Grand Prix Rejects

Say hello to death metal vocalist, Ed Miliband! Yes, seriously.

https://m.youtube.com/channel/UCuqyztiE6dXY9dUfN1UnYyw

I've enjoyed a lot of the remixes this guy has made, but I guess he does benefit from the fact that the original versions are pretty good too. I'd recommend checking him out though.

There you have it, the WORST music headline of 2018 (and maybe of the decade)



"She's now a Zombie"

DISGUSTING

AdrianBelmonte_ wrote:There you have it, the WORST music headline of 2018 (and maybe of the decade)



"She's now a Zombie"

DISGUSTING

Yeah, that's in bad taste. I imagine that's Spain's equivalent to The Sun judging by that headline?

FullMetalJack wrote:

AdrianBelmonte_ wrote:There you have it, the WORST music headline of 2018 (and maybe of the decade)



"She's now a Zombie"

DISGUSTING

Yeah, that's in bad taste. I imagine that's Spain's equivalent to The Sun judging by that headline?

It's actually a Mexican newspaper called Metro, but it is indeed the mexican The Sun

Sunflower Bean: "Twentytwo"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rMXvr6uIynY

Once every blue moon something excellent comes on the radio, and I must say that I haven't been able to stop listening to this since I first heard it.

So eurovision, i'm glad Hungary's song got trough to the final. It's nice to see a proper rock song that 1) isn't a joke (like Lordi) 2) is constructed properly (this one is catchy as hell) and 3) is sung properly
Also officially it's the first eurovison song ever in the genre 'post-hardcore' and i enjoy the nostalgic emo vibe.

No luck for my own country, but she screwed up the hook of the song, well obviously you're not gonna get big points if you screw up the one thing that makes your song stand out from others...

And well, who will come first? Israel or the egg?

Seriously no This forum either stands for good taste or horribly bad taste, not average taste.

This wrote:Seriously no This forum either stands for good taste or horribly bad taste, not average taste.

Don't blame me for picking my favourite based (almost) exclusively on looks, i'm a red-blooded male after all

Yannick wrote:This is an article on "50 amazing projects in pop music that never happened" http://www.theguardian.com/music/2016/a ... r-happened features an entry at #49 which is noteworthy for all intents and purposes of this here website. Please click on the link, read the intro and then scroll right down to #49 for the F1 connection.

I never noticed the #12 on that article until now, now i REALLY want that material to see the light

Sorry for the massive bump

Rest in Peace Keith Flint

It is Eurovision week, my dudes!

that's it, that's the post

PS: i'm rooting for Iceland, San Marino and, to a lesser extent, Finland, what about y'all?

The girlfriend and I are watching it as I type, and I will say the best of the first eight have been Slovenia and the Czech Republic. The first was super moody and awesome, and the second sounded right out of the mid-00s indie rock scene in England. The rest has been pretty mediocre, even Darude's song which was a little disappointing considering the hype here in Finland!

Sigh i don't get why San Marino got votes....probably trolls, it was really not good... And i call on France to win the whole thing.

And well... Iceland's entry.... was a thing.... Probably best that they kept the gore from the videoclip away.

About my country (Belgium) entry, well, right song, wrong singer.

This wrote:Sigh i don't get why San Marino got votes....probably trolls.

Trolls like us... i'm more than happy to see them in the final

As for Finland, maybe Darude should've gone the "Sandstorm 2: Electric Boogaloo" way

Missed the final three, but yeah, Iceland and Georgia were something else! I gave them points for originality at least! I put money on Belgium and Czech Republic to do well, though I maintain that Slovenia's moody 'xx-style' song is my favourite.

Rob Dylan wrote:Missed the final three, but yeah, Iceland and Georgia were something else! I gave them points for originality at least! I put money on Belgium and Czech Republic to do well, though I maintain that Slovenia's moody 'xx-style' song is my favourite.

Belgium's already eliminated well i can understand Slovenia, it's not entirely my thing but i understand why people would like it. The Czechs are always so hip in eurovision tho

I also had a bit of 'wtf australia?' moment.

Italy, why did you send Pastor Maldonado to Eurovision?

