You’ll notice on the top page that I’ve created a Ratings & Commentary category with subcategories for all of Bruce and Adrian’s official solo studio albums.
There’s some more information in the About topic for that category, but essentially there’s a subcategory for each solo album, and inside there are topics for each song and a topic for the album as a whole. You can only reply to the existing topics in those subcategories.
When you reply you can check the box and pick a star value (in that order) to set a rating for that song or album. You can post additional replies in that thread, but to change your rating you’ll have to edit your original post that contained the star rating and update it there. Ratings will be automatically summed up and averaged for display under the topic titles, so as people build up their ratings we’ll get to see how the community as a whole feels about everything.
Once this new section gets some use, we can always look at expanding it to include B-sides, one-offs, live songs, re-recorded tracks, etc. Right now the most glaring omissions are Urchin, which may not have had any official releases beyond the original singles (the High Roller Records CDs are apparently unofficial and Adrian doesn’t see a penny from them), the Samson albums, and the two original tracks from The Best Of Bruce Dickinson – we’ll just have to figure out how to structure these and any other tracks appropriately.
Please share any feedback you may have, and let me know if anything isn’t working.
So I’m trying to decide on a few things for adding the remaining studio tracks. Let me know your thoughts:
For Urchin, should I just make a single category with all the songs but no album topics, since there aren’t really any official album releases for the band (just a few singles)?
For B-sides, should I just make a single category that holds all of the B-sides from all of Bruce & Adrian’s solo efforts, again with no album topics, or would people prefer that the B-side song topics get put in the same category as the album they’re associated with?
For The Best Of Bruce Dickinson there were two new studio tracks, then a bunch of B-sides and duplicates (or very slightly modified versions) of previously released songs. Should I just treat all of the new and unique songs from this as B-sides, or should I make a category for this album with just the two new tracks in it, or with everything that was unique?
For Alive In Studio A, is there interest in adding this album and its alternate studio takes on the Balls To Picasso tracks?
For The Untouchables there’s just one studio track (“City Of Dreams”) and I believe three live tracks. My inclination here is to just throw the studio track in with the B-sides, though this gets weirder if we’re trying to pair B-sides with the albums they go with. If we go that second route should I lump it in with State Of Mind, since that’s the closest related album?
The B-side “Just Like A Woman” is associated with Psycho Motel’s Welcome To The World album, but it features Solli on vocals. If we decide to put B-sides in with their associated albums, should I still put it with WTTW, or should I put it with State Of Mind, since that’s the album Solli sang on?
B-side song topics in the same category as the album they’re associated with
I don’t think those are B-sides, but I don’t know what they are then? Singles, kind of? Maybe a category for this album … with everything that was unique
I might rate and comment a live album but not necessarily each song separately. Live versions could be discussed in the song’s own topic under the studio album. It’s the same song, after all.
If there are only a few songs under this band name, maybe they could just be under the band name and no “album”?
put it with WTTW, regardless of line up changes, if that’s the album it’s associated with.
I hope these thought don’t contradict with themselves…
I would either keep all non-album tracks confined to one board (but separated for Bruce and Adrian, not just lumped together), or just add them simply to the albums they’re closest to. “Broken” and “Silver Wings” can be in the Tyranny of Souls board.