jonny_boy34 wrote:Goodness me, what controversy I've caused. I still haven't got enough time, I need to eat dinner and go to work. Maybe I'll do it when I come home.

I look forward to it

If anyone remembers my intro post, I listed Maiden as my favourite band EVAR!
Therefore I have a few things to say on the subject, starting nice and simple, the order of the albums (best-->least best)

1. Somewhere in time
2. Seventh son
3. Piece of mind
4. Killers
5. Number of the beast
6. Brave new world
7. The X factor
8. A matter of life and death
9. Iron Maiden
10. Powerslave
11. Fear of the dark
12. Dance of death
13. No prayer for the dying
14. Virtual XI

Second, to the issue of Blaze Bayley- while the guy is by no means the legend that is the living god Bruce Dickinson, he was still damn good. sure, his albums weren't Maiden's best, but quite frankly I can't think of an album by anyone ever that comes close to the top 5 as listed up thar ^, quite simply, Maiden was different with BB, and people thinking that it should have been the same makes it seem a whole lot worse than it was. It has already been mentioned in this thread (very first post I think) that X-factor songs sound fucking incredible with Bruce, therefore, those songs are not bad songs, but expectations were let down and so people continue to bitch and moan (why oh why? the guy's been out of the band for 8 years, give it a fucking REST!), when they should focus on the fact that it's still fucking cool music

Third, to the issue of the newer albums. As you can see from the album list up yonder ^, I think that BNW and AMOLAD are fucking brilliant albums, while DOD was, in truth, mostly pretty boring. DOD is easily the worst of the post-reunion albums: first it gets off to a rocky start, wildest dreams not being the best possible Maiden album opener ever (though to be fair I prefer it over tailgunner...), but the next few songs are pretty damn solid, although at times fairly repetitive, until the cool chugginess of montsegur which was totally not something I expected from Maiden, although again, it does get a bit repetitive. The only truly great song on the album is Paschendale, the others that i have not mentioned are pretty much just filler material unfortunately.
As for AMOLAD, again, it's about expectations. people somehow expect them to write something akin to number of the beast pt II, but that ain't gonna happen on any scale, they're just a completely different band now, they've grown, adapted, you might even say evolved. That is how things survive in nature, and it is also how things survive in society, by changing, not necessarily for any kind of monetary reason, but just because otherwise they become stale and stagnant, repeating the same old tired shit album after album before becoming a joke, especially for a band who's been around as long as Maiden has.

I think I covered everything there. Dissect at will, fuckers!!

JezWray wrote:8. A matter of life and death
9. Iron Maiden

controversial!

1. Somewhere in time
2. Seventh son
3. Piece of mind
4. Killers
5. Number of the beast
6. Brave new world
7. The X factor
8. A matter of life and death
9. Iron Maiden
10. Powerslave
11. Fear of the dark
12. Dance of death
13. No prayer for the dying
14. Virtual XI

Haven't put all the Maiden albums in any kind of order for years. What the hell though, I'm bored so I'll give it a bash.

1. Powerslave
2. Seventh Son
3. Number of the Beast
4. Iron Maiden
5. Killers
6. Somewhere in Time
7. Piece of Mind
8. A Matter of Life and Death
9. Dance of Death
10. Brave New World
11. Fear of the Dark
12. No Prayer for the Dying
13. The X Factor
14. Virtual XI

JezWray wrote:1. Somewhere in time
2. Seventh son
3. Piece of mind
4. Killers
5. Number of the beast
6. Brave new world
7. The X factor
8. A matter of life and death
9. Iron Maiden
10. Powerslave
11. Fear of the dark
12. Dance of death
13. No prayer for the dying
14. Virtual XI

Pretty shocked at how far down you've put Iron Maiden and Powerslave!

The only truly great song on [DoD] is Paschendale, the others that i have not mentioned are pretty much just filler material unfortunately.

Woah! Face in the Sand? Age of Innocence? Rainmaker?

My CURRENT ranking (always changes so this isn't any deep or definite list)

1. Killers
2. Seventh Son
3. Powerslave
4. Somewhere in Time
5. Piece of Mind
6. The Number of the Beast
7. Iron Maiden
8. Brave New World
9. Dance of Death
10. Fear of the Dark
11. X Factor
12. A Matter of Life and Death
13. No Prayer for the Dying
14. Virtual XI

The only truly great song on [DoD] is Paschendale, the others that i have not mentioned are pretty much just filler material unfortunately.

*cough* Montsegur *cough*

Oh crikey. I suppose I'd better have a go at this too.

Goodest to rubbishest.

1. Powerslave
2. Piece Of Mind
3. Killers
4. Seventh Son Of A Seventh Son
5. Somewhere In Time
6. Number Of The Beast
7. Iron Maiden
8. No Prayer For The Dying
9. A Matter Of Life And Death
10. Fear Of The Dark
11. Brave New World
12. Dance Of Death
13. X Factor
14. Virtual XI

Blaze: The singer on the 2 worst Maiden albums by far but not actually that bad. Saw 'em live with him a couple of times and he was good on stage and did a cracking job of singing the Bruce stuff. He is a complete nob though.

Gers: Why the fook is he still in the band???? Let Eddie have him for tea. He can't play for shit live, he's too busy posing to play the solos. I saw them play at Donington 92 and he missed every bloody note in the Trooper. Yet strangely when the recording was released it was nearly perfect.

All in all, Maiden are probably my favourite band ever, I've been listening to the since I was 11 and I still love em. They're still fantastic live too.

2p well spent.

Saw 'em live with him a couple of times and he was good on stage and did a cracking job of singing the Bruce stuff.