I love a novelty record so I loved the UK's 2018 Christmas number 1 hit, We Built This City on Sausage Rolls by LadBaby. It had the bonus of raising money for 70,000 food parcels for food banks in Britain.

This year, he wanted to raise more money for the Trussell Trust again, so there is a follow-up single, I Love Sausage Rolls. There is now also a swing version! Hope it makes it to number one again, even if only to see a charity single get to number one again...

It is time to re-awake the Jacques Villeneuve music thread. Because, idly browsing that site that begins with "Y", I've amused myself with some automotive, not necessarily F1-related commentary, while doing such mundane things as trying to restore my bathroom door. (Thrilling, I know.)

One such video is Josh Revell's 40-minute career autopsy for the Reject World Champion himself, which shouldn't be too hard to find. It does mention his musical "career", and ends with a parody of "Accepterais-tu?"... which has been given its own video.

And top quality keks were had at Jacques' expense.

Happy new Iron Maiden album day! I’m listening to it on a well-known streaming platform at the moment but rest assured, I shall be venturing into Bristol to buy a copy of Senjutsu later today!

roblo97 wrote:Happy new Iron Maiden album day! I’m listening to it on a well-known streaming platform at the moment but rest assured, I shall be venturing into Bristol to buy a copy of Senjutsu later today!

I've had Iron Maiden's 2000s-era albums on heavy rotation these last few months in preparation for it. Brave New World showed that everything was correctly intact and working properly and they no longer had anything to prove to anyone, hence every album from Dance Of Death onwards they had no need to make - they did so only because they wanted to. But I'm glad they have. I've been very rude about Dance Of Death in the past, only to have to revise my opinion a few years back when I found that it wasn't quite the mis-step that I'd thought (Age Of Innocence aside, that's still terrible even if you agree with all the Daily Mail headlines in it), while I can't understand the torrents of abuse hurled at The Final Frontier, beyond the fact that it's not an album that could ever have been made in the 1980s (for instance, The Talisman would have been cut to half its length in the LP era, but it'd have been compromised in the process, so I know what I'd rather have at this stage). I say to those who consider themselves fans, write these albums off at your peril!

While I'm here, I may as well add my official Angry Metal Guy style ranking of all the albums, which can be divided into three distinct phases. Check back later to see where Senjutsu slots into the Second Division.

FIRST DIVISION: THE GLORY DAYS
1. Seventh Son Of A Seventh Son
- Not a single weak moment to be found anywhere on it, and boosted by being the album that first alerted me to the existence of Iron Maiden when I'd barely turned nine (you can thank the presence of Can I Play With Madness on Now! That's What I Call Music 12 for that...).
2. The Number Of The Beast
- Damn near perfect though not quite, and even substituting Gangland for Total Eclipse as so many people want to do doesn't quite get it to the top.
3. Somewhere In Time
- A far better album than it's usually given credit for, and it gets better with age; the best artwork of them all, contains two of my all-time favourites, and none the worse for all the synthesisers and Bruce stepping back from the writing process.
4. Piece Of Mind
- Comes top of many lists, and only down this low as it's hamstrung by Quest For Fire that was the only track of the Glory Days to make it into my Bottom Ten, so I couldn't justify putting it higher.
5. Powerslave
- Not as consistent as its two predecessors (relatively speaking, there's a big hole in the middle) but showed they could write an enormous epic, have it approved by a conservative record company, and they even played it live.

SECOND DIVISION: THE DI'ANNO AND SIX-PIECE ERAS
6. A Matter Of Life And Death
- This is what happens when a band that's been in existence for 30 years and has nothing left to prove is completely let off the leash, and gets it right - even if it's a bit maudlin due to its subject matter.
7. Iron Maiden
- On the contrary, this is the culmination of the band's earliest years where they were finding their place; slightly disjointed by Early Instalment Weirdness (e.g. Strange World). Better production would have helped (such as what Killers was given).
8. The Book Of Souls
- "At this stage we're going to make an album that won't fit on a single CD and who's going to stop us?" There's a couple of tracks I'd have reduced to B-sides to get it down to a single CD but other than that, had it been their last album, it'd have made an excellent epitaph (much like Clockwork Angels was for Rush).
9. Killers
- 80% from the vaults of the early days and (Wrathchild aside), likely as not, the second-string tracks that weren't considered for the debut. It shows. At least the production was better.
10. Brave New World
- And all was right with the world once more, at the time. "Neither as good as you'd hoped nor as bad as you'd feared", said a friend of mine at the time, and I'd say he was right. Some of it was apparently written during the Blaze Bayley era...
11. The Final Frontier
- Almost fills a full-length CD, so the main argument against it is that it could do with some editing; however, after repeated listens I can't find anything really wrong with it, even this far down the ranking, and to do so requires nit-picking.
12. Dance Of Death
- The one album of the six-piece era that has clearly identifiable problems (and both the artwork and the Loudness War production are arguments for another day) even before we get to Age Of Innocence...

