Music, My Stories, Treating Fans Like Shit

The Death of the Cheap Seat

Concerts used to be the great equalizer. Didn’t matter if you were broke, working doubles at the gas station, or borrowing money from your parents—you could scrape together twenty bucks, buy a nosebleed, and still be in the room when the lights went down. You weren’t just watching music. You were part of something bigger.

That was the dream. The cheap seat meant access. The cheap seat meant community. The cheap seat meant everyone could enter the temple.

Now the temple’s got velvet ropes and algorithms at the door.

Michael Rapino gets onstage at yet another industry conference and calls concerts “underpriced.” Underpriced. The man who pocketed $100 million last year for running Live Nation, the company that turned fandom into a line item on a quarterly report, thinks you and I should be grateful for the privilege of paying triple digits to see our favorite bands.

His defense? 

Averages. 

The “average ticket” is $72, he says. Which is like a billionaire telling you the average American’s rich because Jeff Bezos lives here. Fans don’t experience averages. 

Fans experience chaos: 

Ticketmaster’s queues that crash, surge pricing that turns your phone into a slot machine, bots that eat the inventory before you even get a chance.

And none of that matters to Rapino. His job isn’t to make concerts magical. His job is to keep shareholders fat and happy. Lock down venues, ticketing, promotion, control the whole “flywheel.” No competition, no innovation, just fees on top of fees.

And here’s the thing: Rapino makes obscene money off culture but creates none of it himself. He doesn’t write the songs. He doesn’t play the shows. He doesn’t stand in the pit or wait in line. He’s just a toll collector at the gate. Steve Miller said it flat-out in his Rock Hall of Fame speech, how the suits profit off musicians while contributing nothing to the art. Rapino’s empire is built on that exact imbalance. 

Concerts are underpriced? 

No. 

They just haven’t squeezed you enough yet.

Metallica’s 2025 Australian tour? 

Gone. 

Sold out before you could blink. Standard tickets running all the way up to $750, plus the insult of a “handling fee” slapped on like salt in the wound.

And that’s before the upsells, the premium reserves, the GA “enhanced experiences.” Those packages where you pay through the nose to feel like you’re not just a customer, but a valued customer.

Metallica still sells out because they’re one of the last universal rock metal bands. They are your dad’s band, your band, your kid’s band. The music has never been more available, stream every album in seconds, watch pro-shot live clips on YouTube for free. But the live experience, the reason you picked up a guitar or threw yourself into a pit, that’s become luxury-priced.

And yet, the shows still sell out. Which tells you everything. The desire hasn’t gone away. Fans will always pay. Until they can’t.

Dream Theater hits forty years, and their anniversary tour is already a test of devotion.

Melbourne? $159 just to get in.

Brisbane? $229. 

Adelaide fans reporting $189 GA, with some reminiscing about the days you could walk in for $124.

Still cheaper compared to Metallica but… 

Buying a ticket isn’t just an act of fandom anymore, it’s calculus. How much is too much? How many fees can you stomach? How many rows back until it’s not worth it? The music is meticulous, demanding, progressive. But the ticket-buying process is chaos, economics, market forces. It’s not prog, it’s Wall Street.

And the faithful still pay. Because that’s what it means to be a fan in 2026. You complain, you sigh, and then you show up anyway.

The Harsh Reality for Smaller Acts

But zoom out from Taylor Swift’s glittery Eras tour, the stadium gods, the more established bands and it’s brutal. The middle class of music is collapsing.

Smaller acts are grinding themselves into dust, endless tours through the same cities, like a clingy ex who doesn’t get the hint. Fans are tapped out, financially, emotionally. They’ve seen the show three times already. They’re not coming back just because you showed up again.

Add in the post-Covid hangover, ticket prices inflated, costs through the roof, and you’ve got an unsustainable mess. Vans turned into semis, sprinter vans into buses, overhead that kills. Meanwhile, fans are staring down their bank apps thinking: Do I really need to drop another forty bucks after paying a grand for Metallica last month?

This is where we are. Live music, once democratic, feels more like an airport lounge, corporate, exclusive, transactional.

And the problem isn’t just economics. It’s emotional connection. Fans don’t want perfect production anymore, they want authenticity.

The gatekeepers used to be labels. Now it’s fans. Viral one day, forgotten the next. The old formulas don’t work. The new ones aren’t obvious. The only constant? Connection. That’s it. That’s the whole game.

We’re in uncharted waters. The cheap seat is dead. The middle class of live music is bleeding out. The stadium shows are still printing money, but for how long?

The dream of concerts was always accessibility. Now it’s exclusivity. That’s the tragedy. Because the music hasn’t changed. The fans haven’t changed. Only the gatekeepers have.

