Is Iron Maiden Progressive?

bizarrelly metal hammer claims iron maiden have been a progressive band since seventh son of a seventh son in their list of top ten best prog bands

Thoughts?

Well, I wouldn't take what they say at a boxing forum too seroiously. That's like taking life life lessons from Rocky Balboa......

I consider them classic metal, but they do have progressive leanings - listen to A Matter Of Life & Death and various other songs through their catalogue.

Mglaffas81 wrote:

Idiots like this keep me laughing for weeks - I bet none of them are over 15, and they shop at Hot Topic regularly.

- Check out some of the "Dave Mustaine vs. Kirk Hammet", "Dimebag vs. Mustaine" debates at YouTube - That had me rolling for weeks!!

Stuff like "Scru u, u f*cking idiot, Dimebag is tha man, n u kno it, u looser" ..just the funniest drivle ever

Hey dude I'm almost 14 and I don't say things like that so don't say that none of them are over 15 because there's a lot of people acting like idiot that are over 15|

Eyesore wrote:

On a boxing forum I post at, a bunch of idiots love to act like music experts. You know, Quiet Riot weren't influential, Guns N Roses is the greatest band ever, Dimebag sucks, etc...

Well, now they're saying that Maiden is a progressive metal band. Their justification:

1. Long songs.
2. Time changes.
3. Going from heavy parts to melodic.
4. Progressive lyrics (whatever that means).

I find those reasons to be laughable. So, is Iron Maiden progressive? I say absolutley not. They may have some progressive-leaning tunes, but I see them as a straight up heavy metal band.

Thoughts?

Well if the above rules are what makes a band a progressive metal band then I'd love to know what the idots on that forum think of the last Machine Head album.

"Progressive" does seem like an excuse to write songs that are often longer than need be. If that's "progressive", the yes Maiden are progressive.

However, if "progressive" means ever changing, then Maiden hardly qualifies.

To be honest I have never really undertood what the term progressive actually means. If someone described a band to me as progresive be that rock or metal I would think of bands like rush pink floyd and dream theater but never really knew what progressive meant. This thread has made me search for the answer and I came up with this rather interesting statement from Wikipedia, see what you make of this.

Progressive rock songs either avoid common popular music song structures of verse-chorus-bridge, or blur the formal distinctions by extending sections or inserting musical interludes, often with exaggerated dynamics to heighten contrast between sections. Classical forms are often inserted or substituted, sometimes yielding entire suites, building on the traditional medleys of earlier rock bands. Progressive rock songs also often have extended instrumental passages, marrying the classical solo tradition with the improvisational traditions of jazz and psychedelic rock. All of these tend to add length to progressive rock songs, which may last longer than twenty minutes. Songs can also have irregular chorus-verse structures, like David Bowie's song Quicksand, which has two choruses.

I use progressive in two different ways. Progressive as a genre which usually means complicated and fairly long songs that use influences from multiple music styles. When talking about Maiden being more progressive , I mean it has layers of sound that take more than one listen to fully aprecitate, it doesn't mean you won't like it the first time, but you hear a little bit more each time you listen (this is the same thing as when I said the second Allen-Lande album was more progressive than the first).

iron maiden arn't a progressive metal band but their songs have certainly gotten more progressive (i.e: for the greater good of god, the nomad)... but they have always had the progressive tinge right from the very beginning (phantom of the opera) right through to the mid-era stuff (alexander the great, seventh son, rime of the ancient mariner) ...

St Patrik wrote:

"Progressive" does seem like an excuse to write songs that are often longer than need be. If that's "progressive", the yes Maiden are progressive.

However, if "progressive" means ever changing, then Maiden hardly qualifies.

But, wha's longer than need be? There's no set time for metal songs. Some songs, depending on the lyrical content, song structure, mood, place on album etc, require greater length. Even the simplest of bands have long songs. AC/DC has "Night Prowler", which is 6:28; Aerosmith has "One Way Street", which is 7:02; the Rolling Stones have "Goin Home", which is 11:13. There's so much more to prog metal than time.

get_the_firehouse wrote:

St Patrik wrote:

"Progressive" does seem like an excuse to write songs that are often longer than need be. If that's "progressive", the yes Maiden are progressive.

However, if "progressive" means ever changing, then Maiden hardly qualifies.

But, wha's longer than need be? There's no set time for metal songs. Some songs, depending on the lyrical content, song structure, mood, place on album etc, require greater length. Even the simplest of bands have long songs. AC/DC has "Night Prowler", which is 6:28; Aerosmith has "One Way Street", which is 7:02; the Rolling Stones have "Goin Home", which is 11:13. There's so much more to prog metal than time.

Longer than need be is repeating parts more than what is neccesary, or adding parts that doesnt add to the excitement of the song, like for example long outdrawn intros, which Maiden has become very good at, much to my dismay. They then add a similar outro, only shortened. If anything, Maiden has become very predictable, because you can foresee just about every song starting off with a quiet intro even if it doesnt add to the song musically at all (Benjamin Breeg is a good example).

About six months ago I took all my Prog Metal, my Melodic Metal, my Power Metal, and my recent Traditional Metal and I programmed them all in together into my random shuffler into one big genre called "Recent Metal". Usually I don't like chaotic random playing, because I find having a melodic pop song followed by an extreme Death song to be jarring, but this has worked out just fine. Iced Earth and Ice Age get along with Primal Fear and Royal Hunt and Balance of Power just peachy. I don't have everything in there (no pure Doom, no NU-metal, no overt Retro, only a tinge of Goth); but I was really starting to find the genre distinctions between Prog, Melodic, Power, and Traditional too fine to fathom, so I integrated them all. End of problem for me. Sure, some songs are more complex, and some bands are more obviously progressive than others, but as I say, it works for me. Recent Maiden and Dickinson solo are right there in the middle of all that, but surely they aren't toward the most Progressive end of my spectrum, no.

I ask you - how can Dream Theater be a progressive band? Why? What kind of progress did they achieved? Perhaps this question is moving too far away from the original topic, so maybe we should create a new one, let me know ... Here's a description of progressive: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/progressive