Poll: The weakest 80's Maiden album?

What's the weakest 80's Maiden album?

  • Total voters
    73
The self-titled album is the weakest for me, the sound is quite shitty and not very elaborate, they definitely improved their sound when Marvin started producing their albums, the sound evolution between IM and Killers is very noticeable and you can see a big improvement in the Killers sound.
 
Vaenyr said:
That's easy: Fillers.
Better production, performance and artwork than the debut, but some of the songs are blatantly unfinished. Also, I really don't care for that style of songwriting they focused on back then.
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I think it's just the style of the songs, but Murders and Genghis Khan have no proper solos (the intro of the album has), while songs like Another Life(!) and Purgatory have really short solos.

If I have to compare the debut and it:

There is no song like Phantom, a league of its own. Remember Tomorrow is also unique.
Both title tracks are good and memorable.
Murders and Prowler are great openers.
Running Free and Wrathchild are great live songs.
Strange World and Prodigal Son are almost equal.
Transylvania is better than Genghis Khan, but both are cool.
Purgatory and Sanctuary are strong.
Innocent Exile or Drifter are no weaker than Charlotte.
Black Bart said:
Somewhere in Time.
It's still great, mind you, but the band was burnt-out and it is overall less inspired, even if the visual and the sound cover it up.
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I find SIT to be one of their most inspiring albums.
 
Somewhere In Time.

Easy one this. Similar to the Bart man, I've always found this a tad uninspired compared to the rest, even though it's far from a bad album.

Like every 80s album it has moments that could be genuinely considered career highlights but this album has always felt like a strange moment among the big moments.
 
SIT can't be worse than Killers. Killers is the definition of uninspired. Most of the songs seem unfinished. I'm biased because SIT is my fav album, but even if it's not someone's fav, it can't be the worst off the first 7, because Killers exists. I get some people don't like the synths, but the songwriting is still top notch. I personally also don't like the synth guitars, but they work so well in SIT.
 
Prowler said:
SIT can't be worse than Killers. Killers is the definition of uninspired. Most of the songs seem unfinished. I'm biased because SIT is my fav album, but even if it's not someone's fav, it can't be the worst off the first 7, because Killers exists. I get some people don't like the synths, but the songwriting is still top notch. I personally also don't like the synth guitars, but they work so well in SIT.
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SIT is my second favorite Maiden album after Powerslave. Powerslave, SIT and SSoaSS is the best run of 3 Maiden albums in my view.
I think SIT is a killer album. Only Heaven can wait is meh and kinda dull and I wouldn't even consider it bad. But we have CSIT, Wasted years, LOLDR, SISL and Alexander the Great as the standout, killer tracks and SOM and Deja Vu are very good too.
 
sea.of.madness.1986 said:
The self-titled album is the weakest for me, the sound is quite shitty and not very elaborate, they definitely improved their sound when Marvin started producing their albums, the sound evolution between IM and Killers is very noticeable and you can see a big improvement in the Killers sound.
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The 1998 remaster is unlistenable to and is what I went by when I used to explain why I didn't like the album. Since the 2015 remaster, I've warmed up to it a lot
 
Spaldy said:
Several people have commented that some songs in Killers are unfinished. Can they give some examples as it's not something I've observed before?
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Probably the several songs that have the same verse repeated. Although, it's a bit much calling them unfinished as they all had been written in the 70s even before the first album, so they had plenty of time to finish them if that's what they had wanted to do.
 
Spaldy said:
Several people have commented that some songs in Killers are unfinished. Can they give some examples as it's not something I've observed before?
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I'm also curious what they mean by that, it sounds finished to me :D I get the impression that since 30 years ago Maiden seem to think that finishing a song means you have to extend it by about 5 minutes, add a long intro and have Janick doubling the vocals to keep it interesting.

Edit: BTW, that does not mean I don't like long songs. But I do sometimes wish Maiden would work with a producer that would push them to shorten some of their songs.
 
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I said they seem unfinished, not that they actually are unfinished. I think they were supposed to be like that. Maybe the problem is that most of the songs on Killers are leftover tracks that didn't make it for the first album. Songs like Another Life and Innocent Exile seem too basic to be Maiden songs. I mean Another Life has exactly the same lyrics repeated 3 times, no chorus, no bridge, no prechorus, no structure at all, just a short solo section that doesn't even sound good enough. It seems unfinished.
Some songs from the first record like the title track get a lot of hate from some fans, but it still has a killer riff, a structure, a chorus, a killer bass riff. If the first album had better production, it would have been 10 times better than Killers. Now it's just better.
The first album has a better instrumental, a better opener, an epic vs 0 epics on Killers, 2 anthems (Iron Maiden and Running free).
I'm not gonna compare songs off Killers to songs off the next 5 albums, because the difference is massive.
 
Prowler said:
Songs like Another Life and Innocent Exile seem too basic to be Maiden songs. I mean Another Life has exactly the same lyrics repeated 3 times, no chorus, no bridge, no prechorus, no structure at all, just a short solo section that doesn't even sound good enough. It seems unfinished.
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IDK, I mean, by this logic, IM is an unfinished song as that also just repeats the same verse and chorus 3x.
 
sea.of.madness.1986 said:
The self-titled album is the weakest for me, the sound is quite shitty and not very elaborate, they definitely improved their sound when Marvin started producing their albums, the sound evolution between IM and Killers is very noticeable and you can see a big improvement in the Killers sound.
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But killers have worst songs. But the sound of the first album is were they were
 
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