And Rapino? He’ll keep cashing nine-figure checks off art he never made, off culture he never built. That was Steve Miller’s whole point when he stood at the Hall of Fame podium and called out the leeches: the suits don’t create, they extract.

The question is how long fans will let them.

The article.

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Music, My Stories

The Spotify Exodus: Rebellion or Ripple?

Massive Attack walked.

King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard followed.

Two vastly different bands, one forged in Bristol’s dark trip-hop underground, the other a shape-shifting psych-rock circus from Melbourne, both made the same call: enough is enough.

They’re done feeding the Spotify machine.

Done watching Daniel Ek, the company’s billionaire CEO, pour €600 million into Helsing, a military AI firm building drones and software that turns battlefields into data streams.

They didn’t just take a stance, they took their music.

Massive Attack framed it bluntly: “The hard-earned money of fans and the creative endeavours of musicians ultimately funds lethal, dystopian technologies.” They see a moral burden, an ethical line crossed.

King Gizzard’s Stu Mackenzie put it differently: “Sometimes you just forget that you have free will, you can do whatever you want in these spaces.”

He’s right. We’ve been trained to believe that Spotify is music, that to leave it is to vanish. But maybe that’s the illusion that needs breaking.

Let’s get real.

Spotify isn’t evil incarnate. It’s a business built on access, not ownership. But Daniel Ek didn’t invest his billions into music education, environmental tech, or art therapy. He backed military AI.

It’s an uncomfortable symmetry: artists lose their humanity to algorithms, and soldiers might too.

When Massive Attack say “another way is possible,” they’re not just talking about streaming, they’re talking about what kind of world art should fund.

King Gizzard’s exit was quieter, almost whimsical. They didn’t burn bridges or preach revolution. They just walked out the door, and left the lights on at Bandcamp.

They put all 27 albums, 64 live releases, and three EPs up for “pay what you want.” Free if you’re broke. Generous if you’re not.

That’s not a tantrum; that’s a philosophy.

They’re proving that independence isn’t death, it’s oxygen.

Mackenzie said it best: “You put music at the top of the triangle, and the other things fall on from that.”

That’s the antidote to the Spotify mindset, the one that treats artists as data points, playlists as pipelines, and art as brand collateral.

He’s not chasing virality or followers. He’s chasing truth through sound.

That’s the quiet rebellion: music first, platform second.

Still, let’s not get carried away.
For every King Gizzard or Massive Attack, there are a thousand acts terrified to leave. Spotify is the ocean now, and these are just two drops. You pull your songs and the algorithm doesn’t even flinch.

But movements don’t begin with mass adoption. They begin with moral friction.

They start when artists stop pretending that “neutral” platforms are actually neutral.

The question isn’t whether Spotify collapses tomorrow. It’s whether enough artists start to feel that same itch, that sense of complicity, that awareness that maybe streaming convenience comes at a deeper cost.

Maybe the measure of this movement isn’t who leaves next, but who thinks twice before staying.

Spotify will survive this. It’s too big, too embedded. The algorithm doesn’t care about conscience. But these withdrawals, these deliberate, defiant choices, chip away at the illusion that the creative economy is benign.

Maybe it changes nothing.

Maybe it changes everything.

But here’s what matters, they remembered they could say no.
They remembered that platforms don’t own music, people do.

And that, in itself, might be the start of something bigger.

Because history doesn’t remember the comfortable. It remembers the ones who walked out first.

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Influenced, Music, My Stories, Unsung Heroes

Ace Frehley: The Solos in the Shadows

I got into Kiss in the ’80s, but the poster on my wall was from the Destroyer era, four painted faces staring down from a cosmic skyline. Courtesy of my older brothers.

The songs I blasted, “Lick It Up,” “I Love It Loud,” “Tears Are Falling,” “Crazy Nights,” “Heaven’s On Fire,” “War Machine,” “I Still Love You,” “Creatures of the Night,” and my two obsessions, “Exciter” and “I’ve Had Enough”, didn’t feature Ace Frehley. But in my head, he was there. The Spaceman. Because that’s who I saw every morning when I woke up.

Now he’s gone.

Seventy-four years old. A fall. A brain bleed.

Just like that, the Spaceman fell back to Earth.

It’s an ending that feels both absurd and poetic. A man who claimed to be from another planet, who made his Les Paul sound like a supernova, taken down by gravity, the most human force of all.

Kiss fans and casual listeners know the iconic solos, “Love Gun”, “Black Diamond”, “Deuce” and “Parasite”.

Those solos burn. They’re anthemic, unmistakable, tattooed across rock history.

But this week, I pressed play on “Calling Dr. Love” and “Makin’ Love” from “Rock and Roll Over”.

