Senior guitarist Stuart Clifford might not look like your average YouTube guitar star, but 3.7 million viewers couldn’t get enough when he took this heavy metal classic to a place no one could have imagined. With just his guitar and voice, Stuart turned the rocker “Wasted Years” into a wistful and emotional acoustic ballad. Viewers praised his ability to bring out the deeper emotions of the song, saying that he really pulled on their heartstrings.
Stuart has a real talent for stripping down a song to its core elements. He draws the key melodies and parts from the song and reinterprets them in such a compelling way. It’s one thing to learn the guitar parts of a song, but it’s quite another to truly make it your own. The Music Man also has to give props for Stuart’s understated vocal performance here, which really makes it hit you in the chest.
Stuart shared his “Wasted Years” cover to his YouTube channel, where it became his most popular upload. His take on the song made quite the impression on listeners, who added comments such as “In a million years I never would have imagined myself wiping tears from the corners of my eyes listening to an Iron Maiden song” and “This gentleman did to ‘Wasted Years’ what Johnny Cash did to ‘Hurt.’ Profoundly touching.”
Stuart is from the UK, so it’s no surprise he’s a big Iron Maiden fan. Several of his most popular uploads feature his renditions of Iron Maiden bangers, and his second-most viewed upload is his cover of Maiden’s “Fear of the Dark.” Stuart works his magic here again and takes the song to another place. It’s such a great song choice for an acoustic cover, and his cover showcases what memorable melodies Maiden packed the song with.
Stuart Clifford is a UK guitarist who shares his performances on his YouTube channel of the same name. He began uploading his covers to the platform in August 2020. The Music Man readers might be interested to hear that Stuart’s first video to take off on YouTube came in December 2020. This was his cover of Johnny Flynn’s “Detectorists,” which hit 50,000 views. Stuart would subsequently hit the algorithm in a big way with his “Wasted Years” cover in March 2023, which became his first video to surpass one million views. He has amassed 74,000 subscribers on his channel, and recently he has maintained a schedule of uploading several covers a month.