Metal Reviews

Ballads for the most part are pop songs....I dont see how this helps your argument.

Because someone actually FEELS their music and FEELS that a ballad is the best way to get a certain feeling across, that makes it pop?

Can you really be that ignorant?

yes.

Fates Warning never wrote any ballads, and their music has more feeling during a drum fill than Iced Earth will ever have....at least Fates Warning with Jon Arch.

and I don't see how you're helping the argument, that didnt answer my question at all.

Again, opinions are nothing unless based in fact. Your opinion is not based in fact.

And maybe you should go back an listen to Fates Warning and rethink your statement.

I guess it's more entertaining for you this way.

I review stuff here, remember? Under 'Aaron.' I'm a moderator in the Reviews forum and in the Alt. Metal and Other Borderline Genres forum.

It was a recent thing.

never knew you review stuff under Aaron.

Heh, if it wasn't for the fact that I joined the forums before I started to review stuff, my name would just be Aaron@metalreviews.com.

So the confusion is understandable.

[quote="Holy_Terror"]Fates Warning never wrote any ballads, and their music has more feeling during a drum fill than Iced Earth will ever have....at least Fates Warning with Jon Arch.[/quote]

Umm...because they didn't feel like writing a ballad then? So? You missed my point anyway, which is that Iced Earth doesn't write a slow song to get a "pop" song on the radio. They write one because they feel like it. I can't imagine a song like "Ghost of Freedom" being anything other than a slow song.

Besides, the meaning of the word ballad seems long lost, since "slow song" and ballad aren't even the same thing. By definition, "The Guardian" is a ballad (since old Fates Warning was referenced). The idea of doing a slow song for the right reasons was ruined in the 80s by the oversaturation of "power ballads" on pop radio. How can a slow song like "Melancholy (Holy Martyr)" be considered even remotely pop if it would never even be considered for pop radio?

Pop music is music designed for pop radio, slow or fast. There is a big difference between the umpteenth slow song about "losing my love in the rain" and a song about the crucifixion.

So are those Iced Earth songs slow songs or ballads? The Guardian was orignally supposed to be an acoustic instrumental, but they added lyrics and heavy guitars at the end....that speed the song up, thus not making it a ballad, or a slow song. There's no mistaking it, old Fates Warning didnt have the same motives for writing a song that Iced Earth have. Jon Schaefer is the kind of guy that would write a song so that it would be on the radio, and he could become more popular. So again it is an opinion, its just that my opinion of Iced Earth is very very low.

Fates Warning is known for the fact that they pushed for radio airplay at points in their career. That's one of the reasons they changed styles so many damn times.

Ballad:

1. A narrative poem, often of folk origin and intended to be sung, consisting of simple stanzas and usually having a refrain.
The music for such a poem.
2. A popular song especially of a romantic or sentimental nature.

A ballad doesn't have to be slow. "The Guardian" is very sentimental and therefore fits the definition. "Melancholy" is just what the title implies and actually kind of anti-sentimaental. "Watching Over me" is a ballad though. Still, it was never released as a single and was therefore not intended to get radio airplay, so how could you call it "pop" in any way? "Melancholy" thematically is too much for radio airplay and was released as a single, despite the fact that Jon knew it would never see the light of day on pop radio. The "When the Eagle Cries" (a ballad) video was banned on MTV due to its theme. The other single released off that album was WAY too heavy for pop radio.

You can dislike IE all you want. That's up to you, but what I've stated above is fact. You can have your opinions, but using them to give credence to your argument without facts to support them isn't going to work.

Well I meant Fates Warning's first three albums, and I'm not trying to make it seem like you guys should agree with me. Like we said before its just an opinion. We're both trying to convince the other that each respective person's opinion is right, and its just not going to work. I don't like ballads, and I don't like Iced Earth...at least not anymore. Fighting over it is pointless. Lets just agree that we like metal. I'm tired of fighting, and I'd really like to stop. Why don't we talk about how awesome Fates Warning is....at least the first 3.

Not a big fan of Arch's vocals. Sorry. He wrote good songs though.

that he did.

Have you seen the DVD that comes with the new version of Guardian?? Man, Arch hits some HORRIBLE notes! He tries to do these ridiculous runs and shit, it's just terrible. Great vocalist, but man, that concert footage is so bad!

it must have been so difficult for him to recreate those vocal lines live. Even Hansi has problems, I saw BG live in Detroit, and Hansi's vocals were terrible, he was skipping high notes and leaving whole verses out...he was just holding the mic out to the audience and hoping that enough people knew the words to carry the tune for him. So don't be too quick to judge a performance like that. I'm sure it wasn't characteristic of FW live shows.

If you watch Blind Guardian's latest dvd he does the same thing on it.

Don't read too much into Hansi's audience participation. He just likes to do it, especially since it helps fill in where the choirs have been widdled down to four people.

No one hits all their high notes live. It's just too hard to go outside your more comfortable ranges every night for an entire tour. Bruce Dickinson skips some high notes too. Both of them usually use their upper register and falsetto for screams anyway, which gets hard on you after a while. These guys prepare thier voices and arrange their live vocals to withstand night after night of punishment.

My problem with Arch isn't just live. I think his voice, while possessing great range, is too thin, and he frequently slips out of tune even on album versions. Some of his runs just make me cringe. At least he had emotion though, which his replacement tends to lack.