lost any sort of inspiration. There's inspiring, progressive songs, and this is more of a, I would have chosen another track, but we'll talk about that later. Number three, I love the writing on the wall. Sure, it's Bon Jovi with a McCowboy, Wanted Dead or Alive. But I think they're kind of like going into the blues, and you can see that Smith influence of his hard rockin' blues, especially from his last collaboration, that soul album that with, what's his name, Eamonn. Yes, yes. And then number two, El Dorado. I think it's a phenomenal song. Would have I chosen that song as the lead single? Probably not. But I think, I love the key change from the chorus to the verse, which, and I think it's a key change there, right, Eamonn? No, I'm singing it to myself. Yeah, I think it's a key change. And, you know, to pull off a verse and a chorus on a different key, you know, it's really a tough thing to do. I love the galloping, you know, guitar work, traditional maiden, but it was a little different. It was different from what they've done in the past, and of course, the Wicker Man. Bam, bam, bam. To me that, I can't believe Martin ranked it so low. To me that was, we're back guys, this is the Wicker Man. It's kind of like Rothschild. It's sort of like intense, fast pace, you know, in-your-face type of song. I can't even believe Martin put it at number five. Like, to me that's the biggest thing. Yeah, exactly. That's like, Martin, like, what are you thinking? Please elaborate on how the Wicker Man could be ranked so low. Well, I feel that the production is kind of like, it feels like they're in separate rooms. That kind of bothers me about it. But you're okay with the speed of life production. That's what you're saying. Yes, I am. The speed of life production is like worse. I have no problems with the production. My least favorite productions are this new song and going back to Brave New World and all of them. I think they kind of, you know, I think they sorted out the bottom end and the base a little bit. I mean, still, Kevin Shirley does have a very strange sound, but, you know, as I was saying on Facebook, it's almost like if we got a perfect sort of desktop metal, efficient Saxon, except Judas Priest production and stuck that on Maiden, we'd even complain even more, right? So it's, you know, Kevin Shirley doing this kind of production, like again, I said, you know, putting aside the new song. If we didn't have this in Maiden and we had something else that was more, you know, quote unquote, correct, we'd just complain about that. So I don't know, I'm all over the place on what to do about them with production. Amen, okay. So we've all picked Wilder's Dreams as the worst of the six. Okay, so since we've all agreed upon that, what would you have put, what advanced single would have you put instead? Think of the album now. Do you want the tracklist thing on the album? You're kind of looking at it here. We've got Rainmaker, No More Lies, just reading it from the back of us. No More Lies here, Dance of Death, Gates of Tomorrow, New Frontier, Passion Deal. I think we'd, I don't know, but I think we'd agree that probably Passion Deal is the best track on that album, but it's not a lead single, is it, you know? No more than say Rain of the Ancient Mariner isn't a lead single, you know, would never have been a lead single but it's still the best track. I think it's hard to know, you know, there's a lot of filler on that album. There's a lot of filler on it. I don't think Rainmaker was a brilliant singer single. I think No More Lies was a, let's just say that's not one of the best songs. So I think they probably went with the right song, given the choice of tracks on the album. So you're saying that is the best of the worst? In terms of single material. Yeah, like Passion Deals clearly the best song, but it's for the time, they obviously wanted to go with song punchy song that's a single. They played that song ahead of the album release. So they did a tour and they were like, we're going to play a new song, we're going to do a new single. So they weren't going to bring out the big epic Passion Deals on the, that was the European tour ahead of that album release. I think at the time it was the right choice, yeah. Martin, what do you think? What do you think, what song would have you released? I agree with Amon. Passion Deals is the best. And how about a Passion Deals single at it? Like these guys should do single edits, right? That would be really cool. Or a Montseguirre single edit, even though it's not even that long, it's 550, right? So I'd go with either of those two. Again, as Bruce and Steve have said, with Maiden it really doesn't matter what the