And there it was. That tone. That feel.

You can’t copy it. You can’t dial it in.

That slightly behind-the-beat phrasing, that lazy drag, that human imperfection that somehow makes the whole band sound tighter.

“Calling Dr. Love”

The solo doesn’t rush in. It waits.
That tiny pause before he hits the first note, it’s everything. The inhale before the punchline.

When it lands, it doesn’t boast; it speaks.

Ace builds the solo like a conversation with the riff, a bend that teases, a double stop that grins, a tone that growls like an idling Harley. There’s humor in it. Swagger. Humanity.

That’s the secret: Ace could make the guitar sound alive.

“Makin’ Love”

Buried near the end of the album, it’s almost an afterthought in the catalog. But play it now, loud, and you’ll hear Ace at full confidence.

The riff is heavy, chugging, primal.
Then the solo rips in, a sharp exhale of defiance. But again, it’s not speed. It’s phrasing. Every line feels deliberate, like he’s carving the air.

He slides between melody and menace, blues phrasing inside a rock cage. The bends ache. The sustain hums. There’s sex in it, sure, but also frustration, humor, and that same smirk he wore behind the makeup.

It’s one of those solos you don’t analyze, you feel. And when it’s over, you hit repeat, not to learn it, but to understand it.

We talk about “tone chasing” like it’s a gear problem, pickups, tubes, pedals, wood. Ace proved it’s a personality problem.

Your tone is your truth.

Your personality. Your attitude. You can’t fake it.

Go back now. Start with “Calling Dr. Love”. Listen like it’s the first time.
Then put on “Makin’ Love”.

Listen closer.

Find the moments where he wasn’t trying to prove anything. That’s where the soul is. That’s where the magic hides.

Ace Frehley didn’t invent rock guitar. He humanized it.

He made it fun again. Dangerous again. Imperfect again. He made every fourteen-year-old kid believe they could plug in and matter.

That’s the legacy. Not the makeup. Not the pyrotechnics.

It’s that moment when your fingers hit the strings and you realize: you don’t need to sound perfect, you just need to sound like yourself.

Ace did.

Every single time.

And now, somewhere out there, the Spaceman keeps playing, still behind the beat, still in tune with the universe.

P.S.
While this piece has a Kiss edge, Ace’s solo career deserves its own orbit.

Start with “Rip It Out” from his 1978 solo album, the definition of controlled chaos.

Then jump to “Into the Night” from Frehley’s Comet (1987). Written by Russ Ballard, yes, but Ace owns it, that melodic, bluesy solo lifts the whole track skyward.

Different decade, same truth: Ace’s guitar didn’t imitate emotion. It was emotion.

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A to Z of Making It, Copyright, Influenced, Music, My Stories

Nothing’s Original, and That’s the Point

Every riff you’ve ever thrown horns to is a hand-me-down. Every chorus you’ve ever screamed at the top of your lungs is somebody else’s ghost wearing new leather. That’s the dirty little truth of rock and metal: it’s all borrowed, stolen, ripped apart, and reborn louder than before.

Music isn’t original. It’s immortal.

Take Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young’s “Carry On.” Gorgeous harmonies, that golden California glow, but underneath?

It’s Davey Graham’s “Anji.” No shame in it.

Zeppelin? They cannibalized Muddy Waters, Howlin’ Wolf, and Willie Dixon so hard they got dragged into court and still became gods.

Metallica built half of “Kill ’Em All” on riffs they lifted straight from Diamond Head. Nirvana took The Pixies’ soft-loud blueprint and weaponized it into a grunge anthem.

The “Burn” riff in G minor wasn’t just a Deep Purple opener, it was an embryo. Ritchie Blackmore lit it, Coverdale and Hughes sang it into history, and Glenn Hughes carried it forward like DNA in his bloodstream.

You can hear its shadow in Hughes/Thrall’s “I Got Your Number” (1982), sharpened in Gary Moore’s “Run for Cover” (1985), and reborn in John Norum’s “Face the Truth” (1992). Same pulse, shifted into F♯ minor, but undeniably the same bloodline.

Coverdale didn’t leave it buried either. With John Sykes, he bastardized the Burn riff into “Children of the Night” on Whitesnake’s 1987 juggernaut.

Sykes doubled down a year later, repurposing the same DNA into “Black Hearted Woman” with Blue Murder. Different bands, different contexts, but still the same riff in a new disguise.

What we’re looking at here isn’t plagiarism, it’s a dynasty. A single riff spawning offspring across decades, mutating as it jumped from band to band. Hughes carried it soulful and elastic. Coverdale and Sykes weaponized it for arenas. Each branch different, but every branch unmistakably part of the same tree.

