BOC, OFF: Blues music, Iron Maiden, BOC lyrics, album covers

[Sen. Volstead]

John A. Swartz wrote:

> > << I do know, of course, that the
> > first few Led Zeppelin albums had a very heavy blues slant to them.>>
> > ====
> > oh i'm such a bastard...
> > "very heavy blues slant" is a polite way of saying  they were
> > absolutely the
> > biggest =thieves= of all time, as borne out by royalties subsequently
> > being
> > paid to willie dixon. etc.
> > and then there's always randy california's "taurus" off the first
> > spirit
> > lp....say no more.
> >
>
> Well, that may be true - as I said, I'm not up on blues history.
>
> On the other hand, it's pretty obvious if you listen to enough blues
> music that just about any blues song written today is probably a rip-off
> of an older blues song.  I'm not in any way trying to defend Led Zepplin
> by the way, just making an observation as one who has been listening to
> (and enjoying) a lot of blues music over the past few years.
>
> > Look at Blackblade...   this song is good, but it is completely
> > laughable as
> > an interpretation of
> > Elric's tale.
>
> Well, Michael Moorcock did supply the lyrics...
>
> > At lease IM put -some- effort into capturing the flavor if Frank
> > Herbert's
> > "Dune."
>
> Yeah, and for their efforts, what did they get?  Hebert wouldn't let
> them call their song "Dune" - so they changed it to "To Tame a Land"
>
> > As for Lips...   What the hell is that all about anyway?  I have
> > always
> > considered that to be a "filler" song...
> > the one ya always skip over when trying to turn someone onto the band.
>
> Well, I love this song - of course, the lyrics are Meltzer's, and they
> were set to a very heavy piece of music that Buck wrote (who says the
> guy can't write heavy stuff?) with much different lyrics - the tune was
> called "Hold Me Tight" - I've heard it at "The Museum" and it is
> interesting to hear this sort of love song lyrics sung by Buck over the
> killer riff of Lips.  Maybe Albert can jump in on how that song came to
> be...BUT NOT UNTIL HE SHIPS MY COPY OF *PIECE OF WORK*!! ;-)
>
> > Compared to some of what BOC was doing in the 80s, "Number
> > of the Beast" ain't too shabby.
>
> Never thought of that - Iron Maiden's instrumentals are probably more
> lyrically dense than "Beat 'em Up"  ;-)  (still, despite that, I can tap
> my foot to it...)
>
> > I agree, besides "Seventh Son" is a brilliant concept album even
> > though it
> > alienated many of IM's die hard fans for it's use of, amongst other
> > things,
> > keyboards <gasp>.  Unfortunately, IMHO, it was also their last good
> > album.
>
> Yeah, it was the last one I bought that I enjoyed.  After listening to
> "No Prayer for the Dying", I never bought another Maiden studio album.
>
> As much as I liked "Seventh Son" though, to me it sounded too much like
> Maiden couldn't come up with any new sounds - sort of like how some
> folks think that every AC/DC album in the last 15 years sounds the same.
>
> >
> > I've never thought
> > of them as serious in any respect.Come on, look at their cover art,
> > that should give it away.
>
> You gotta be s**ting me...
>
> Ever heard the expression "Never judge a book by it's cover"?
>
> Since when did we start judging the seriousness of a rock band (whatever
> that means) by their album covers?  A lot of BOC fans hate the cover of
> Heaven Forbid, calling it, among other things, "Cheezy" - does that make
> BOC less "serious"?  Metallica sold millions of copies of an album
> (Load) whose cover art was made when some guy jerked off and mixed the
> result with pigs blood.  How about Sabbath's "Sabbath Bloody Sabbath"
> album cover?  Almost looks like something Spinal Tap might have done.
>
> Sorry if that seemed like a rant, but to me, album covers are just
> artwork that often have little to do with the musical content contained
> within.  Not always of course, but often enough.
>
> John

point taken, yes. But Iron Maiden's mascot Eddie, as well as Derek Riggs who
did basically all the covers up to "Fear of the Dark", are very integrated
with the band. If you were to study their cover art you'd see all sorts of
little jokes and references to their older material. Their shows also have
ridiculous props that are derived from cover art, including giant puppets
that fight with the band members.

In fact, I got into Iron Maiden (when I was 11) simply because I loved the
picture on the cover of Powerslave. I had never heard them before that, nor
did I know anything about them. In the same way I later got into Dio,
unfortunately, and even once picked up (for $3) a used ELO record because of
the cool spaceship on the cover. They're awful! This shows though that in
certain cases, cover art accurately depicts the music contained within.
Sabbath Bloody Sabbath has a generic, satanic picture on the cover. And what
is the actual song "Sabbath Bloody Sabbath"? A lame, commercialized attempt
to point out obvious flaws in Christianity, that's what it is!