single is. Other than with Maiden there's a unique thing that it gets this conversation going on an intense level for a couple of weeks, right? And then that really can cause a lot of bad blood or good blood depending on how that single is received. So I think with Maiden it's almost like you wanna put forward a song that the Maiden fans are gonna universally love. So Passion Deals, sure. And just what I've noticed actually, I was mapping this out this morning. I went from the whole catalog and I noticed that this is the tradition that they've done. This is typically what they've done. They've done one advanced single and then after the album's released they would release a second single. That seems to be how they always do things. So I'm gonna tell everybody out there that we're not gonna hear another single from them until after the album is released. Traditionally, that's what they're doing and maybe they'll change it up, I don't know. All right, El Dorado, we all seem to love it but was it the right single, Martin? Was it the right single to release? What about the final frontier? Why wasn't that one sort of edited and released? Yeah, that's a great song. That would have been good as well but I mean, I just love El Dorado so much. So based on what I just said about having a bunch of good will thrown towards the band, I think you can't do much better than El Dorado. El Dorado's got this punchy weird title that gets people talking as well. So yeah, I really think and I've never thought about this before but I'd say just off the top of my head that seems like the real good reason to sort out a single that is a really, really good track just so the fans aren't revolting on you as the album is coming out which they're kinda doing now with this new one, right? All right, Amen. Would you have removed the satellite? What is it, satellite? What do they call it again? Yeah, 15, 15. Satellite 15, would you, like I mean it's connected to the song. They didn't create like two tracks there. If they would have removed satellite 15, put the Final Frontier, would have that been a better, a lot of people hate the Final Frontier. There's not a lot of fans that like this album. I love it personally. Yeah. Do you think that if Final Frontier was the lead single things that would have sort of changed people's opinion about the album? Okay, I'm gonna tell you, the Final Frontier is my second favorite reunion album after Brave New World or the second era. The minute I put that on the Final Frontier and I heard Satellite 15, I thought it was amazing. I could hear the echoey guitars. I was like, big production's back, brilliant. And then the snare comes in and it's like, oh no, we're back to the dry production again. I thought we were back to seven, here we have the successor to seventh song. Oh my God, this is gonna be awesome. And then it was dry as hell. I think if you had that production going into the song, the Final Frontier and edited that down, that would have been stunning. That's what I would have said. That would have been like a huge impact, like kind of like the Wicker Man in the sense, right? Yeah, but in saying that, I thought El Dorado was great. I mean, it captured the mood of the time, which was like a recession or something. I can't remember what it was, but it was topical at the time. And yeah, it was a great single. I have no complaints about it. Absolutely not, great thing. All right, Martin, Speed of Light, your number one pick. Do you think perhaps Tears of a Clown would have been, because you got the Robin Williams connection, it would have sort of made the album more accessible to the general population. You tied in with Robin Williams. I personally think Tears of a Clown should have been their first single and breaking out into the masses because there's the Robin Williams connection of his death. What do you think? Yeah, I mean, I'd agree with that. It would definitely get people talking. It's definitely a different sort of maiden thing. But again, I thought the single choice is far and away the best song in the album. It's got a lot of long songs on it that are more deep album tracks. And just to clarify, yeah, you're right, Aiman, that whole, so it's 2010 and 2008, going into 2009 is the big stock market crash, almost the complete banking crash, the mortgage crisis, all of that at the same time. So there was like a 20% drop in the stock market. And then, you know, the recovery was fairly quick, but for a while there, it looked like capitalism wasn't going to be, wasn't going to survive. It, you know, it was looking like it was going to be a house of cards, right? As where, you know, one thing dominos something else, dominos something