Srogyy
Ancient Mariner
Don't Look... is pretty fast too, right? That's what comes to my mind first when I think about the fastest parts.
DJMayes' Complete Ranking Of Maiden Songs
- Thread starter DJMayes
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Meme Lord
I'm might be biased because BNW was what got me into Maiden, so Nomad and Mercenary at the bottom?! OK... Isle of Avalon also? Yes, you explained it nicely from your point of view, and I do understand that. But... BUT! If this is your bottom you must gave us some pretty pink sunglasses reviews of the songs that are usually in the bottom.
As Gunnery Sgt. Hartman said to Private Cowboy in Full Metal Jacket: "I'll be watching YOU!"
As Gunnery Sgt. Hartman said to Private Cowboy in Full Metal Jacket: "I'll be watching YOU!"
DJMayes
Ancient Mariner
My personal experience with Iron Maiden was somewhat different. Neither of my parents listen to heavy metal, my local radio station does not play anything heavier than Bon Jovi, and I was not massively adventurous with music as a child, so I had not heard of them for quite some time. However, I was always into video games, and at some point I ended up with Rock Band. The relevance of this is that the game has a cover version of Run To The Hills as part of the soundtrack. I thought it was alright at the time, and got a lot of other new bands to look at, but eventually I realised it was a cover version and decided to give the actual thing a listen. I liked the actual thing much more, and decided to listen to some of their other songs. Fear of the Dark was the first thing I came across, and I still have an unhealthy attachment to that song, and along with it I got into a lot of Maiden's classics. Around this time The Final Frontier was coming out, so I decided I'd get that album. At the time of getting it I remember not being all too impressed with it, except for When The Wild Wind Blows and in particular The Talisman.
Some time later, I decided I wasn't a particular fan of just owning standalone songs - I wanted the albums they came in as well, and to make a conscious effort to listen to them in case there were "gems" I'd missed, so ended up getting most of Maiden's discography - every Bruce album except for Dance of Death and A Matter of Life and Death at that time. I went from there with the majority of those albums at my disposal. I grew to like them enough that I thought I'd try the other two albums, for which Paschendale and Different World served as my introduction. Paul and Blaze albums have been a fairly late addition, for obvious reasons.
The Book Of Souls is the first album release I was on board for from the start as an avid fan, so I think it's the one I have most emotional connection / nostalgia for. You will absolutely see that reflected in the rankings here. Other aspects of this? Not so much. Some of these songs are still very high up on this list, whilst others have dropped, in some cases fairly substantially as others have overtook them. But because I didn't really start from a specific "era" my tastes are fairly erratic. I also have "tamer" tastes in music than most metalheads - it veers more towards hard rock in many places. You'll also see this reflected with many songs that have this sort of vibe (Weekend Warrior, Chains Of Misery, The Final Frontier) rated much more highly than most people would.
Of course at the other end of the scale, I often lack the appreciation for certain things that other metalheads would more. I find it difficult to get into a lot of more progressive stuff (Dream Theater being the only band I really love there), and many harsher genres (thrash, death, etc.) I don't find sufficient melody to really enjoy. The latter doesn't really influence this list, but I think Isle of Avalon is my relative lack of appreciation for the progressive at play. Or maybe that's rubbish. Empire of the Clouds is a song I rate very highly so I could just be trying to draw links where there are none.
Isle of Avalon is proggy, Empire not really. So that makes sense. Length =/= progressive.
DJMayes
Ancient Mariner
Thanks for the clarification. I am never really sure on where the boundary is with all these subgenres.
The Flash
Dennis Wilcock did 9/11
The Apparition is "Losfer Music (Big 'Orra)" to me. I feel like Steve wrote the lyrics and felt strongly about them but didn't have the music to go with it. -At least during the verses- It annoyingly repeats the same couple of chords while Bruce rambles on top of it. It gets on my nerves.
Isn't Back from on the Edge the fastest Maiden song is? I thought we had that topic covered already. So it should be opened to discussion. The answer is obvious.
