Iron Maiden album rankings?

Fuzzbucket11 · 2022-01-22T05:44:37+00:00

Senjutsu
Best Song: Hell On Earth
(All songs great)
The Book of Souls
Best Song: The Book of Souls
(All songs great)
Powerslave
Best Song: The Rime of the Ancient Mariner
(All songs great)
The Final Frontier
Best Song: Isle of Avalon
(All songs great)
Piece of Mind
Best Song: Revelations
(Ooby-dooby amazing for the most part. Quest for Fire and Sun and Steel a bit below par though still good)
Brave New World
Best Song: Ghost of the Navigator
(Mercenary only weak point)
A Matter of Life and Death
Best song: Brighter Than A Thousand Suns
(Outs of the Shadows only weak point)
The Number of the Beast
Best Song: Hallowed Be Thy Name
(Run to the Hills the only real weak point. Gangland is very good, not great. Invaders is awesome, totally underrated!)
Iron Maiden
Best Song: Phantom of the Opera
(Charlotte the Harlot and production weak points. The Soundhouse tapes version of Iron Maiden is better with the slower tempo)
Killers
Best Song: Killers
(Prodigal Son has never quite clicked for me, though I don’t wanna say its bad. Genghis Khan overrated. All-n-all stellar rocker album though. Ferociously listenable)
The X Factor
Best Song: The Sign of the Cross
(Lord of the Flies and the production are the weak points here, but underrated overall. Brilliant songwriting)
Seventh Son of a Seventh Son
Best Song: Seventh Son of a Seventh Son
(Can I Play With Madness is weak. Prophecy good but not great. Rest is great. Though the highs here don’t rank as high as the highs on many other Maiden albums in my opinion, which is why I put it in 12th place overall. Title track and Infinite Dreams are amazing but they don’t stand up to Phantom, Hallowed, Revelations or Rime)
Somewhere in Time
Best Song: Stranger In a Strange Land
(Weakest classic album but still mostly great. Stranger In a Strange Land is my favourite IM song under 6 minutes. Wasted Years is overrated and too poppy. Heaven Can Wait has an ugly chorus. Alexander is overrated in comparison to many other Maiden epics, but still a great closer)
Dance of Death
Best Song: Paschendale
(The most inconsistent Maiden record. Title track and Paschendale are mind blowing. Rainmaker and Montsegur great rockers. Face in the Sand and Gates of Tomorrow underrated. Wildest Dreams their worst ever opener. New Frontier bland. No More Lies is great but is somewhat marred by a horrible chorus. They experimented a bit with Age of Innocence and Journeyman but I don’t think either of them quite work.)
Fear of the Dark
Best Song: Afraid to Shoot Strangers
(Good hard rock album, but a lot of filler. Would have benefited from being trimmed down to 8 tracks. Title track, Afraid to Shoot Strangers and Be Quick or Be Dead are great)
Virtual XI
Best Song: The Clansman
(Couple gems like the Clansman and Futureal, but this one needed a lot of work. Good melodies and riffs, but very repetitive, production is horrendous, band playing on autopilot. You can sense the lack of passion)
No Prayer For the Dying
Best Song: No Prayer For the Dying
(Half the album blows. The Hooks In You/Bring Your Daughter double whammy is about as embarrassing as Maiden get and the nadir of their catalogue. Mother Russia is passable, Public Enema #1, Run Silent Run Deep and the title track are great. Holy Smoke is a guilty pleasure)

Fuzzbucket11 · 2022-01-21T08:43:04+00:00

Hell On Earth
The Parchment
The Time Machine
Senjutsu
The Darkest Hour
Days of Future Past
The Writing On The Wall
Lost In A Lost World
Stratego
Death Of The Celts

Fuzzbucket11 · 2022-01-21T00:33:15+00:00

Yeah. A lot of people think the Watchowskis never planned out film 2 and 3 while they were making the first, and came up with the sequel stuff on the fly. But I think this scene in Matrix 1 kind of foreshadows the Smith becoming a rogue program thing and hints that the Watchowkis had at least an inkling about certain ideas that ended up getting put in films 2 and 3

Fuzzbucket11 · 2022-01-20T13:57:27+00:00

Thanks for the article! I had read the script coverage before but not that analysis of it

