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Helloween anyone?


metallikole1999

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  • 3 weeks later...
On 12/9/2014 at 3:33 AM, metallikole1999 said:

I've only heard one album, Keeper of the Seven Keys Part One, by this group, but it's one of my favorite albums. I didn't see a thread about these guys so I figured I'd start one. Do any of you have any song recommendations that aren't on that album? What do you guys think of this album? What do you think of this band? Let me know, I want to know what other stuff of theirs is worth listening to.

hell yeah

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I like Helloween including 1990s stuff like Time Of The Oath but I've found much of their post -2000 output to have become a sad overproduced clone of themselves.  Tracks from new album don't seem to be an improvement despite Kai Hansen and Michael Kiske being back.

 

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I had "Keeper of the Seven Keys pt I" when I was in high school and I loved that album, particularly the tracks "A Little Time" and "Twilight of the Gods". I never really bothered to listen to any of the other stuff that Helloween did, definitely not Chameleon or Pink Bubbles Go Ape because I heard that those albums were particularly terrible.

Helloween was a band that was frequently lambasted in my social circle in high school and I never really understood why. They had every accusation leveled at them from "Christian band" to "Hair metal" but "Keeper of the Seven Keys pt I" was a classic album.

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I got a lot of grief for having a Helloween album in high school for some reason. The one annoying guy that I've talked about having in my social circle was always mocking them for being a "Christian" band (they aren't and never were as far as I know).

I haven't listened to Gamma Ray though. I've heard good things, just never checked them out because power metal is not really my thing most of the time.

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I don't ever remember them being accused of being a Christian band, but then my mate was in Mortification for a few years and there was plenty of people who even then didn't believe Mortification were a Christian Death metal band, so it's weird what some people get in their minds.

 

I'm not that into Gamma Ray, I don't hate them and have heard some of their stuff but they aren't a band I followed.

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  • 1 year later...

Skyfall? That's really puzzling to me that they would choose to make that the title. The Broccolis are notoriously litigious and trigger happy with lawsuits when it comes to Bond related stuff, and it really hasn't been long enough since that one came out for it to have faded from the public's memory. They're just kind of needlessly inviting trouble with that title, sort of like when that prog-rock band Camel used the cigarette pack on one of their albums. On the other hand, watching that video Adelle's looking much better these days. 😆

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Why would they sue? It's not like Skyfall is a word invented by the Bond franchise. It's not like naming their album Skyfall has been detrimental to the Bond franchise. Only a moron would mistake Helloween having any connection to James Bond. They wrote a song about an alien falling from the sky, it's a fitting title for their own creation. As it was a fitting title for the books that came before it and the movie

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1 hour ago, AlSymerz said:

Why would they sue? It's not like Skyfall is a word invented by the Bond franchise. It's not like naming their album Skyfall has been detrimental to the Bond franchise. Only a moron would mistake Helloween having any connection to James Bond. They wrote a song about an alien falling from the sky, it's a fitting title for their own creation. As it was a fitting title for the books that came before it and the movie

Low risk/high reward no matter how unlikely a win would be. They're both pieces of for profit media, and whatever label Helloween are under likely doesn't have the financial clout to legally outlast them so they'd have to reach a middle ground agreement whereby the bond franchise gets a share of perpetual royalties. They've got more than enough attorneys to do so. I'm not saying it would be right, but it's just not a wise idea to poke that particular bear. Casino Royale actually was the last of the Ian Flemming novels to be adapted because they had to wait for that weird Peter Sellers parody to enter the public domain. The Goldeneye video game took forever to get tuned up and rereleased because of i.p. protections the Broccolis were clutching. Then there's the whole Never Say Never Again debacle, the Remington Steele thing and on and on it goes. Long history of litigious disputes surround the franchise. It sucks, but if I were on Helloween's legal team, I'd have recommended a name change.

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Skyfall, as a name, is a registered trademark of nearly 100 different companies/brands in the world. As a title of a song about an alien falling to earth is has zero relation to James Bond and probably just as much connection to any of the 100 other trademark owners who use the name. The mob who control Bond would have to prove that the song is either detrimental to their name (or trademark) or the band was somehow benefiting from any connection to Skyfall the movie.

Things like the Golden Eye video game are a direct connection to Bond, they are using the Bond name to enhance their profit. They should have full permission and full agreement of those who own the name to do such things. Whereas the Helloween single has nothing to do with Bond, the clip has no connection to the movie and does not reference the movie therefore the legal team probably didn't need to even suggest a name change.

According the the European trademark concerning Skyfall the movie (which was originally issued in 2012 and renewed this year) a person or company would need to use identifying marks, images, dialogue, music etc from the movie, its advertising, its promotional material, or it's script to gain any unfair advantage, bring the trademark to disrepute, or bring detriment to the trademark. None of which the song does.

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Proving intellectual property infringement is notoriously difficult, I.e the blatant Grand Theft Auto ripoffs sued by Rockstar who successfully defended themselves. I’m not saying Helloween and their label have 0 concerns here, but I expect most judges would throw this out. Re the band themselves Walls of Jericho is cool, the rest? I’ll rarely spin the Keeper albums but safe to say I prefer my power metal punchier.

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