This is how it works. It’s always how it’s worked.

We’ve been spoon-fed the myth of originality, the idea that every classic song is lightning in a bottle. But peel back the layers and you see the skeleton:

Deep Purple’s “Smoke on the Water”? Just a blues riff flattened and played like a war march.

KISS made a career Frankensteining Chuck Berry’s DNA into glam rock fireworks.

Motörhead was Little Richard played through a chainsaw, Lemmy spitting gasoline on the mic.

Mötley Crüe swiped Sweet’s glam strut and Aerosmith’s sleaze, turned it into Sunset Strip debauchery.

Whitesnake borrowed Zeppelin’s swagger wholesale and polished it for MTV.

Kingdom Come? They didn’t even pretend, just straight-up cloned Zeppelin and dared you to complain.

And it goes deeper.

Black Sabbath slowed down the blues until it sounded like an earthquake.

AC/DC took Chuck Berry riffs, plugged them into a Marshall stack, and built an empire.

Guns N’ Roses was Aerosmith if they grew up on heroin and nihilism. Every “new” sound is an echo chamber of something older.

The bands that matter don’t deny it, they double down. They take, they mutate, they make it their own:

Motörhead never apologized for playing Little Richard at 200 bpm.

Nirvana admitted the Pixies blueprint but twisted it into generational rage.

Metallica wore their Diamond Head influence on their denim vests and built a movement around it.

Even Deep Purple’s Jon Lord said it out loud: they were just a classical keyboardist and a blues guitarist smashing their worlds together.

That’s the alchemy. You take with intent. You stitch together parts until the monster lurches to life and crushes cities.

The irony?

The more derivative, the more universal. That’s why your brain locks into a riff before you even realize it’s been done before. A familiar structure, dressed up and set on fire, is irresistible.

KISS concerts didn’t sell out because they were original, they sold out because they gave you rock ’n’ roll you already knew in a stadium-sized package. Motörhead didn’t endure because Lemmy invented something brand new, they endured because he made rock’s ugliest roots sound like the apocalypse.

Music survives by being contagious. Like a virus, it spreads, mutates, infects. Sabbath to Metallica to Pantera to Slipknot, it’s all one family tree, just different branches twisting toward the sun.

So let go of originality. It’s a marketing gimmick. What matters is whether the riff hits your gut, whether the chorus feels like a mob chant, whether it makes you want to smash a beer bottle and howl at the night sky.

Because nothing’s original.

And nothing’s ever hit harder.

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Classic Songs to Be Discovered, Copyright, Derivative Works, Influenced, Music, My Stories

The Riff That Spawned a Dynasty

Some riffs are one-and-done. Others breed. The “Burn” riff, G minor, 1974, Deep Purple Mk III, isn’t just a classic. It’s a genetic code that’s been mutating for half a century, producing bastard children across bands, decades, and egos.

At the center?

Glenn Hughes and David Coverdale. The co-vocalists on “Burn.” One carried it like DNA in his blood (Hughes), the other twisted it into new forms with fresh partners (Coverdale).

The Glenn Hughes Line

Hughes/Thrall – “I Got Your Number” (1982): the first clear mutation, transposed into F♯m, slicker but still the gallop of “Burn.”

Gary Moore – “Run for Cover” (1985): Hughes on vocals again, Moore’s firepower channeling the same pulse.

John Norum – “Face the Truth” (1992): Hughes back at it, the riff sharpened into a darker ’90s hard rock blade.

Glenn doesn’t just sing. He drags the riff’s DNA forward, project after project, like a courier smuggling contraband across borders.

The David Coverdale / John Sykes Line

Coverdale didn’t let it die either. Teaming with John Sykes during Whitesnake’s MTV conquest, they bastardized the “Burn” riff into:

“Children of the Night” (1987, Gm): sleeker and turbocharged for the arenas of the late ’80s. Still “Burn”, just wearing more eyeliner.

Sykes wasn’t done. When he launched Blue Murder, he cloned his own mutation:

“Black Hearted Woman” (1989, Gm): “Burn” reborn again, heavier, moodier, drenched in Sykes’ Les Paul tone.

Coverdale and Hughes may have split paths, but both carried that same fire. One kept it soulful, elastic, shifting keys and contexts. The other turned it into arena thunder and hard rock melodrama.

But the story doesn’t stop there.

“Burn” didn’t come out of thin air. Nothing does. Ritchie Blackmore was reaching backward, too, straight into Gershwin.

Go spin “Fascinating Rhythm.” The horn stabs, the syncopation, the way it jerks forward like it’s about to combust. That’s the skeleton. Purple just plugged it into an amp and let it roar. Suddenly the city’s ablaze, the town’s on fire.

