Tuesday, April 29, 2014

Iron Maiden - Singles - Can I Play With Madness/The Evil That Men Do

When it comes to the Can I Play With Madness/The Evil That Men Do single there are certain parts of it I love, namely the music. The two single tracks, and the respective musical B-side are great. However anything on this album that doesn't contain music is pretty much nonsense. Even the Listen With Nicko! I just can't really get into this one. It's not a lack of a sense of humour either. I love Black Bart Blues, and that song is a right proper chuckle riot in the same concept of the original album version of Cheech & Chong's Black Lassie. It's the jibberish for the sake of jibberish that I find bothersome. But, on to the tracks themselves.

Can I Play With Madness is not one of my top five songs from Maiden. I don't think I would even put it in my top ten, but I do enjoy this song everytime I hear it. It's a great, fun, and upbeat track, that takes you on a journey.

I love Black Bart Blues. It's this great song, that's fun, funky, and all kinds of Iron Maiden trade mark bits and pieces. However, there's parts of this that are also totally comic in a subtle kind of way. As I've also mentioned the track reminds me of Cheech & Chong track as well. This is just so much fun. However, after the actual song completes there a whole bunch of silly pointless rambling outakes, that are slightly enjoyable, but not when they are running back to back to back.

Massacre isn't a bad track and if it followed directly after Black Bart Blues, without all that crap in between, it would be more enjoyable, although a filler. Filler and stock are two words that work well for this song.

The Evil That Men Do is one of those songs that I don't mind on albums, but I prefer it live. It's such a better song live. But that doesn't mean that it's not great on here and that I dislike it in anyway.

Prowler '88 is the classic track from the original self titled album, that the band decided to redo during the recording of the Seventh Son Of A Seventh Son album. The coolest part of this song to me is that it contains Bruce Dickinson doing his best Paul Di'Anno impression. It very litterally sounds that way to me.

The exact same thing can be said about Charlotte The Harlot '88. Both track are really good and I would love to hear more of those tracks redone this way. It would have been great.

Of the three parts I have in this series, Listen With Nicko! Part IX, is the one I like the least. I never listen to it and I'd rather read a transcript with only the facts in it.

By the end of this single disc, I'm happy I don't have to hear anymore of the forced silliness, but I'm craving more of the music. The music is so much fun.

7/10 - content

7/10 - production

7/10 - personal bias

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