else. So that was cool about El Dorado that it kind of addressed that. So, yeah. All right, guys. So I'm just going to look at the comments here and everybody just type your number one pick. I'm not going to ask for everybody six picks, but type in your number one pick that you love the most from those six albums. All right, this is the last question for Aiman and Martin. Aiman, the writing on the wall, just give me your, you know, your 30 seconds of your opinion on this new song. Okay, it's in the middle of the pack in terms of, you know, what you thought about it. Come give me your opinions. Do you think, do you like the Bon Jovi angle or not? Well, I actually thought it was like Iron Maiden or Cover and Journey, he's the wheel in the sky, you know? It's because I can see him kind of riff in that kind of D. I think it's brilliant. Adrian Smith is Irish, his parents are Irish. He's got a Celtic vibe going on there. Coupled with that video, it's epic. It's absolutely epic. When I watched that for the first time last week when everyone else did, I was floored. I thought it was superb and I can't wait to hear the rest of the album. Okay, and Martin, what did you think? Well, just to get my brain going on it, I mean, here's what I put on Facebook, Brave, Jammy, Simple, Almost Southern Rock, Too Long, Same Old Pulled Apart, Not Serious Production. That's the way I kind of describe it. It just seems like we're the rolling stones of heavy metal sort of thing, right? I liked all the parts. I'm glad there's not a fast free bird jam in it. Acoustic intro, better than a bass intro. Nice couple of Adrian solos. Is that right, Aiman? Would you say that? Yeah, they're both Adrian solos. Are they both Adrian solos? I thought the first one was Dave Murray. The second one, definitely Adrian. The second one's definitely Adrian. The first one, I'm pretty sure is Adrian solos. Yeah. Bruce is in a weird range with that really mouth open sort of thing he has to do. It's almost like, is he pushed into a range? He doesn't want to be in these days. It's kind of odd, but he does a good job. Bruce is, I think, one of our shining examples of an elderly lead vocalist who has not lost his chops like a lot of these other guys, of course. Lots of room for Nico to be. Nico, yeah, I gave it like a 7.5. I'm probably still in that range on it. What would you rank it out of 10, Aiman? Oh, that's a good question. I think 7.5 is about fair. You know, I agree with Barton what he's saying that, you know, from production point of view, I think what's interesting, I don't know if you noticed, but Steve Harris is credited as co-producer for the first time since virtual 11, I believe. Now, I think we all know that Steve has been co-producing all along, but this is the first time that he's been credited as a co-producer. I believe, I could be wrong about that, but certainly Book of Souls was just Kevin Shirley. As far as I recall the rest of them are just Kevin Shirley. So yeah, I'd rank it as 7.5. I think, yeah, we could talk about the production all day. I think I'd rank it a little bit hard because every time I hear it, I seem to enjoy it a lot more. And I kind of like how they're breaking out of the traditional maiden sound. And of course there's the, you know, the guitar there. It's typical, you know, the harmonics or the harmonies. I got this message from Aldanova, right when we did the review. Like we did a review of it a few days ago of the new single and he goes, Jimmy, the song sounds like, the chorus sounds like Saints and Sinners that he did with Rick Hughes from Sword. That album, there's a song called Frankensteins. They're the chorus is very similar to the Iron Maiden chorus. So if you guys want to check that out, check it out. I put it on, it sounds similar. The same groove too. I wouldn't say the whole song is identical, but the chorus is very familiar, you know, which is a little note there. Neat, yeah. I will say this about Iron Maiden singles. They do think about it and they have got it right sometimes and they've got it wrong. I don't know if you know this, but ahead of the X factor, Steve Harris wanted to go with the sign of the cross. Okay, we're not there yet. We're not there yet. Oh, actually. We're not there yet. We're not there yet. We're 20 years. 