And it wasn’t just Hughes and Coverdale carrying the torch.

The infection spread further. Paul Stanley, yeah, the Starchild, was listening.

You can hear it in “I Stole Your Love.” Same pulse, same fire, dressed up in sequins and pyrotechnics.

Don’t take my word for it. Don’t argue. Hit play. The riff tells you everything.

The Family Tree

– “Fascinating Rhythm” (1924, George Gershwin) – the Jazz Standard

– “Burn” (1974, Deep Purple, Gm) – the hard rock origin.

– “I Stole Your Love” (1977, Kiss, C#m) – the first descendant

– “I Got Your Number” (1982, Hughes/Thrall, F♯m) – the second descendant.

– “Run for Cover” (1985, Gary Moore, F♯m, feat. Hughes) – the third generation.

– “Face the Truth” (1992, John Norum, F♯m, feat. Hughes) – the echo in the ’90s.

– “Children of the Night” (1987, Whitesnake, Gm, Coverdale/Sykes) – Coverdale’s bastard child.

– “Black Hearted Woman” (1989, Blue Murder, Gm, Sykes) – Sykes cloning himself.

It’s a family tree of riffs, sprouting new branches every time one of its carriers stepped into a studio.

Because this isn’t plagiarism, it’s proof of how riffs behave like living organisms. They survive by mutating, jumping bands, crossing decades. Glenn Hughes and David Coverdale, often painted as rivals in Purple, ended up as co-parents of a riff dynasty.

And every time that riff comes back, whether in Stanley’s face paint, Hughes’ soulful howl, Sykes’ molten Les Paul tone, or Coverdale’s snake-charmer swagger, you feel it. G minor or F♯ minor, it doesn’t matter. It’s still “Burn”.

The riff refuses to die. It just keeps coming back, louder, slicker, dirtier.

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Copyright, Music, Stupidity, Treating Fans Like Shit

Who Owns the Past? Preservation Is Theft Now

Because here’s the truth nobody wants to admit:

Every settlement is about money.
Not truth. Not justice. Not art.

Money.

The record companies don’t care about your dusty old 78s. They don’t care about preservation. They don’t care about whether some kid in Berlin discovers Billie Holiday for the first time and has their life changed. They care about the ledger. About squeezing every last nickel out of a format that no longer even exists in the real world, except as cultural artifact.

And the Internet Archive?

They care too. About survival. About keeping the lights on and the lawsuits at bay. You think they wouldn’t have fought this in court if they had endless money to burn? They folded because lawyers bill by the hour and the music industry has deeper pockets than any nonprofit ever will.

This isn’t about “illegal record stores.” No one is streaming Ella Fitzgerald off the Archive instead of Spotify. This is about control. About the labels saying, “We own history. We decide how you access it. We decide what survives.”

Meanwhile, the music is dying. It’s literally locked in grooves that disintegrate a little more every time a needle touches them. But no, preservation is theft now. Access is piracy. Knowledge itself is contraband.

The labels call it “copyright.” But let’s stop dressing it up: it’s rent-seeking. It’s gatekeeping. It’s an industry clinging to relevance by making sure no one else can touch the vault.

And the Archive? They’ll move on, quietly. Keep scanning books until publishers come for them again. Because that’s the gig. You build something for humanity, and eventually someone shows up with a cease-and-desist and a calculator.

So yeah. Every private settlement is about money.

But every one of these cases?

They’re really about memory. Who controls it. Who owns it. Who gets to say what endures.

And that’s the part that should terrify you.

Here is the article.

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A to Z of Making It, Classic Songs to Be Discovered, Influenced, Music, My Stories, Unsung Heroes

X Out – Extreme

When “Six” came out from Extreme in 2023, I did what we all do. I pressed play, skimmed the album, hit “like” on the tracks that grabbed me. Instant dopamine. Songs that felt like me, right now.

“X Out” didn’t make the cut.

Didn’t hate it, just didn’t hit.

Fast forward almost two years. The video drops. I click. And suddenly I’m sitting there, head nodding, totally into it. The same song I shrugged off is now on repeat.

So what happened?

This is the funny thing about music: sometimes it doesn’t connect the first time. Or the tenth. And then one day, in some random moment, it hits you like a freight train.

Maybe it’s mood. Maybe it’s life. Maybe it’s just time.

Or maybe, in this case, it’s the video.

Because visuals change everything. You see the band sweating it out, the editing, the vibe, the narrative. The song suddenly has a face, a story. And once that meaning slides into place, the music feels different. What was just sound is now an experience.

There’s probably a fancy psychological term for this. I googled my description and got a few terms which mean nothing to me like; “Mere exposure effect.” “Priming.” “Contextual reappraisal.” Whatever. To me, it’s just proof that taste is alive. It shifts. It evolves.

