Battle of the TITLE tracks!

[Charger]

We haven't had a good music discussion/battle in a long time so I thought this might be a fun idea.

Let's do something of a battle of the Title Tracks from our favourite bands and albums.

So the idea is that we'd take this band at a time and put their album title tracks in order best to worst (or to be more precise favourite to least favourite) all through out the bands career.
Ofcourse some bands will have more title tracks than others so some lists might be very short.

We can ofcourse also have open discussion about those title tracks as well...what makes them good what doesn't.


So which band should we start with?

I know...

BLACK SABBATH


That's an easy one to start with I'd say....




1. Heaven And Hell
2. Sabbath Bloody Sabbath
3. The Mob Rules
4. Black Sabbath
5. Headless Cross
6. Eternal Idol
7. Forbidden
8. Born Again
9. Paranoid
10. Never Say Die
11. Seventh Star


That's my list....what are yours?

[Vyn]

1. Paranoid
2. Black Sabbath
3. Sabbath Bloody Sabbath
4. Heaven and Hell
5. The Mob Rules
6. Eternal Idol
7. Headless Cross
8. Born Again
9. Seventh Star
10. Forbidden
11. Never Say Die!

[KiloDeltaCharlie]

1. Sabbath Bloody Sabbath
2. Heaven & Hell
3. Eternal Idol
4. The Mob Rules
5. Black Sabbath
6. Paranoid
7. Seventh Star
8. Forbidden
9. Headless Cross
10. Never Say Die (but has grown on me a little over the years)
11. Born Again (dreadful song!)

[Jack the Stripper]

1. Black Sabbath
2. Heaven and Hell
3. Sabbath Bloody Sabbath
4. Paranoid
5. The Mob Rules
6. Never Say Die
7. Eternal Idol
8. Seventh Star
9. Forbidden
10. Headless Cross
11. Born Again

[Charger]

As I kind of expected no two lists would be the same which is ofcourse great.

Born Again is a bit of a sludgy song for sure...Ian's vocals are great but it seriously lacks punch...it's just not going anywhere.

But Vyn? Paranoid #1?? What's that all about? The crowd demands explanation!

[Vyn]

But Vyn? Paranoid #1?? What's that all about? The crowd demands explanation!

Hahaha, yeah, about that...

When Paranoid came out, I heard it on the radio. It was the first song from Black Sabbath I knew about, and it blew me away. It gets the number one spot for that reason alone. Ozzy's voice, the riff - hearing that between something by the Archies and followed by whatever Three Dog Night's latest was, it made a huge statement to my young mind. A more objective appraisal of the song from today's perspective would place it somewhat lower down the list.

But as a plaintively authentic song with no bullshit added, it hit me like no other when I was a kid.

[Jack the Stripper]

First impression means a lot when it comes to music. I could’ve had anyone of my top 5 at number 1 on any given day, but I’ll always do a pecking order on first impressions if I’m having trouble separating them. Paranoid is a great song. Theres a reason why they closed with it every night.

[Charger]

Well the reason they played it as an encore was because it was the big commercial hit and a growd favourite.


But yeah I can fully understand the power of the first impression. That's why I hold albums like Dehumanizer, The X Factor and Jugulator so I high as they were the first albums from those bands that I ever heard and that means those were the soundtracks of my life at the time. Same for the albums that came after them, Cross Purposes, Virtual XI and Demolition. I lived those albums so I still love them to death.


I do also agree that the simplicity of the song is it's driving force...but for me it is also it's biggest downfall.

[Jack the Stripper]

There’s no downfall or negative about Paranoid. Yeah it was a commercial hit, but only for those that are now in their late 50’s/60’s and 70’s which would be more in the minority fan base these days.

[Charger]

Well time to move on...
let's try

IRON MAIDEN next!


1. Iron Maiden
2. Dance Of Death
3. Seventh Son Of The Seventh Son
4. Caught Somewhere In Time
5. Fear Of The Dark
6. Powerslave
7. Number Of The Beast
8. Killers
9. Book Of Souls
10. Brave New World
11. No Prayer For The Dying
12. Final Frontier
13. Senjutsu

[KiloDeltaCharlie]

Hmm, I need to think about that, I'll come back to you!

