I try to call the Earth's command

Continuing my trip back through the 2010 album charts.

22/08/10 : The Final Frontier - Iron Maiden

This is our fourth visit with the Maiden and both times previously I've appreciated the skill involved, whilst not being able to differentiate one song from the next.  And I have absolutely no expectation that things will be any different here.

Sigh - 76 minutes.  And it's only ten tracks - there are two over nine minutes and it ends with one that comes in at over eleven minutes!  There is, however, more variety here than I remember on their previous efforts - it's not variety I particularly enjoy, but I can appreciate the skill involved and I didn't mind "The Talisman" (but if it had only been, I don't know, a mere seven minutes long then I would have liked it more).  If you don't like this kind of thing, then you're not going to like this - if you do like it, then you're not going to care that I don't particularly.  So let's just leave it there...

We're at #1 in the charts this week with a new entry at the start of a six week fan - they've a limited fanbase, but they've been very loyal over the years (they've had 45 albums in the chart since '80, with 26 of them making the top ten and five of them reaching #1).  The rest of the top five were Eminem, The Saturdays (another new entry), Plan B and Arcade Fire and we have one more new entry in the top ten with The Hoosiers at #10.

Wikipedia has a surprising amount on the album, doubly surprisingly because all it really says is "this album exists" - there are absolutely no facts of interest at all.  The critics were pretty complimentary about the album, although apparently it's one of their more challenging offerings (I'll take their word for it).  It did well commercially as well, getting to #1 in 28 countries but only made it to #4 in the US - still not a bad effort though!

"Customers also listened to" Paul Di'Anno, Bruce Dickinson and Blaze Bayley - you have one guess which band they've all been associated with.  All of it is very much not my kind of thing, but I "appreciate" that Iron Maiden do it well and they obviously give a lot of people a lot of pleasure, so all the best to them.

15/08/10 - One I'd like to like more than I did
29/08/10 - Not his best for me

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