1. Cut n' Paste mixing. Seriously, what the fuck is up with that? It pisses me off. If I wanted to listen to Maiden's live sound, I'd put on one of their five (nay, seven if you consider Eddie's Archive) live albums. And might I make a suggestion to the boys; if you want to capture your live sound, it would probably be a good idea to not cut and paste different bits of different takes of a song together. Because that's stupid. Really, really stupid. I'm no mega-music buff who notices every shift in tempo, but I did notice the shifts in tempo on Dance of Death it left me scratching my head. Don't do it. You can record a great album properly.
2. Acoustic plunking bass intros. Now back at the beginning of 2004 when my friend Stacey first leant me Seventh Son of a Seventh Son and Brave New World, I thought that the intros for songs like Ghost of the Navigator and Blood Brothers were awesome. Same goes for all the other clean guitar parts in the album.These days, it just kills the flow of the album for me. The obsession Steve apparantly has for these kinds of intros has gotten to the point where it makes me cry because it's really not very interesting anymore. Yes it sounds fantastic on some songs but not on half the damn album. Stop it.
3. Janick's songwriting. Stop being so fucking unoriginal, Jan! You can write such amazing songs when you are original, and even a couple when you're not, but please just stop it! I don't want to be listening to the new Maiden album and get to a song that begins with a riff stolen from a bandmate on the last album and then find a melody straight out of an album you played on 14 years ago! And Steve: if he's got nothing original to contribute then don't let him contribute! No it's not fucking harsh I love Jan's original songs but I'm sick of hearing songs which sound that same as other songs over and over! What? I'm not listening to Lord of the Flies!! I'm listening to the album Dance of Death but I just heard the exact same opening to that song! Fuck!!
4. The setlist not being changed enough to allow Blaze to give a 100% decent performance when he was in the band. Blaze cannot sing songs like The Trooper, The Number of the Beast and Hallowed Be Thy Name. I'm sure however, that he could sing songs like Phantom of the Opera, Prowler and Innocent Exile had they been included in the set. Yes it is slightly amusing that Steve (I assume it's Steve) was so stubborn he didn't want to lose the classics from the set, but it would have been for the best.
5. Steve writing Bruce's vocal melodies. No. Bruce is more than capable of writing his own vocal melodies, which I'm sure wouldn't invlove him singing so fast that the words all-but jumble and too high that he sounds scratchy. And yes I am talking about the song Dance of Death.
6. Jan playing Adrian's solos. Now I'm aware of the problem here; the problem being that, since Jan wasn't around for the first seven albums he doesn't get to do much when they play those songs (this will be an even bigger problem on he Early Days tour). I'm also aware that Adrian and Janick worked out which of H's solos Janick should take. I'm aware of all of this. But I really don't care, because it still pisses me off. I don't dislike Janick as a guitarist but I don't want to hear him playing Adrian's solos. Especially Hallowed Be Thy Name. I know this is necessary because otherwise Janick would spend half teh time wondering around looking like a lemon until they played a new song, but that's not the point. This is about what pisses me off, and hearing Jan play and mess-up one of Adrian's solos pisses me off. I will say though that they don't sound awful... just not great.
7. Steve doing more things than he should. He's not an editor. Granted, he doesn't do a bad job, but it could have been done better, and really it should have been (I am of course talking about the Rock in Rio DVD, which I don't actually own yet, but I have seen bits of the DVD, and that's enough for this). Having said that, the job he did on Maiden England was fine.
8. Get a proper producer (i.e. someone who'll do their job). Hell, get Roy Z.
9. All this fucking rubbish that's being sold at Eddie's Megastore. Now I'm 99.999% certain that it's not the band's decision to release Iron Maiden socks, Iron Maiden post-it-notes, Iron Maiden coffee matts and Iron Maiden fucking dildos and that it is, in fact, EMI being cunts. But it's just embarassing, to be honest.
10. The Angel and the Gambler. I think you know why.
That's that then. Everyone makes mistakes.