2000 to 2021. We'll talk about that another time. Yeah, Aiman doesn't know this, but Jimmy did the homework all the way back. So maybe we'll do this again, right? Is that the plan? Well, let's see if people care about this show and then we'll continue if they do, right? The Book of Souls, Empire of the Clouds was the second single released after the album. What did you guys think of that on a last note? I hated it. Oh my God. I think it's... Oh, I'm trying to be diplomatic here. I think it was way overhyped. It's way over long. Yeah, that is not... I'm not on board with that thing. I'm not on board the R101 at all. To me, it went down like the airship. I thought it was a... It's a brilliant song, but Martin, go ahead. Yeah, I like it quite a bit too. I thought it was at least different for them. It's not the same, you know, dense, heavy long song. Yeah, I thought I was fine with it. I personally, you know, moving forward in the next bunch of years, it's the last two albums that I'm gonna be playing the most from Iron Maiden from this era. It really is Book of Souls and Final Frontier. I mean, and I have quite a soft spot for a matter of life and death, but Brave New World has really worn off on me, you know? I mean, I remember the hype around that when it came out. And then I remember a lot of pretty deep fans after a few months were kind of down on it. And I'm still down on it. I'm with you, Martin, you know, the final, you know, and I really appreciated the album a lot more when we were doing that book that we just showed before. You gave me the Final Frontier, I guess, because nobody else wanted to cover it. But I just, I sunk my teeth into it and I listened to it carefully. I listened to the words, I listened, I read the lyrics and I listened to the music. And the more I sort of dived into that album, the more I appreciated it. And today when I listened to it, I just hear so many things and there's some great lyrics and there's some great musicianship and there's a little bit of rush in there. And, you know, I don't know, it's a great album and even Brave New World, sorry, The Book of Souls. I really appreciate it years later. All right, Chief Eddie says, the Final Frontier is an amazing album. Jamie saying, I only wish I liked all of the Final Frontier. Team Early saying the Alchemist should have been the Final Frontier single. I don't know. He's also saying Speed of Light, Chief Eddie saying El Dorado, Kenny saying Wickerman. Jeb Barg is saying Wickerman, Radio Version. Jamie saying Wickerman is my number one. Dubro saying the Final Frontier, hello friends who shall remain nameless. Run to the Hill says, be quick or, what? Be quick or be dead is awesome. Okay, we're not there yet. And, dude, dude, and he's referring to you Martin, Brave New World is an awesome record. Dude, dude. To me, it doesn't sound a heck of a lot different than the X Factor and the Virtual 11 really. Other than the production and obviously Bruce is back. The production is better. Sleep Petraemi says, agree, Brave New World is amazing Martin. What's up with that? The Final Frontier is the worst of the latter date made in albums. My opinion, of course, that's Ron. But dudes, dudes, I think we're gonna let everybody go now. Thank you very much for the chit chat. Good to be all, thanks for having me, Jimmy. Very cool, yeah, this was fun. Nice meeting you, Amon. Maybe we'll see you back for round two. Amen. We're supposed to be in Montreal and Toronto, right, Amon? You got canceled because of COVID. Yeah, unfortunately, I was meant to be there in May, but I'm off to Steelehouse Festival and Wheels this weekend. I'm gonna see you right here in the darkness and therapy and a lot of good bands. So that'll be, I'm looking forward to that. That'll be up on the website. If anyone wants to check out next week, the week after. Yeah, next week. Martin, last plug on your books. You want to say anything about your books? Not particularly. It's just they're all available at martinpopoff.com. There's PayPal buttons there. I sign them and send them out from the office here, but you got the rundown on the maidens. Like I say, it's the two minutes midnight and the Empire of the Clouds. I've just got a couple in the Rare Books box, but the other three totally available. What were the new books you were telling me about that you just released? That I was working on, yeah. Well, I just turned in. It's not gonna be out for a while, but I just turned in a book of, I had to write four or 500 words on every song by The Damned. So there's gonna be a The Damned book, about 170 Dammed songs. The Ari Heap Visual Biography just came out. I've got those. That's a big expensive book from the UK, Weimar, but I've got a supply of that. And I still have a supply of the Thin Lizzie Visual Biography, the Bluestochal Visual Biography, and the Van Halen one. Right. Imaginose, Imaginose. Aiman, are you, are you familiar with Imaginose? I'm not. By blue eyes you're called? No? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. All right guys, have yourself a wonderful day. We'll talk soon. All right. Bye-bye.