Iron Maiden vs Misfits

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The workers. (Sighs, rolls eyes skyward) Forever spurning the social realism of their enlightened betters for expressionism and reactionary modernism! Substituting aestheticised violence for revolutionary politics! (True, "Run to the Hills" and "The Clansman" were explicit anti-imperialist polemics, but IM recorded those after allowing a member of the landowner class to turn the band into Supertramp-w/-codpieces)

― dave q, Monday, 9 June 2003 15:58 (twenty-two years ago)

alt q "Hallowed Be Thy Name" vs "I Turned Into a Martian", I find these fantasies actually 'work' they way I imagine they're supposed to (ie perceptual-derangement verging on slight discomfort through encountering stimuli one doesn't know how one is supposed to react to but being confined to the representational realm comfortably classified as 'escapist'), the latter due to diligent and painstaking accumulation of detail and former through the sheer ontological audacity of premise grafted onto relentless linear narrative structure

― dave q, Monday, 9 June 2003 15:58 (twenty-two years ago)

But that in and of itself is no dismissal - Supertramp was fundamentally anti-Establishment at least in terms of literal lyrical content, cf. "School", "Logical Song", perhaps even "Take the Long Way Home". However, insofar as the economic base of the band-corporation was rooted in the archaic system of patronage and the aesthetic base in classically defined 'musicianship', the anti-hegemonic aspects of these statements may be ultimately questionable, you are correct. It is also worth considering how much these statements actually serve to oppose the system and how much they actually serve to inculcate false consciousness by presenting atomised bourgeois individualism as rebellion. Still, this approach ignores the proletariat's ability to articulate non-prescribed meanings from these media constructions.

― sundar subramanian (sundar), Monday, 9 June 2003 16:12 (twenty-two years ago)

I quote Steve Harris from Paul Morley's Ask (interview May 1981):

"There's lots of different fings that I'm into that I don't particularly want to write about. I'm into football but I don't want to write a song about it. I might one day if I get the inspiration to write about football, y'know, or about anyfink. A lot of it is a fantasy fing. Y'know what I mean? People get a bit fed up with having politics rammed down their froats....people have like said to us, y'know, you're a working class band, why don't you write about where you come from? And about politics and that, and how hard done by you were and all that business, but, y'know, we don't want to..."

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Monday, 9 June 2003 16:23 (twenty-two years ago)

TS: "Where Eagles Dare" VS. "Where Eagles Dare"

― Mr. Diamond (diamond), Monday, 9 June 2003 16:29 (twenty-two years ago)

*mind=blown*

― Jon Williams (ex machina), Monday, 9 June 2003 16:37 (twenty-two years ago)

http://while1.net/~xm/misc/danzig.jpg

step into the coffinmobile

― Jon Williams (ex machina), Monday, 9 June 2003 16:37 (twenty-two years ago)

Unless what you meant was that Supertramp = "enlightened betters" and "w/ codpieces" = "substituting aestheticized violence for revolutionary politics" in content of original but then "Run to the Hills" should contradict this. Also, "Bloody Well Right" expresses nothing short of class struggle, can it be denied?

Agree with your analysis of "Hallowed . . .". Also notable perhaps is the appearance of religious imagery at climactic moments - "When the priest comes to read me the last rites".

― sundar subramanian (sundar), Monday, 9 June 2003 17:16 (twenty-two years ago)

Adore them both as if they were the long-lost members of my family (the ones I don't abjectly loathe with every disapointed fibre of my furrowed-browed being). But, as much I'll eternally salute the flag of Iron Maiden, said NWOBHM juggernauts never matched the sheer, bludgeoning rocktastic blunderbuss of Static Age-era MISFITS.

― Alex in NYC (vassifer), Monday, 9 June 2003 17:47 (twenty-two years ago)

I like 'em both too, but I favor Iron Maiden - literate, highbrow themes tempered by self-effacing presentation (Eddie, alcohol, football, "this is a song about what not to do when a bird shits on you"). Misfits - comic, pulp themes retrospectively sabotaged by self-mythologizing singer's descent into buffoonery and weight-lifting. But Maiden should've broken up after Powerage.

Also see Metallica's cover of "Green Hell", the end of which is immediately followed by band's piss-take on the intro to "Run to the Hills".

― Mr. Diamond (diamond), Monday, 9 June 2003 18:01 (twenty-two years ago)

But Maiden should've broken
up after Powerage.

You mean Powerslave. I now officially doubt your fandom.

― Alex in NYC (vassifer), Monday, 9 June 2003 18:35 (twenty-two years ago)

I think I was simultaneously thinking up my response to dave q's AC/DC thread.

― Mr. Diamond (diamond), Monday, 9 June 2003 18:43 (twenty-two years ago)

Haha..you're right, though. Maiden should've pulled the plug after Powerslave.

― Alex in NYC (vassifer), Monday, 9 June 2003 19:01 (twenty-two years ago)

"I don't wanna die, I'm a god, why can't I live on?"

― dave q, Monday, 9 June 2003 19:19 (twenty-two years ago)

― Mr. Diamond (diamond), Monday, 9 June 2003 19:34 (twenty-two years ago)

Maiden should've pulled the plug after Powerslave.

i.e. around the same time the Misfits should have too...

― Siegbran (eofor), Monday, 9 June 2003 20:59 (twenty-two years ago)

Maybe it is because I saw Maiden on that tour, but 'Somewhere in Time' is still pretty good, especially "Wasted Years" and "Caught Somewhere in Time".

Now '7th Son...', that one I didn't like very much and it was the last one I heard.

The Misfits are a different creature...very lo fidelity, very simple songs and all are quite short. The only one I had was the self titled one with the green skull face and I have had that CD forever. In fact, I think I picked it and Fugazi's "13 Songs" up at the same day and time.

I've listened to Iron Maiden hours upon hours more than The Misfits, so I give my vote to Eddie.

― earlnash, Monday, 9 June 2003 21:43 (twenty-two years ago)

For what it's worth, I am going, with some friends from the library, to the Iron Maiden/Dio/Motorhead show in August around here. It should be something (what, I don't know).

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Monday, 9 June 2003 22:00 (twenty-two years ago)

The nu-Misfits tune Dig Up Her Bones totally wishes it was an Iron Maiden tune (and as such is a good song).

― Jordan (Jordan), Monday, 9 June 2003 23:06 (twenty-two years ago)

this isn't even a fair fight - Glenn Danzig invented the shopping mall, therefore he loses

― J0hn Darn1elle (J0hn Darn1elle), Monday, 9 June 2003 23:13 (twenty-two years ago)

Glenn Danzig invented the shopping mall

Ummmmmmm.............what?

― Alex in NYC (vassifer), Monday, 9 June 2003 23:36 (twenty-two years ago)

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