Seriously? I saw him on the X-Factour (Wolves Civic) and he was fucking dreadful. He arsed up Hallowed Be Thy Name completely by missing every one of his cues and "singing" in the wrong key and didn't have the bottle to even attempt Run to the Hills!
His songs sounded decent enough, as you'd expect, and he did a fair Di'Anno impression, but his singing on Bruce's stuff was just ghastly.

Seriously, he was pretty good. I was surprised too. I saw him with Wolfsbane loads of times (they used to play in Bradford every other week nearly) and he was always rubbish. He was surprisingly good when I saw him with Maiden.

He is a complete and utter nob though.

Wonder if he still drives a hearse...

Right, here we go.

To the issue of Maiden and their bloody setlists and these special edition tours. The Early Days tour I thought was throroughly amazing, although they did indeed miss of some potentially great songs as a result of the typical Maiden laziness that they suffer from. I would've loved to hear Charlotte the Harlot live. I really really would've loved that. But we got bloody Phantom of the Opera, and that was worth the ticket price alone. Absolutely amazing. And Drifter, and Murders in the Rue Morgue, and Die With Your Boots On, and Revelations, and Prowler, and Remember Tomorrow... there were still so many great songs, I find it hard to complain about. But with this next tour, it's a bit annoying. They previously said they were just going to play songs of the next four albums. That almost definitely would've meant 7th Son live. But they obviously realised they shot themselves in the foot a bit, because they would've have been able to play any of the classic songs like The Trooper, Run to The Hills, etc. And the backlash they got for not playing those songs on the AMOLAD tour must've scared them into changing their minds, so now they're saying "We're playing songs mainly from the 80s" instead, so they can bloody play Run to the Hills. But at the end of the day, we're definitely going to get Powerslave and Rime of the Ancient Mariner (definitely not Alexander the Great, don't get your hopes up!), so thats great. But I've given up hope for hearing 7th Son live now. If they do play it, brilliant, but if they don't, at least now I'm not going to be disappointed because I won't be expecting it.

Right, Blaze Bayley. The man is utterly hilarious. I know Maiden wanted to be different, but couldn't they have at least gotten a singer who could actually sing their back catalogue? I have no idea how Blaze passed his audition. But at least we got The Clansman and Futureal and Sign of the Cross out of it. And anyway he was sacked ages ago so it doesn't even matter now, it's just hilarious.

Now for AMOLAD again. Someone said before they need to change and do stuff like this because otherwise it makes them stale and stagnant. Whilst this is true generally, I believe that AMOLAD was a stale and stagnant album, because with a couple of exceptions it was basically the same thing over and over again throughout the album. Of course it's still a listenable album and fairly enjoyable, because it's Maiden and they're great, but they can do better. Much much better. DOD was definitely the worst of the last 3 though, I agree.

And now for my list.

1. Seventh Son Of A Seventh Son
2. Brave New World
3. Piece Of Mind
4. Iron Maiden
5. Powerslave
6. Killers
7. The Number Of The Beast
8. Somewhere In Time
9. No Prayer For The Dying
10. Fear Of The Dark
11. A Matter Of Life & Death
12. Dance Of Death
13. Virtual XI
14. The X Factor

All the albums, even the ones at the bottom, still have some great songs, but I've taken into account consistency as well as classic. For example, whilst FOTD has more classic and great tracks than NPFTD, I feel NPFTD is a more consistent album that I can enjoy all the way through, whereas FOTD has some really shit songs, like The Apparition, for example. I also rate VXI above TXF because it has more fun songs on it, and TXF suffers from the same problem as AMOLAD in terms of repetitive boringness, repeating acoustic intros/outros that are totally unnecessary, and most of all that ridiculous and hilarious song about Apocalypse Now (The Edge Of Darkness). I can't believe they did that. Blaze Bayley wrote some terrible lyrics on that album.

Anyway, overall I still think Maiden are one of the best bands in the world because of their unbelievable energy live, and because they're still amazingly talented. Even Janick Gers, he may be hilarious and pointless and do rubbish solos live, but because he's hilarious he makes it great fun to watch, and I love it. When he dances across the stage it makes me want to run around everywhere. That's why I hate bands who stand still live, because Iron Maiden are amazing. Wonderful.

The End.

jonny_boy34 wrote:Right, here we go.

When he dances across the stage it makes me want to run around everywhere.

Paschendale & Monstegur are awesome songs.

My favourite Iron Maiden album is the first one. I listened to the album while travelling down to Southampton once and had some kind of out of body/awesome religious experience. I concluded that it was indeed the best Iron Maiden Album.

The worst I feel is Fear of the Dark. Again there are some good songs on it and one great song but there is also plenty of chaff. The chaff is so chaffy that that it brings the album down.


Jon…you are mental.

What about VIRUS???????? Fuck me what a bad bad bad bad song.

Mazz wrote:

jonny_boy34 wrote:Right, here we go.

When he dances across the stage it makes me want to run around everywhere.

I forwarded your post onto Mr Battlewitch Bass. He said he is going to start running around and watch people do the same....don't let him down Jon

Oh yes indeed, Virus! Another example of the hilarities of Blaze Bayley. The whole intro bit is ridiculous and unnecessary. The main bit of the song is great fun though. And it boasts the most hilarious promo video ever made! Goodness me, I've never laughed at a music video so much in my life. All the band members mime to Blaze's singing during the intro, and when the fast bit kicks the camera just zooms in and out like a madness for the whole song. It's ridiculous! I can't believe it's real, it's so bloody hilarious.

ha ha. The intro is what makes it so so bad.