When I've sat by the window and gazed at the rain

Continuing my trip back through the 1990 album charts.

07/10/90 : No Prayer For The Dying - Iron Maiden 

Our FIFTH visit with The Maiden - my opinion has tended to be that I can appreciate the skill involved, but it all sounds a bit similar to me and a lot of the tracks are way, way too long.  And no, we never owned this one (4/13).

I actually didn't mind "Tailgunner" (the opening track) and it was only 4:13 so that's a good start.  The rest of it is pretty similar, although I was amazed to recognise one of them - "Bring Your Daughter...To The Slaughter" which I remember got to #1 because they released it in the third week of January or something.  Overall, I wouldn't say I "enjoyed" this but I do think I found it more bearable than their previous offerings (but I'm not going back to them to compare) - I was quite reminded of some of Gary Moore's rocky stuff that I used to enjoy in my schooldays.  And you certainly can't fault the guitarwork on it...

We're at #2 with a new entry this week on the start of a five week run - which felt about what I'd expect, so I was somewhat surprised it came back for a six week run early in '91 (although I can see it's not exactly festive fare).  The rest of the top five are The Three Tenors, INXS and the two Michaels - George and Bolton.  And we have an interesting further pair of new entries in the top ten - The Shadows (#6) and Adamski (#8 - and he's a man who sports an interesting look these days).

Wikipedia tells me it's their eighth album and represents a return to their earlier style after a couple of more proggy efforts.  And whilst I might not have minded it so much, the critics weren't so impressed ("doesn't measure up", "plain, listless") and Bruce Dickinson most definitely wasn't ("It was a shit-sounding record, and I wished we hadn't done it that way").  It did pretty well commercially though - top twenty in most countries (and #37 in the Swiss year-end chart of '91!).

"Customers also listened to" Bruce Dickinson, Paul Dianno, British Lion and Blaze Bayley - I'm sure I'll love everything by all of them.  Iron Maiden just aren't my thing though - you know that, I know that, they know that.  But whilst their albums continue to pop up in the higher reaches of the charts, I will continue to endure them.

30/09/90 - Just doesn't go anywhere
14/10/90 - OK, but could have been so much better