“I am gonna make it through this year if it kills me.” Basically 2009 was so insane, it has led me to post Friday Face-Offs on a Thursday! I really should call this “Thursday Face-Offs,” except that New Year’s Eve is kinda like an honorary Friday.

Anyway, let’s get things poppin’ with our first contestant! Check out the banging harmonies and adorable cockney(?) accents exhibited hereunder:

NICE! They totally shred the line about feasting and dancing in Jerusalem (2:44). By the way, where is this concert taking place? In an operating room in the fanciest, most exclusive Beverly Hills hospital? Because if that’s true, somebody needs to maybe clean that operating room a little before the next surgery.

FRIDAY FACE-OFFS! I am gonna make it to the next video if it kills me!

ALERT … ALERT … history in the making … Drudge Report sirens blasting every which way … WE HAVE A TIE FOR FIRST PLACE!!!

I will be answering questions about this historic moment LIVE on CNN at 5:30 this evening … Cokie Roberts wanted an exclusive, but I couldn’t get with that … FFO breakthrough …

First-place tie, first-place tie … “They said it couldn’t be done…” Run to the hills, 666 the number of the beast, Iron Maiden … the devil, Eddie, Powerslave, merlot, all that stuff, up the irons, you know how we do … Inside Spontaneous Human Combustion with Bruce Dickinson …

FIRST PLACE WINNER #1:

Check this out (but first earn a PhD in semiotics so your mind doesn’t implode):

1:35 – 1:43, ouch. Who drew this, Cormac McCarthy? From the user’s description: “Weird pictures are showing you, what’s that song about. Try to feel it!” All I know is, if I owned a clothing store on the Lower East Side, I would be slapping all these images on t-shirts and selling them to trust-fund dopeheads for $80 a pop and I would be getting paid.

FIRST PLACE WINNER #2:

(Please, please watch this.)

Not much I can say about this, other than I hope you had a nice life, because I’m sorry but you have officially just been murdered by these kids.

FRIDAY FACE-OFFS! That’s it for Iron Maiden week. Have a great weekend. \m/

You’ve tried the rest, now try the best!!!

Guitar tone of the year. Holy guacamole. Jimi Hendrix sippin’ on syrup. That’s the kind of tone suckers pay Butch Vig big bucks to bring out. Also, was this filmed by an undercover PETA operative or something? It looks like one of those secret slaughterhouse videos where you see people kicking chickens across the floor. Actually, the opening lick would work well in a PETA video, because it’s sort of queasy-making: “We snuck inside this Tyson Foods plant and shot this SHOCKING video of a man setting CHICKEN FEET on fire and throwing CHICKEN HEADS into a hot-grease-grinder and he was LAUGHING THE WHOLE TIME … run to the hills!”

I love how someone’s mom starts working the lights at 2:39.

Friday Face-Offs! Run for your lives! Winning video is next!!!

Tower of power.

Have you ever heard of the Iron Maidens? They are the world’s premiere all-female Iron Maiden tribute band. (I gotta say, the singer’s abs are looking tight. Forget yoga, maybe I should join an all-female Iron Maiden tribute band.)

The person who posted this video apologizes for the sound quality, but I think it fits the song, because the song is about killing Native Americans, and this sounds like a blanket that’s been infected with smallpox.

Game on.

I have literally never seen anyone dance like this. What is that move? (0:01 – 0:08) So many new kinds of dance moves for me to try at the club; I can’t wait! First I just need to buy my special dancing outfit. Let’s see, I’ll need a green party hat, a plastic mask, sunglasses, a Revolutionary War jacket, and a vinyl cape made out of a placemat(?). No worries, I think I can buy it at L.L. Bean.

Okay, is 0:17 tough enough for you, when he throws 400 years of Western imperialism to the floor? This kid should get tenure at Berkeley just for that.

Very strong showing. Friday Face-Offs! RUN TO THE HILLS.

What does this remind me of? Oh, yeah.

Does this guy own many guitars, though? Hmm, does he spend much time at the Guitar Center? If I worked at the Guitar Center, I would murder 20 co-workers in order to become this guy’s exclusive sales-helper.

Comment from one of his viewers: “… ignore all the idiots that say negative things about your singing, they don’t understand what fun is.”

I can agree with that sentiment — no doubt I like to have fun and be silly — but really, you should get the chorus right: It’s not “run through the hills.” It’s not a song about picking wildflowers, for God’s sake.

Hmm … a little Swedish style-mix-up, here. (You know how the Swedes like to mess with our minds.) But does it work? On the one hand, it brings out the plaintiveness of the chorus. On the other hand, I can’t imagine 500,000 Brazilians singing along to this at a stadium show …

Even before I got into Iron Maiden, I always liked “Run to the Hills,” because the chorus is so emotionally complicated. (I assume it’s being sung from the perspective of the Cree, right?) It’s also the first piece of pop culture I heard that framed the whole “Cowboys and Indians” thing as an injustice/genocide (to the Indians, that is).

“Murder for freedom a stab in the back /
Women and children and cowards attack”

So in a way, maybe I owe my entire humorless, politically-correct, Oberlin-incubated worldview to … IRON MAIDEN!!!

\m/ Up the irons! Free Mumia! \m/

UPDATE: Ah, someone beat me to it.

“Run to the Hills” opens with one of the most famous licks in heavy metal. I guess it’s supposed to sound Native American? Anyway, it’s only appropriate that we kick of this week’s FFO with a tribute to that lick. Let the happy horns of heraldry play!

Hmm. Okay, maybe it would be cool if he played the lick correctly.

Never mind! Let the happy keyboard of heraldry play:

Yeah! Now play both clips at the same time to really set it off right. Friday Face-Offs!!!