review Blaze Bayley SOUNDTRACKS OF MY LIFE - platinum edition.

Koleksi terbaik dari ladang untuk tahun ini. Sapa korang tak kenal Blaze Bayley ni,
dia paling dikenali sebagai penyanyi untuk dua album studio Iron Maiden tahun 90an dulu- X Factor dan Virtual XI, sewaktu zaman Bruce Dickinson buat hal, keluar Maiden tahun 1993-1999 gitu.
Blaze jugak penyanyi Wolfsbane, jugak penyanyi untuk band dia sendiri BLAZE, lepas tu BLAZE BAYLEY BAND, dan sekarang ni dia sebagai Blaze Bayley sahaja. Kembali sorang takde band tetap kat belakang dia.
Suara dia lemak, sedap...nak2 bila dia sekali2 nyanyi lagu akaustik cam Russian Holiday. Gerek giler. Merdu..
tapi aku selalu fikir, nasib dia cam kentang . Tu la aku makin sukaaaaaa kat dia.

This is an excellent double cd of 30 songs collection chosen by Blaze himself.
I guess its a kind of Best Of Blaze Bayley really.
A nice way to start to know his works as a solo artist if you have never checked him out.
He deserves more recognition and support for his tremendous works.

Every single song is entertaining, exciting, thrilling,
great singing, great music, dual duelling guitars, time changes, cunning, beautiful lyrics.
Blaze must have learnt alot during his Maiden years.
I guess the Remasterings helps too - The songs sounds wonderful to my ears hearing it on my headphones while walking on the streets and on noisy public transport.




This is my opinion of Blaze Bayley's Soundtracks Of My Life Platinum edition of 300 copies. I was fortunate to be able to "reserved" a copy fast enough on the first day itself.
I remember I did set an alarm on my handphone to log in to the internet on the first day of pre-sale for the platinum edition..
Definitely, this is the collection of the year for me.
I just couldn't praise enough of this set. Its a winner.

So first lets talk about the double cd itself. Lets start with the booklet.
You have Blaze putting in lots of efforts to comment and giving short notes on the background and stories of each of the song chosen.
I really love it and enjoy reading his notes on each of the songs.

CD1 has these 15 songs - the man who would not die, ghost in the machines, stare at the sun, robot, kill & destroy, silicon messiah, the brave, the launch,
king of metal (REMIXED by RICK PLESTER, WHO ALSO REMASTERED THIS COLLECTION), rainbow fades to black, samurai, blackmailer,
watching the night sky, speed of light,and lastly, soundtrack of my life.15 heavy and fast fantastic songs selection, though some of them starts slow like the fantastic Stare At The Sun. 
CD2 starts with two wonderful acoustic songs by Blaze with Thomas Zwijsen - the sweet Russian Holiday and a remake of Iron Maiden's The Clansman 14 years later.
Then it picks up with a superb voices from the past, tenth dimension, blood and belief, 10 seconds, leap of faith, tough as steel (Wolfsbane song covered by Blaze band), comfortable in darkness,
having someone elses life, the day I feel to earth (Blaze comments it as the day he got sacked from Maiden), motherfuckers R us, wonderful life (a song by Sinnergod with Blaze as a guest and this song ends with something I am still curious about, like a hymn or chant),
hatred, eating children (the last two songs are new songs that was written quickly for this release, I dont like hatred when it first appeared on youtube as a promo, but now listening to all its glory from the cd source, I like it.

One thing is that listening to some of Blaze songs, I realise how much the lyrics are touching and meaningful to me.
Next, a breakdown of the source of each song.. I hope I am not wrong.

-the man who would not die album - 5 songs
-silicon messiah album - 5
-silicon messiah album bonus track - 3
-tenth dimension album - 4
-tenth dimesion album bonus track - 1
-king of metal album - 2
-promise and terror album - 2
-blood and belief album - 3
-russian holiday ep - 1
-thomas zwijsen's nylon maiden album - 1
-sinnergod's behind every corner album - 1
-new songs for this collection - 2
All remastered. One remixed.

OK, now lets go on to the Platinum Edition.
So you'll get a certificate to say its limited to 300, signed by Blaze Bayley.
so you got your name listed on the double cd booklet, and that booklet is signed by Blaze too.
so you'll have a cute fancy button.
so you'll have a cute fancy fridge magnet.
but I think the dramatic thing about this Platinum Edition is the A5 size book called Albums Of My Life.

It has in total about 60 colour pages of high quality paper with each page actually has a huge watermark of the album cover.
Blaze signed the book, and he personally writes down your name in his handwritting too, as one of the 300 to get it.
Very classy production of this Albums Of My Life book and I have to give Full marks for the effort and details given to this book release.

As its his own words and I guess Blaze being a sensitive, conscientious and maybe romantic person who had gone thru a lot of hardship in life,
this book has a feel of a "personal full disclosure" of his feelings and emotions of each period of his music career.
He has some choices words to those he is not happy with, even big famous names, but he did have some kind words too for others. And I guess he really love Ronnie James Dio too.
So its not a fun happy book, yes there are some good laughs, but there are other sad, daunting, stressful periods for him.
His financial issues, his depression, his bitterness, his many problems, and he even list down manual jobs he did,
- being a driver, a factory worker, etc even after he had already experienced being the singer of Iron Maiden, maybe one of the greatest band ever to walk this earth.



So this a tiny bit of photos of the book..

Thats all. In conclusion, this double cd is worth it. The songs are blasting as I am typing this...