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The Mid-Distance Runner
Educated Fool
The SOS drumming sequence in Empire is proggy and so is the instrumental section in Isle of Avalon. Aside from those song parts I don't consider either to be proggy. In fact, I cannot think of a Maiden song that is 100%. Infinite Dreams perhaps.
Forostar
Ancient Mariner
DJMayes
Ancient Mariner
Perhaps surprisingly it isn't. The song did take a while for me to get into and it's not one of my absolute favourite songs but I think that in general it's a much stronger and more cohesive song than Isle of Avalon.
StormTheTrooper
Running to the Hills
This reminded me of my first contact with Maiden. My uncle and aunt were the only family members that heard heavy metal, but they never bothered to show me anything as a children. My dad introduced be to Pink Floyd and Queen, and so i went the whole pre-teenager era (our radio doesn't play anything beyond AOR). One day, i was at my grandma's house and my uncle was watching a Metallica concert on the TV, so i sit there and got blew by The Unforgiven and Enter Sandman. He borrowed me a bootleg DVD and i loved other songs (specially ny actual favorites, Creeping Death and Master of Puppets). A few days later, my aunt was showing me an Eddie doll on the internet, so i got curious and i went to YouTube. The first song i heard? The Trooper. Still my favorite song. Still my favorite band, since 2010.
The Book of Souls was the 1st album that i heard with all the hype of a new album too. I wasn't dissapointed, definitely
The Book of Souls was the 1st album that i heard with all the hype of a new album too. I wasn't dissapointed, definitely
DJMayes
Ancient Mariner
#140-136:
140 - Run Silent Run Deep
No Prayer is an album I find difficult to hate, but also find difficult to love. The plethora of decent but not great songs that it contains are the reason, and Run Silent Run Deep is a great example. There's not a section of the song that I strongly dislike. The verses are decent, and it's nice to hear the gallop on this album, and the chorus could definitely be worse. The solo's not bad, and...well, you get the idea. On the other hand, no part of this song really reaches out to me. It's pretty much the epitome of an inoffensive song.
139 - Fear Is The Key
I would contend that, when ranking albums, we are perhaps comparing the worst songs as much as we are the best ones. The Powerslave fans love all of the tracks I've spent time previously slating. Fear of the Dark is kind of the reverse for me. The majority of people agree that the likes of Fear of the Dark, Judas Be My Guide, Afraid to Shoot Strangers and Be Quick or Be Dead are all good songs, and I am confident that if they enjoyed the rest of the tracks as much as I do then this album would also make their top 5. That it took this long for a track from the album to appear speaks a lot in itself, but perhaps the choice in track speaks even more. The overwhelming impression I've been getting is that people expected The Apparition or Weekend Warrior to appear first, not this one. Hopefully, then, I can enlighten you.
Fear of the Key, along with the rest of the album, is a track that I don't really dislike enough to skip. Indeed, I am quite a big fan of the majority of it. The verses have a slow groove that I particularly enjoy. The chorus isn't great, but it's certainly serviceable. The first bridge is cool, and I am a massive fan of the crunching guitar section that follows.
Unfortunately, the bridge then happens. Yes, you know, that one. My problem here isn't the music. On it's own I don't really have an issue with it. In this song, however, it's far too out of place. There's a massive step change as it starts. This said, it manages to segue back into the song naturally enough, so I do wonder if they could have integrated this bridge into the song in a better way rather than outright removing it. The bridge is what will always hold this song back though.
138 - Tailgunner
Much as Holy Smoke suffers from comparisons to Die With Your Boots On, this song is inevitably going to suffer in comparison to the stellar Aces High, and indeed even to the raucous fun of Death or Glory. However, it seems unfair to just say "there are better plane songs" when this song definitely does some interesting things.
