Best 1-2 opening salvo on a Maiden album?

Favorite 1-2 punch on a Maiden album?

  • Prowler / Remember Tomorrow

  • The Ides of March / Wrathchild

  • Invaders / Children of the Damned

  • Where Eagles Dare / Revelations

  • Aces High / 2 Minutes to Midnight

  • Caught Somewhere in Time / Wasted Years

  • Moonchild / Infinite Dreams

  • Tailgunner / Holy Smoke

  • Be Quick or Be Dead / From Here to Eternity

  • Sign of the Cross / Lord of the Flies

  • Futureal / The Angel and the Gambler

  • The Wicker Man / Ghost of the Navigator

  • Wildest Dreams / Rainmaker

  • Different World / These Colours Don't Run

  • Satellite 15... The Final Frontier / El Dorado

Results are only viewable after voting.
SinisterMinisterX

SinisterMinisterX

Illuminatus
Staff member
Five vote limit on the poll.

I'll throw my five to:
Where Eagles Dare / Revelations
Aces High / 2 Minutes to Midnight
Moonchild / Infinite Dreams
Futureal / The Angel and the Never Ending Chorus
The Wicker Man / Ghost of the Navigator

The first three choices need no comment. The VXI pair is great: Maiden's best short song, and a song so infectious you have to overlook the weaknesses and just have some fun. As for BNW: this poll came out of a discussion about Ghost. I basically made this thread so I could cast that vote! :cool:

If I had to pick a #1 out of my votes, it would be Moonchild / Infinite Dreams. Maiden at the top of their game, instrumentally and lyrically.

Plenty of other great choices in this poll. My VXI choice was hard, as I found reason to seriously consider almost every other album. Only NPFTD was entirely ruled out. In fact, if I could make a #6: Be Quick or Be Dead / From Here to Eternity. Both have great energy and are seriously underrated.
 
CSIT/Wasted Years, Moonchild/Infinite, Wicker Man/Ghost.

Also love Where Eagles Dare as an opening track, but Revelations doesn't hit hard enough as the second. Moonchild/Infinite is a lot more subtle...I tend to listen to Seventh Son as a whole album rather than breaking it into bits. Wicker Man/Ghost is significant for me because it fits the bill of opening the triumphant big first reunion album. Wicker is a belting opener, but it's not a flash in the pan because Ghost follows it up more than admirably.

Oh, and Wicker Man was possibly the first 'new' Maiden song I heard after a long, long break.
 
I picked my three favorites:

Caught Somewhere in Time/Wasted Years, The Wicker Man/Ghost of the Navigator, Sign of the Cross/Lord of the Flies
 
If I was to rank them:

Powerslave
Somewhere In Time
Seventh Son Of A Seventh Son
Piece Of Mind (I love the first half of this album, but the momentum goes off a cliff in the second half)
Brave New World
A Matter Of Life And Death
Iron Maiden
The X Factor
No Prayer For The Dying
Virtual XI
Fear Of The Dark
Number Of The Beast
The Final Frontier
Dance Of Death
Killers
 
Where Eagles Dare/Revelations - I'm proud to call myself a POM fanboy, hence this vote.

Aces/2 Minutes - Not much to be said, this set a precedent on how to properly start an album.

The Wicker Man/Ghost - My favorite Maiden 1-2 punch. How about some love for the title track in this sequence too? Those first three songs really show that Maiden isn't pulling any punches with this album.

Wildest Dreams/Rainmaker - DoD isn't my favorite album but I have to admit it starts out perfectly. For a very experimental album, it's obvious that there is going to be a lot of controversy and moments the listener might not be too fond of. Maiden cleverly draws the listeners in by playing it safe with two solid rockers before going more outside.

TFF/El Dorado - This was chosen less for the songs but more how they start off the album. The way TFF goes into El Dorado is very cool and sets the tone for the entire album; this is the Maiden we all know and love but we're still in for some unexpected moments.
 
Very difficult this. My favourite two salvos are from the debut album + Somewhere in Time. Then comes Seventh Son because Infinite Dreams is my 3rd favourite Maiden song (Moonchild I rate way lower, but it is good enough to make the pair excellent). Powerslave and Brave New World are the others.
 
Voted for:

Aces/2Mins (perfect fast one followed by perfect mid-pace rocker)
CSIT/Wasted (brilliant fast one followed by beautifully-crafted commercial metal)
Moonchild/ID (band on fire, vocalist leading the show)
Wicker Man/GotN (starts well then improves when that Ghost riff kicks in)
Sat15...FF/El Dorado (a band so confident that it's just doing what the fuck it wants).

I'd have put Ides/Wrathchild in there, but I hear them more as an intro-then-song, rather than two different songs.
 
I sincerely hope so. But I also wonder if they'll try to recreate the 80s glory days that many people hark back to. That has potential to go wrong, even if it does still sell.
 
As with anything Maiden, there's The X Factor, and then there's the rest.
 
Perun said:
As with anything Maiden, there's The X Factor, and then there's the rest.
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I'll challenge you on this. I'll admit that X Factor has two strong songs to start with, but Sign Of The Cross is not an opening song by any stretch. It would be like having Wild Wind or Rime open their respective albums.
 
What's wrong with opening with an epic? I thought it worked quite nicely. They could've picked a better 2nd song than Lord of the Flies though. Man on the Edge would've worked much better.
 
Mosh said:
What's wrong with opening with an epic? I thought it worked quite nicely. They could've picked a better 2nd song than Lord of the Flies though. Man on the Edge would've worked much better.
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Sign is a great song...but it takes nearly 3 minutes to really get going, therefore working much better as an individual song as opposed to on the album itself. You could have fit a Futureal-esque song there instead to get the momentum of the album going immediately and placed Sign near the end.

Lord Of The Flies is a pretty good second song, but I think it would work better with a faster song opening so it can carry the momentum onwards.
 
Well yea, those three minutes set the tone for the album. I couldn't think of a better way to start such a dark and brooding album.

There are a lot of albums by other bands that take a few minutes to really get going, I'm not sure why Maiden couldn't try the same thing. It was a cool change of pace.
 
I probably feel that way because I see the purpose of the album opener to get the album off to a kick start, especially for a metal band. You raise a very good point about X Factor starting off dark to portray the darkness of the album, but again, there are other songs to choose from from that album that would have been better than a 12 minute epic. Man On The Edge/Lord Of The Flies would have been a cool starting combo, and saving Sign to the end would have been a great payoff to end the album.

I'm not saying Maiden couldn't try the same thing, but if it ain't broke, don't fix it.
 
RTC said:
Sign is a great song...but it takes nearly 3 minutes to really get going, therefore working much better as an individual song as opposed to on the album itself. You could have fit a Futureal-esque song there instead to get the momentum of the album going immediately and placed Sign near the end.

Lord Of The Flies is a pretty good second song, but I think it would work better with a faster song opening so it can carry the momentum onwards.
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The X Factor is not one of these albums that needs an upbeat, uplifting song as an opener. That's just not what the album is about. In fact, I find Man on the Edge the weakest song on the album and it feels out of place to me. Sign of the Cross is much more suitable as an opener, as it sets the pace wonderfully for the rest of the album and gets you into its dark atmosphere right from the start.
 
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