The truth is: I wasn’t ready for the song before. And now I am.

And that’s why I love when this happens. Because it keeps music from being disposable. Because it means an album isn’t done after the first spin.

Sometimes the tracks I skip become the ones that I like later.

So yeah, two years later, I’m in on “X Out.” All because of a video.

Check it out.

Makes me wonder: how many other songs did I dismiss too early? 

How many are just sitting there, waiting for me to finally catch up?

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Classic Songs to Be Discovered, Influenced, Music, My Stories

How Has It Aged: Iron Maiden – Dance Of Death

I don’t think there’s a bigger gap in all of metal between what your eyes see and what your ears hear than Iron Maiden’s “Dance of Death”

That cover?

The kind of thing you’d expect from a high schooler messing around with a pirated copy of 3D Studio Max in 1998. Or AI before AI was a thing.

Even Bruce admitted it was embarrassing. The artist literally pulled his name from the credits. Ouch.

But the music?

It rips. Maiden have always straddled old-school NWOBHM swagger and proggy sprawl, and here it actually clicks.

“Wildest Dreams”

“I’m gonna organize some changes in my life / I’m gonna exorcise the demons of my past”

This is the fantasy we all cling to, reinvention. The Monday morning promise that this week will be different. Except most people don’t make it past Tuesday.

Maiden’s framing it like a road trip, car, open road, freedom. But the truth is, it’s not about cars or roads, it’s about finally deciding you’re sick of your own excuses.

“Rainmaker”

How good is that intro?

“And the cracks in our lives like the cracks upon the ground / They are sealed and are now washed away”

Life is drought and flood. You hold on through the dry years, praying for rain that never comes. Then suddenly it pours, and for a second you think you’re redeemed.

But the cracks never really go away. They just fill up long enough for you to forget they’re there.

“No More Lies”

The bass intro. Typical Steve Harris. It builds momentum and the guitars decorate nicely.

“A hurried time no disgrace / Instead of racing to conclusion / And wishing all my life away”

This is the punch in the face. How much of your life have you already burned, fast-forwarding to some imagined future?

Graduation. Job. Promotion. Retirement.

Always waiting for the next thing instead of living the one thing. Harris is telling you flat out: stop trading your minutes for illusions.

“Montségur”

The song is forgotten at 3.92 million streams on Spotify. But it’s one of the best songs on the album.

“As we kill them all so God will know his own / The innocents died for the Pope on his throne”

This isn’t just history. This is the template. Power always finds a holy excuse. Wrap the violence in God, justice, freedom, it doesn’t matter. People still burn.

The castle becomes a metaphor for every system that crushes dissent under the flag of righteousness.

“Dance of Death”

Compared to other Maiden classics, 42.92 million streams is low.

With this, Maiden tried to recreate the vibe of “Fear Of The Dark”.

And when the solo sections kick in, a person would think they did.

“As I danced with the dead / My free spirit was laughing and howling down at me”

The most terrifying truth: sometimes we want the very thing that destroys us. There’s a seduction in surrender, in letting go of control and joining the dance.

The “dead” aren’t zombies, they’re every crowd you’ve ever followed against your better judgment. The fire looks dangerous, but it feels warm.

“Gates of Tomorrow”

The major key vibe shows their “Who” influences.

“There isn’t a god to save you if you don’t save yourself”

That’s it. The rawest line on the record. Forget prayers, forget systems, forget waiting. If you’re drowning, you don’t need an angel, you need to swim.

“New Frontier”

“Out beyond the new frontier / Playing god without mercy, without fear”

Science, AI, genetic engineering, Maiden saw the abyss before it had a name.

The question isn’t can we do it, it’s what happens when we do?

And the scariest part isn’t Frankenstein’s monster. It’s us realizing we’re no different than the monster.

“Paschendale”

Adrian Smith strikes again, crafting the music to one of my favourite songs on the album. And at 12.68 million streams on Spotify, it’s also forgotten.

“Blood is falling like the rain / Its crimson cloak unveils again”

This isn’t poetry. It’s eyewitness testimony. Every generation pretends their war is noble, unique. But the rain always turns red, the ground always swallows the boys, and the politicians always stay dry.

The most human line on the whole record: “Surely a war no-one can win.”

And yet we keep signing up.

“Face in the Sand”

“So I watch and I wait / And I pray for an answer / An end to the strife and the world’s misery / But the end never came”

This is apocalypse fatigue.

Everyone waiting for the end, everyone secretly hoping it will finally level the scales. But the world doesn’t collapse in fire. It just drags on.

More headlines, more waiting, more lies. The sand keeps shifting, and we’re still staring into it for signs.