Tailgunner's bass intro is instantly recognisable, and I think for good reasons. It's nowhere near the best they've done, but it's fun. This is probably a statement that sums up the entirety of this song. The verses are fun, especially when they start cracking out the Fokker puns. The chorus is the place that could've made this song special, I think. Unfortunately, in what I can only assume was some twisted expression of artistic irony, the "climb into the sky, never wonder why" is immediately followed by the chorus plummeting back to Earth with the Tailgunner lines. It's an odd feeling, as with most choruses I either like it or dislike it in its entirety rather than liking half and hating the other half.
137 - The Unbeliever
Rest assured, after this song the X Factor bashing will stop for a bit.
The Unbeliever is a song of many parts. The start is strong, with a weird intro followed by a driving verse. This then segues into the "all my life, I've tried to hide away" section, which I find, frankly, dull. That the verses alternate between these two sections is unfortunate, and damages a song that could be ranked much higher.
A good job, then, that the chorus is one of the better parts of this album as a whole. It's very reminiscent of The Thin Line Between Love and Hate, which is perhaps unfortunate - I enjoy the latter much more overall.
When this ends at 3:37, and silence suddenly and momentarily descends, it's an interesting part of the song. I find it interesting because this song seems a lot more adventurous and exploratory than many of the other songs mentioned so far, and, to its credit, doesn't seem content to sit still on one section for too long.
An unshakeable feeling I always get with this song, around 5 and a half minutes in, is that the song resets and plays itself over, but without the dull section I mentioned earlier. I'd have liked for the song to have began like this, and perhaps to replace the time with a solo. I believe both these changes would make the song much better.
136 - The Legacy
I only ask for a headstart whilst I run.
For me, The Legacy is a song about building up to a reward. However, for me, the ratio is skewed - there's too much build-up, and not enough reward. To properly describe what I mean, I need to go through the song in full.
I'm not opposed to the start of this song in and of itself. It's similar to any number of songs, some of which make it into my top 20. I count this as the section up until around 1:35. Whereas other songs would take this point as the opportunity to get going, the song then segues for another 40 seconds before we get what I consider the main refrain of the song. This section repeats, and by 3:10 it finally feels like the song has gone somewhere.
Unfortunately, the song then rests on this section, which is alright but not interesting enough to me to warrant the more than 2 minutes until the song then kicks it up a notch again. We get the main refrain, and then the riff apparently also used in Empire of the Clouds. I like this bit, and this is where the song really gets going - but it's 5 and a half minutes in! The solo section here is interesting, and the verses starting around 6:30 are very good (though not making my top 10 any time soon, it should be said). Still, this is absolutely the best section of the song. I have no further complaints for the song at all. It's a great section, but I don't think it can fully make up for the first half of the song.
140 - Run Silent Run Deep
No Prayer is an album I find difficult to hate, but also find difficult to love. The plethora of decent but not great songs that it contains are the reason, and Run Silent Run Deep is a great example. There's not a section of the song that I strongly dislike. The verses are decent, and it's nice to hear the gallop on this album, and the chorus could definitely be worse. The solo's not bad, and...well, you get the idea. On the other hand, no part of this song really reaches out to me. It's pretty much the epitome of an inoffensive song.
139 - Fear Is The Key
I would contend that, when ranking albums, we are perhaps comparing the worst songs as much as we are the best ones. The Powerslave fans love all of the tracks I've spent time previously slating. Fear of the Dark is kind of the reverse for me. The majority of people agree that the likes of Fear of the Dark, Judas Be My Guide, Afraid to Shoot Strangers and Be Quick or Be Dead are all good songs, and I am confident that if they enjoyed the rest of the tracks as much as I do then this album would also make their top 5. That it took this long for a track from the album to appear speaks a lot in itself, but perhaps the choice in track speaks even more. The overwhelming impression I've been getting is that people expected The Apparition or Weekend Warrior to appear first, not this one. Hopefully, then, I can enlighten you.
