Bruce Dickinson - Balls to Picasso

 Bonus Disc is Classic
Having heard just a few songs from Bruce's solo career before, nothing really grabbed me until I picked up Tyranny of Souls months ago. I loved it. When his live DVD with several concerts on it came out, I bought it and was surprised how much I liked his earlier stuff live. I bought this album and was a little dissapointed with the main album as I was the first time I heard some of the songs, they did not just grab me. However, I put in the 2nd cd and was blown away. This should have been the A material. The accoustical version of "Tears of the Dragon" is masterful. Even "Elvis has Left the Building" where he uses nothing but a megaphone has phenomenal music. If nothing else, buy this album for the bonus disc. 13 of the 16 tracks on the bonus disc, I listen to on a regular basis now. It is completely worth getting the whole package. January 25, 2007

 Buy It !!!!!! One of my favorite CDs ever!!!
Although I am 45 years old and saw Iron Maiden on their first US tour, I never became a fan and never owned any Maiden stuff until relatively recently. After all these years I finally have become a big Maiden fan. After buying several Iron Maiden CDs, including their two most recent, I decided to buy some solo Bruce Dickinson.

The first solo album I bought was Tyranny Of Souls. I like it and listen to it from time to time, but I would not say that it is one of my favorite albums. I did like it enough to buy a second Bruce Dickinson album. Balls To Picasso would be next. This is one of my all time favorite albums ever, at least for now. The bonus CD of B-Sides, demo and alternative versions is just as good as the original CD, if not better. If I had bought Balls To Picasso back in the days of vinyl, I would have worn out both CDs in a hurry.

In short, in my opinion Balls To Picasso is the best Bruce Dickinson music I have bought to date and remains one of my favorite and most listened to CDs.
January 17, 2007

 My first BD album and one of my newest CDs
Back in '94-ish, I heard about BD's solo career and this particular album, "Balls to Picasso". At that time, I was still buying cassettes, hell, I bought cassettes up until about 2000. Anyway, with the recent remastering and re-issuings of all the of the Iron Maiden albums, I decided to rebuy up that entire catalog of their studio albums on CD. By doing so, I got to thinking about BD's solo albums. Like I said, back in the day, I bought three of them on cassette, the other two being "Accident of Birth" and "Chemical Wedding". Somehow I missed "Skunkworks" and never could find "Tatooed Millionare".

Now that I'm fully transfered over to CDs, I have rebought some of my all-time favorite band's catalogs. Iron Maiden being one, Metallica, Megadeth, and another new one Iced Earth being another. Well, recently, I got into the mood of listening to my Maiden collection, started to really get into the sound again and decided I'd buy BD's solo stuff again. As of this writing, I have'em all with "Tattoed Millionare" still on backorder. (Still can't seem to get that one! LOL!)

Anyway, these new remastered and extended deluxe versions (released at the same time of his new album "Tyranny of Souls" in 2005) of BD's albums are freakin' brilliant. Only listened to all of Skunkworks, Accident so far, and I'm in the process of listening to Balls, but there's one thing I have definately noticed...the demo or alternative versions of the songs that are on the bonus discs are usually better than the cuts that made the original album.

One such cut is the "Tears of the Dragon (First Bit, Long Bit, Last Bit)". If I'm not mistaken, reading from the new liner notes, this was the original version that was supposed to be on the album before Bruce settled with "Tribe of Gypsies" as his backing band on this album. In it, he uses some orchestra background sounds and this more complex arrangement was shot down as such by incoming guitarist Roy Z in favor of the one that appears on the regular album. It's kind of a shame, IMO, because this original version is a superior version and it would have truely been the epic that it was hyped as. Running in at just over 8 minutes, it's really something special to listen to.

With regards to the rest of the album, the original album sounds great. The remastering job is superb as it is on all of these expanded edition CDs. And of course the bonus discs are equally spectacular. Both in content and sound quality.

If you have the older versions, you might want to consider picking up these new ones for the improved sound and additional tracks. They're a bit expensive here at Amazon, but they're well worth it if you price shop a bit. As far a packaging goes, that aspect is nice too and each expanded version comes in a slipcase which adds to the collectibility as well.

April 27, 2006

 tears of the dragon...for you and me!
wow!ive been missing some damn fine music!just picked up the re-masters for "balls" and "accident",used and in primo shape for 9.99 a piece!never heard any of bruce's solo stuff,this is amazing work!cant wait to play "accident".what a great vocalist! October 14, 2005

 My Opinion
Some points about this album-
1. It does not sound like Iron Maiden
2. This is a great album - sweet/scorching guitar, intense vocals, and interesting percussion
3. 2 disks (130 minutes!!!)
4. I wish that I had purchased this album years ago, for nothing since then (of this genre) sounds this good

Enjoy! September 14, 2005

More reviews at Amazon.com ...