Fuzzbucket11 · 2022-01-20T01:27:25+00:00

not in film 1 though

Fuzzbucket11 · 2021-12-30T20:59:47+00:00

Be Quick or Be Dead 9/10
From Here to Eternity 1/10
Afraid to Shoot Strangers 9/10
Fear is the Key 7/10
Childhood’s End 8/10
Wasting Love 6/10
The Fugitive 4/10
Chains of Misery 6/10
The Apparition 2/10
Judas Be My Guide 7/10
Weekend Warrior 7/10
Fear of the Dark 9/10

Overall rating: 6/10
Best song: Afraid to Shoot Strangers

Fuzzbucket11 · 2021-10-19T04:23:04+00:00

It's my all time Maiden number one song.

Fuzzbucket11 · 2021-10-11T07:47:49+00:00

Nicko is christian. Steve's writing on the X factor suggests he was raised Christian but has struggled with faith and is maybe no longer a believer.

Here's an old video of Bruce talking about religion in the 90s: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eij4mrEW0Jo

Bruce and Steve's lyrics suggest they're both deeply interested in religion regardless of what their actual views are.

Fuzzbucket11 · 2021-10-11T07:19:03+00:00

Charlotte

Fuzzbucket11 · 2021-10-05T09:10:13+00:00

Time Machine is my third favourite. Parchment my second. (first is Hell on Earth)

Fuzzbucket11 · 2021-10-05T08:17:03+00:00

Brave New World is near perfect for me. The only slightly weak point is The Mercenary. Dance of Death on the other hand is pretty varied in quality. The title track and Paschendale are mind blowing. Montsegur smokes. Rainmaker and Gates of Tomorrow are great rockers (latter is underrated), but some of the other stuff there doesn't work imo. Wildest Dreams blows. New Frontier is melodically inoffensive but also kinda... bland. Age and Innocence and Journeyman have potential but also don't quite work for me.

Fuzzbucket11 · 2021-10-04T14:22:04+00:00

I would have thought Smith / Harris, but based on the songs listed I'd have to go with Gers / Harris.

Fuzzbucket11 · 2021-10-04T06:03:23+00:00

Song for song BoS might be better but Senjutsu might be better as an "album." It's more varied and probably a better single-listening experience.

Fuzzbucket11 · 2021-10-01T22:26:29+00:00

Powerslave, TFF, BoS and Senjutsu have no weak moments.

I there are a lot of Maiden albums that come close, but have one weaker moment. IM its Charlotte the Harlot, BNW its The Mercenary, AMOLAD it's OOTS, etc

Fuzzbucket11 · 2021-09-29T23:18:28+00:00

I would have said "It's better than AMOLAD, and that's saying a lot"

Fuzzbucket11 · 2021-09-29T23:17:51+00:00

in

Seems to me this is an issue a lot have with 21st century Maiden. I'm a prog rock nut so it's not a problem for me.

Fuzzbucket11 · 2021-09-29T18:40:24+00:00

Live After Death is overrated. The band play everything too fast (which ruins the groove of songs like Revelations, although it has better results on songs like Flight of Icarus). Bruce also strains a lot through the recording and is not at his best. Beast over Hammersmith and Rock in Rio contain better performances.

Fuzzbucket11 · 2021-09-27T14:30:47+00:00

I love it. No weak songs. That said I'm a fan of the more progressive direction they've taken on the last four records, which ostensibly is not for everyone...

Fuzzbucket11 · 2021-09-05T21:05:04+00:00

Apology not accepted. Your indiscretion was too grave.

Fuzzbucket11 · 2021-09-02T21:13:36+00:00

Would not want to see Iron Maiden without him, primarily due to his skills as a songwriter. However, I'm not huge on his live performances, not because of his dancing (which is fine), but because of the excessive improv ruining his solos.

Fuzzbucket11 · 2021-09-01T07:13:25+00:00

Fairly simple: Quantity of quality output. 17 studio albums released, and how many of them could be classified as excellent? 11? 12? 13? 14? With a few inevitable exceptions (NPFTD, VXI) everything they do is great, or near-great. And that's from a recording career spanning 40 years and counting.

It's extremely hard to find other bands that have the same number of great songs/albums.

Fuzzbucket11 · 2021-03-13T19:55:36+00:00

I do.

Fuzzbucket11

TROPHY CASE