Fear of the Key, along with the rest of the album, is a track that I don't really dislike enough to skip. Indeed, I am quite a big fan of the majority of it. The verses have a slow groove that I particularly enjoy. The chorus isn't great, but it's certainly serviceable. The first bridge is cool, and I am a massive fan of the crunching guitar section that follows.
Unfortunately, the bridge then happens. Yes, you know, that one. My problem here isn't the music. On it's own I don't really have an issue with it. In this song, however, it's far too out of place. There's a massive step change as it starts. This said, it manages to segue back into the song naturally enough, so I do wonder if they could have integrated this bridge into the song in a better way rather than outright removing it. The bridge is what will always hold this song back though.
138 - Tailgunner
Much as Holy Smoke suffers from comparisons to Die With Your Boots On, this song is inevitably going to suffer in comparison to the stellar Aces High, and indeed even to the raucous fun of Death or Glory. However, it seems unfair to just say "there are better plane songs" when this song definitely does some interesting things.
Tailgunner's bass intro is instantly recognisable, and I think for good reasons. It's nowhere near the best they've done, but it's fun. This is probably a statement that sums up the entirety of this song. The verses are fun, especially when they start cracking out the Fokker puns. The chorus is the place that could've made this song special, I think. Unfortunately, in what I can only assume was some twisted expression of artistic irony, the "climb into the sky, never wonder why" is immediately followed by the chorus plummeting back to Earth with the Tailgunner lines. It's an odd feeling, as with most choruses I either like it or dislike it in its entirety rather than liking half and hating the other half.
137 - The Unbeliever
Rest assured, after this song the X Factor bashing will stop for a bit.
The Unbeliever is a song of many parts. The start is strong, with a weird intro followed by a driving verse. This then segues into the "all my life, I've tried to hide away" section, which I find, frankly, dull. That the verses alternate between these two sections is unfortunate, and damages a song that could be ranked much higher.
A good job, then, that the chorus is one of the better parts of this album as a whole. It's very reminiscent of The Thin Line Between Love and Hate, which is perhaps unfortunate - I enjoy the latter much more overall.
When this ends at 3:37, and silence suddenly and momentarily descends, it's an interesting part of the song. I find it interesting because this song seems a lot more adventurous and exploratory than many of the other songs mentioned so far, and, to its credit, doesn't seem content to sit still on one section for too long.
An unshakeable feeling I always get with this song, around 5 and a half minutes in, is that the song resets and plays itself over, but without the dull section I mentioned earlier. I'd have liked for the song to have began like this, and perhaps to replace the time with a solo. I believe both these changes would make the song much better.
136 - The Legacy
I only ask for a headstart whilst I run.
For me, The Legacy is a song about building up to a reward. However, for me, the ratio is skewed - there's too much build-up, and not enough reward. To properly describe what I mean, I need to go through the song in full.
I'm not opposed to the start of this song in and of itself. It's similar to any number of songs, some of which make it into my top 20. I count this as the section up until around 1:35. Whereas other songs would take this point as the opportunity to get going, the song then segues for another 40 seconds before we get what I consider the main refrain of the song. This section repeats, and by 3:10 it finally feels like the song has gone somewhere.
Unfortunately, the song then rests on this section, which is alright but not interesting enough to me to warrant the more than 2 minutes until the song then kicks it up a notch again. We get the main refrain, and then the riff apparently also used in Empire of the Clouds. I like this bit, and this is where the song really gets going - but it's 5 and a half minutes in! The solo section here is interesting, and the verses starting around 6:30 are very good (though not making my top 10 any time soon, it should be said). Still, this is absolutely the best section of the song. I have no further complaints for the song at all. It's a great section, but I don't think it can fully make up for the first half of the song.
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Apart from The Legacy, I don't disagree much with any of that.
The Mid-Distance Runner
Educated Fool
Dear Mr/Ms Mayes. I'd be very happy if Maiden played your 150 to 136 songs in order live...along with Iron Maiden and FOTD to keep Steve and Nicko happy.
DJMayes
Ancient Mariner
Which one gets replaced with Wrathchild?