“Age of Innocence”

“The working man pays everything for their mistakes / And with his life too if there was to be a war”

That’s the deal and always has been: the people in suits gamble, the people in uniforms pay.

The “age of innocence” isn’t about childhood. It’s about the brief moments in history when you forget the world is rigged against you.

And those moments don’t last.

“Journeyman”

“I know what I want / And I say what I want / And no one can take it away”

The whole album builds to this declaration. After death dances, wars, false prophets, and systemic lies, what’s left?

You.

Your voice.

Your will.

Maiden strip it all back at the end: acoustic guitars, no armor. The journeyman isn’t a hero. He’s just a man who refuses to shut up and disappear.

And Bruce?

The man sounds like he found a time machine back to 1982. He sings like he’s got something to prove, like he’s still fighting to be the frontman of the biggest metal band in the world.

The album’s sound takes a hit from the era’s ‘loudness wars’ mix.

So yeah, the cover’s a dumpster fire.

But the album?

It’s Iron Maiden still swinging for the fences in 2003, and connecting more often than not.

It’s their last album with an ’80s-style vibe before shifting into their pseudo-prog NWOBHM/rock phase.

Overall, “Dance of Death” maintains Iron Maiden’s signature sound while experimenting with different themes and musical styles.

The album’s mix of shorter, more straightforward tracks and longer, more intricate compositions contributes to its diverse appeal.

And for that, the album has aged well.

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Diane Warren — The Relentless Hook Machine

I finally got around to that old Bob Lefsetz podcast with Diane Warren. December 13, 2017. Been sitting in my “listen later” pile for years. That’s how it goes, too much to do, too many songs, too many distractions.

But Warren… she’s different.

If you grew up in the ’80s, you already know her, even if you don’t think you know her. Flip through your record collection, there’s probably a Warren song hiding in there. For me, it was everywhere.

Mannequin. “Nothing’s Gonna Stop Us Now” by Starship. Warren.

Kiss “Turn On the Night.” Warren. Their “biggest” song, “You Make Me Rock Hard” had a Warren co-write.

Heart “Who Will You Run To,” “I Didn’t Want To Need You.” Warren.

Cheap Trick’s “Ghost Town.” Bon Jovi’s “Wild Is the Wind.” Alice Cooper’s “Bed of Nails.” Cher’s “If I Could Turn Back Time.” Michael Bolton, Taylor Dayne, Cyndi Lauper, Bad English. Hell, even Ratt. One of my favourite Ratt songs, “Givin Yourself Away” was co-written by Warren.

I thought I knew her range until I stumbled on “Lonely Beat of My Heart” on Steve Lukather’s “Lukather” album. Warren.

Then Vixen. Jimmy Barnes. Richie Sambora. And just when you think she’s all power ballads and mainstream rock, she shows up on Disturbed’s “Evolution” with a bonus track called “Uninvited Guest.”

And that’s just from my shelves, albums I physically own, mostly spanning ’85–’92. A fraction of the real story.

Her publishing company is called “Real Songs”. She wanted “Warren Peace”, but the name was already taken. Of course she owns the building, upgrades the studios, controls her environment. That’s what obsession looks like, build the nest so you can never be kicked out.

The obsession started early. Kicked out of school. Two weeks in juvie. A father who saw the fire, bought her a guitar, then a Martin, then built her a shed to write in. No Plan B. Just the work.

She broke in at 23 writing for Laura Branigan. “Rhythm of the Night” came soon after. But her first publishing deal was a nightmare, a five-year trap she bailed on early. Got sued. Couldn’t work for 12 months while the lawyers circled. She ended it herself by calling her ex-boss directly, settling without letting the attorneys siphon off the payout. That move, walking away from a bad deal, was the prelude to her starting “Real Songs”.

Even now, she hustles. She’ll pick up the phone and pitch a song cold. “No pressure, just listen.” Doesn’t care if they say no. Because if they say yes, she’s got another track in the bloodstream.

Her process is simple: show up, work. A song a week. She finishes the ones she loves, abandons the ones she doesn’t. Loves writing solo. Most of the time it’s love songs, ironic, since she’s never been in love.

Her biggest movie tie-in? “I Don’t Want to Miss a Thing” for “Armageddon”, thanks to a friend connected to Aerosmith. That’s how the real deals happen, through relationships, not résumés.

On streaming, she thinks it’s killed songwriter incomes. I don’t fully buy it, Ryan Tedder sold part of his catalog for $200 million, and he’s a post-Napster success story. But Warren’s point is valid: it’s harder now for a new songwriter to make bank without wearing the artist hat too.

Forty-plus years, still relevant, still writing, still obsessed.