THIRD DIVISION: THE WILDERNESS YEARS
13. No Prayer For The Dying
- Proof that Adrian Smith was right; continuing down the path of Seventh Son... would have been a better idea than trying to make a "raw" album. Boosted because it's the first album I managed to get my hands on, so it was uphill from here.
14. The X Factor
- Yes, we know, Blaze Bayley wasn't the right choice, the argument has been done to death; this album is so gloomy it's actually hard to listen to all the way through. Boosted because this was the first album to be released after I'd become a fan and at the time the anticipation was worth it.
15. Fear Of The Dark
- Where it's good it's 1980s-level brilliant, where it's bad it's an utter catastrophe; do not be misled by the title track. Contains two of the band's three very worst mistakes amongst its ill-advised experiements, and of all the albums, this is the one that says "play me!" the least.
16. Virtual XI
- I'm not just dunking on Blaze here; trying to make a more 1980s-style album really showed up his vocal limitations; also, two of the band's Bottom Ten lurk within its eight tracks, where Fear Of The Dark at least spread its errors over 12 tracks.

Since I started my new job I've been listening to music on and off at work to help pass the time. Some new albums I've been listening to have included The Coral (thanks to Londoner's recommendation) and Rush. Rush are a band I've always liked but never delved deeply into. So I've listened to a lot of their early 80s records, of differing quality. "Subdivisions" and "Distant Early Warning" are great tracks, but I found both Signals and Grace Under Pressure both are very front-loaded: amazing first track, ok second track, then forgettable for the rest.

Rob Dylan wrote:Since I started my new job I've been listening to music on and off at work to help pass the time. Some new albums I've been listening to have included The Coral (thanks to Londoner's recommendation) and Rush. Rush are a band I've always liked but never delved deeply into. So I've listened to a lot of their early 80s records, of differing quality. "Subdivisions" and "Distant Early Warning" are great tracks, but I found both Signals and Grace Under Pressure both are very front-loaded: amazing first track, ok second track, then forgettable for the rest.

Potential hot take here: Power Windows is a better album than Grace Under Pressure, and Presto is better than its reputation.

dinizintheoven wrote:While I'm here, I may as well add my official Angry Metal Guy style ranking of all the albums, which can be divided into three distinct phases.

I can't argue with any of that, I'd maybe swap Powerslave and Piece of Mind depending on my mood. Blaze Bailey and Iron Maiden was up there with Him Out Of Extreme and Van Halen - you can see why they'd think it could work but it really didn't. I do consider the first two albums entities on their own though, they were both a heady mix of punk and metal, reeking with sweat, piss and stale ale from the Cart & Horses. Once they'd got to Number Of The Beast you can hear they believed they could be more than just another rowdy NWOBHM upstart.

I'm not even sure they all thought that Blaze was the right man for the job - it was just Steve Harris acting as judge and jury, because he was in the middle of All Of The Bad Times, going through effectively two divorces at the same time, one with his actual wife and the other with Bruce. Blaze's half-an-octave-lower voice suited the doom-and-gloom that 'Arry was serving up, seemingly forgetting that he'd also have to sing the older tunes. And in some cases, he couldn't - Run To The Hills was conspicuous by its absence from all the setlists from 1994 to 1998.