EDIT:
OK I've had a think about it. One thought that crossed my mind is that quite often the title track is far from the strongest track on the album... not saying they're all bad mind, just that there are usually better songs on each album!

1. Powerslave
2. The Number of the Beast
3. Seventh Son of a Seventh Son
4. Iron Maiden
5. Final Frontier
6. Brave New World
7. Dance of Death
8. Caught Somewhere in Time
9. Killers
10. Fear of the Dark
11. Book of Souls
12. Senjutsu
13. No Prayer for the Dying

[Jack the Stripper]

1. The Number of the Beast
2. Iron Maiden
3. Powerslave
4. Killers
5. Caught Somewhere in Time
6. Seventh Son of a Seventh Son
7. Fear of the Dark
8. Brave New World
9. Dance of Death
10. The Final Frontier
11. No Prayer for the Dying
12. The Book of Souls
13. Senjutsu

[Charger]

EDIT:
OK I've had a think about it. One thought that crossed my mind is that quite often the title track is far from the strongest track on the album... not saying they're all bad mind, just that there are usually better songs on each album!

That is quite true indeed...Same was with Sabbath but with Maiden it's maybe even more evident... I'd say that Dance Of Death, Fear Of The Dark and Seventh Son are the only ones that are the best from those albums.

Powerslave is on the other end of the spectrum as it's on the bottom half of the songs from that album.

[Zzzptm]

Hang on, lemmee rank my Sabs tunes...

1. The Mob Rules
2. Heaven And Hell
3. Sabbath Bloody Sabbath
4. Paranoid
5. Seventh Star
6. Eternal Idol
7. Never Say Die
8. Black Sabbath
9. Born Again
10. Headless Cross
11. Forbidden

 I worked from the bottom up, with Forbidden and HC as my lowest two. The sludge on Born Again ruins what could have been so much better. Black Sabbath coming in at 8 will likely shock, but I never did cotton to it when I was a kid and it never caught on with me later on. NSD needs better production, but I don't think it would rank higher with the 5 above it.

Yes, I put Seventh Star in at 5. That song gets stuck in my mind in a good way from time to time and I like that. Having heard non-album versions of the tune only makes me like it more.

I heard both Heaven and Hell and Paranoid on the radio before I bought Sabs albums, but The Mob Rules totally captured my attention from the Early Dio era and Sabbath Bloody Sabbath was on the first Sabs album I actually bought because I didn't have a lot of cash and it was in a markdown bin at the record store. So I bought it, felt creepy about the cover, and got BLOWN AWAY by the opener, so that's why it's above Paranoid for me.

[Zzzptm]

Now for the Irons...

1. The Number of the Beast
2. Powerslave
3. Fear of the Dark
4. Brave New World
5. The Final Frontier
6. Seventh Son of a Seventh Son
7. Caught Somewhere in Time
8. Iron Maiden
9. Killers     
10-13. TIE because they are kinda all the same song to me... The Book of Souls, Senjutsu, No Prayer for the Dying, Dance of Death

 
Started at the top - Number of the Beast and Powerslave are Peak Maiden in my opinion. If Still Life had been titled Piece of Mind, it would be in at number one.

Then there are the rest... I honestly remember my big disappointment in hearing the synthesizers at the start of Somewhere in Time - had Maiden gone the route of Van Halen took with 1984, I wondered... the rest of the song after the intro picked up, though. There's also the meh I felt about the DiAnno years and feeling burned after Seventh Son, even though I really liked the title track. A lot of Maiden sounds like the same song, over and over, especially in the longer tunes, they all seem to follow the same plot.

The Final Frontier stands out from that group. It is more straight-ahead metal, not faffing about with the intro or endless meedly-meedly solos. That goes in at 5 for me. That's because I like the Jethro Tull-like opening of Brave New World even more than TFF.

Fear of the Dark is brilliant stuff, that goes in at 3.

Made it a tie on my bottom 4 because they all blend in with each other. If someone made a megamix with those, I really wouldn't know when one got mixed into the other.