That’s the thing about Diane Warren, she’s not the artist, not the star on the stage. But she’s the ghost in the machine. The pen behind the chorus you’ve been humming for decades. The one who refuses to stop.

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Down To Earth

In honor of Ozzy, this is a rewrite/re-review of a post written a few years ago.

October 16, 2001. The towers are down. The country is shook. And Ozzy Osbourne drops “Down to Earth”, an album caught in the crossfire between his myth and his mortality.

This isn’t Ozzy the bat-biting madman. This is Ozzy the tired father, the aging icon, the guy who’s slowly realizing that the monster people made him into is more cartoon than chaos now. It’s a rock album, sure, but under all the distortion is something we didn’t expect: a man falling apart, loudly.

Zakk Wylde’s back, but barely. He’s a hired gun here, not the warlord we saw on “No More Tears”. He plays, but doesn’t write a damn note. And that’s a first.

Instead, you’ve got a Frankenstein writing crew: Joe Holmes, Rob Trujillo, Mike Bordin, Mick Jones (yep, from Foreigner), Geoff Nichols, Marti Frederiksen, Tim Palmer, even Danny Saber. At one point, Offspring,Weezer and Dave Grohl tried to contribute songs. Dave Fucking Grohl. Zakk’s response in a Guitar World interview from November 2001? Legendary:

“Foo Fighters is a fucking candy-ass girl band… Let him get up there and play Mr. Crowley.”

Not exactly a warm collab.

The chaos behind the scenes? You can hear it. This album wasn’t created, it was stitched together like a body in a morgue. And somehow, it lives.

Tim Palmer, best known for producing U2 and Tears for Fears, was a bizarre choice for Ozzy. But he co-wrote most of the songs, played a bunch of instruments, and literally took the guitar out of Zakk’s hands to show him how to play it “better.”

Zakk was not amused. He wanted Les Pauls and Marshalls. Palmer wanted Telecasters and tone. They clashed like metal and pop always do.

And you feel that in the sound: polished, but bruised. Heavy, but with an identity crisis. It’s an album at war with itself, because its creators were at war with each other.

Gets Me Through

Ozzy rips the mask off: “I’m not the Antichrist or the Iron Man.” He thanks his fans while telling them they don’t really know him. The riff is heavy, the message heavier: Don’t believe the myth. Believe the mess.

Facing Hell

Religious hypocrisy served with a chugging riff and eerie ambience. If this was released today, it’d be written off as edgy. In 2001, it was relevant as hell.

Dreamer

This is Ozzy’s “Imagine.” A plea for peace from a man who once snorted ants. And it works. Earnest, beautiful, a little cheesy, but it lands.

No Easy Way Out

Ozzy admits he’s cracked. “Superman is dead.” Depression isn’t a lyric trend here, it’s a lived-in reality.

That I Never Had

Chasing fulfillment and coming up empty. He’s rich, famous, adored, and utterly hollow.

You Know… (Part 1)

A short Beatles-esque lament about broken relationships and time lost. This isn’t the monster’s voice anymore, it’s the man behind the curtain saying, “I fucked up.”

Junkie

The glamorization of addiction gets burned to the ground here. “That beautiful flower is eating your mind.” This isn’t heroin-chic. This is heroin as soul-eater. The prettiest things destroy you slowest.

Running Out of Time

Faith, hope, reason, all gone. “I haven’t even got a soul to sell.” This isn’t a cry for help, it’s a resignation letter written in blood and barbiturates.

Black Illusion

The manipulators wear makeup and smiles, and so does Ozzy. That’s the twist. The song starts as a warning. It ends as a confession. We’re all part of the illusion.

Alive

Maybe the most underrated cut here. It’s broken, desperate, hopeful, like someone who’s still breathing not because they want to, but because they’re too scared to stop.

“What keeps me alive is dreams.”

That line alone is enough to earn this song its place.

Can You Hear Them?

Ozzy’s final moment on the album is pure existential fatigue. “So sick and tired of living, and so afraid to die.” It’s not melodrama. It’s just truth. Raw, cold, unfiltered truth.

It’s not a classic. It’s not “Blizzard” or “Diary” or even “No More Tears”. But it’s important.

This is the album where the mask slips. Where the 70s horror movie Ozzy becomes the 2000s reality TV Ozzy. Where fame stops being a fantasy and starts being a funeral.

Post-9/11, the world was suddenly a darker, more cynical place. And “Down to Earth”, accidentally or not, caught that shift in tone perfectly.

“Down to Earth” is a crash landing. A confession booth in the middle of a circus. It’s Ozzy finally admitting: “I’m not who you think I am. I never was.”

And that? That’s the most rock & roll thing he’s done in decades.

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