I have to wonder what might have been during those years, had one of the two major candidates to fill Bruce's void been given the nod. Apparently, Doogie White was all set to get the call to say "you've got the job" before Blaze usurped him; he ended up joining the reformed Rainbow and made an album before Richie decided to trade in his guitar for a lute. A Scot fronting Iron Maiden? It's no more unusual than an American fronting Judas Priest, and The Clansman would have taken on some new meaning, assuming 'Arry had decided to write it the same way. There are four covers out there with him singing; here's The Clairvoyant. The recording is a bit ropey (the tribute album it's from was made in Brazil, and I suspect the budget was about five old cruzeiros and half a stick of sugar cane), but it suggests he'd have done a fine job, even though he's bound to have take a ton of flak just for not being Bruce. The other candidate was Steve Grimmett - Grim Reaper and Onslaught had both split up by this point so he was at something of a loose end, but even while he was in Onslaught, all their fans were thinking "what's that fat, ugly bloke from Grim Reaper doing there?" and I can imagine that being an order of magnitude louder had he been recruited to Iron Maiden. He's got the range - and still has now - but he's always had this strange croak in his voice that means he can't be mistaken for anyone else (I find very hard to explain because it's so subjective and intangible but it's the same quality that marks Dido out from other female singers - does that help?) From the same compilation series, here's his take on Aces High. I don't think he'd have lasted much longer than Blaze in the role, mind - but much like the butterfly flapping its wings and causing a storm on the other side of the world, his later career is likely to have been boosted to the point that the reformed Grim Reaper weren't reduced to performing in underground clubs in Ecuador, so likely as not he'd have been in a better position to get medical attention when the infection struck that robbed him of his right leg.

I don't know if Steve Overland ever auditioned at the time, mainly because he still had a going concern with FM that he'd have had to stop (Wolfsbane were unavailable for comment). Here's his take on Can I Play With Madness, and I really can't see that working at all - his style is way too different from Bruce, probably because the radio-friendly (groan) AOR that
FM were making demanded he put on that false American accent as hard as he did.

I think I remember reading Toby Jepson being linked to Maiden at the time, too. Little Angels was coming to an end and he definitely had the range to do stuff like Run To The Hills. But even then, I'm sure we'd be looking back at his period, if he'd had one, as being not as good as what came before and after. Sometimes a bands chemistry can't just be replaced.

That's the first I'd heard of that. He might have done all right - and it'd have been yet another odd twist in the tale if (Paul) Bruce Dickinson had been replaced by the singer of the band that had Bruce (John) Dickinson on guitar...

Incidentally, a similar story can be seen across the Atlantic in California where a bunch of local stoner rock bands had a choice of Scott Reeders to pick in their line-up. Kyuss replaced Nick Oliveri on bass with Scott Reeder in time for Welcome To Sky Valley - alongside Brant Bjork on drums. Kyuss split up, Bjork (no, not that one) later joined Fu Manchu, and then he vacated their drumstool to be replaced by the other Scott Reeder.

And as if that wasn't confusing enough... check out the line-up of Sun & Sail Club.

It's been so long the Jepson thing could be a) my imagination or b) idle pub talk, no internet on phones back then to do a quick fact check.

As for the name thing I got nothing although I've always liked The Ramones....

@dinizintheoven - nice review of the album & some similar thoughts to your own regarding Maiden...

https://thequietus.com/articles/30489-iron-maiden-senjutsu-review

Heh! It even mentions Phantom Of The Opera being used on the Lucozade advert. That, though I didn't know it at the time, was my first ever contact with Iron Maiden, and I finally discovered that when I bought Live After Death at the end of 1994. It was the double-tape version, which has Phantom... as one of its extra tracks.

I've been thinking of writing a few "everything happens for a reason" bullet points here and there, once I can put enough of them together - always along the lines of "something that might be considered to be bad, but turns out good in the end" - for instance, that time George Russell crashed behind the safety car, it's better for that to have happened when it did, in a back-of-the-grid car, when he can learn from that mistake - rather than at Sahkir later in the season when he was driving Lord Lewis' car, or in 2022, where there's rather more limelight on him. What "happened for a reason" in Iron Maiden's case was the recruitment of Blaze Bayley - I still think he did a passable job under difficult circumstances, and was an excellent leg-up for his post-Maiden career; but given that just about everyone else thought his presence was a mistake, it made Bruce's return (and Adrian's) all the better. If they'd gone with Doogie White or Steve Grimmett, I can bet we wouldn't have had 22 years of the six-piece line-up, Adrian might have quit music again and gone fishing, Bruce might have made more documentaries about planes in between solo albums, and Iron Maiden might have faded into the irrelevance that was predicted for them in the 90s, just... slower that they would have done with Blaze. Everything happens for a reason.

Well, that Eurovision Song Contest was a bit of an omnishambles this year, all starting with Russia continuing to be banned whilst Israel is not. Then we had whatever happened on the Friday night that caused one of the favourites to win, the Futch entry, to be banned, even though the media reports I read made the Israeli entry to be the aggressor, with the Irish entry also having some beef with her (although, to be fair, the Irish entry was clearly pro-Palenstine). Lots of boos for the Israeli entry in the Grand Final that led to pre-recorded clapping being played over the boos after the performance. And some countries, notably the Dutch, refusing to read out their scores live, and thus that Martin guy from the EBU, who is always good to go, also getting booed, for being seen not to take a firmer stance on Israel.

All of this detracting from the fact that two non-binary people made the top-5 in the final results, being the winners Switzerland and the aforementioned Irish entry.

dr-baker wrote: ↑12 May 2024, 12:58 Well, that Eurovision Song Contest was a bit of an omnishambles this year, all starting with Russia continuing to be banned whilst Israel is not...

I can answer this one - countries are banned from competing if they are at war with another member country of the EBU. Therefore Russia are banned whereas Israel are not.
It's also worth pointing out that Israel in Eurovision are effectively representing their broadcasting company, not the governement. And their song this year was considerably anti-war until it had to be toned down.

Barbazza wrote: ↑12 May 2024, 16:31

dr-baker wrote: ↑12 May 2024, 12:58 Well, that Eurovision Song Contest was a bit of an omnishambles this year, all starting with Russia continuing to be banned whilst Israel is not...

I can answer this one - countries are banned from competing if they are at war with another member country of the EBU. Therefore Russia are banned whereas Israel are not.

Well, that's an interesting distinction for them to make, and could be a whole other discussion as to the rights and wrongs of doing so...

As I recall, they bent over backwards to try to find a way to include Russia but it was just impossible as Putin had no real interest in giving in to the EBU (not surprisingly) and his TV company wouldn't guarantee to send songs that weren't political in any way.

If Palestine were a) A recognised country and b) In the EBU I would hope that Israel would get the same treatment. And the EBU did insist they change the song they'd put forward.

Of course, the main problem is that you can't possibly stop national juries and / or televoters making it political by voting for Israel to make a point, so the whole thing is a mess. It's supposed to be a rather silly, fun affair after all, and this year's contest wasn't really that at all.

Oh, and Croatia were robbed. I'll shut up now!

Barbazza wrote: ↑13 May 2024, 19:29

Oh, and Croatia were robbed. I'll shut up now!

Croatia and the Netherlands were my two favourite entries this year. They were both robbed!

Barbazza wrote: ↑12 May 2024, 16:31

dr-baker wrote: ↑12 May 2024, 12:58 Well, that Eurovision Song Contest was a bit of an omnishambles this year, all starting with Russia continuing to be banned whilst Israel is not...

I can answer this one - countries are banned from competing if they are at war with another member country of the EBU. Therefore Russia are banned whereas Israel are not.
It's also worth pointing out that Israel in Eurovision are effectively representing their broadcasting company, not the governement. And their song this year was considerably anti-war until it had to be toned down.

By that logic Azerbaijan should be banned too, theres just a lack of consistency in the EBU's decisions. It also seems the Isreali delegates harassed a shite ton of other candidates, not just Ireland.

I did love the fact that i(s been a shitshow again. I unironically love it.

Favourites
1 Finland
2 Ireland
3 Croatia
4 Switzerland
5 Netherlands
6 Estonia
7 Norway
8 Armenia
9 Austria
10 San Marino

HB mentions to France, Spain, Portugal, Serbia, Slovenia, Lithuania and Luxembourg for all doing stuff i genuinely liked. This was a very good quality year overshadowed by other events.
Dishounorable mentions for my own country Belgium for having a lot of potential but being a bit of a mess.

The less said about that one country, the better. Though i feel that boycotting them actually gave them a better chance to win, and imagine them having to host next year...