Worldwide album sales

But, except for FotD (track), they ignore all of the 90's. It's hardly an argument without any basis. This is like Maiden playing one track from the whole of the 80's.
 
But, except for FotD (track), they ignore all of the 90's. It's hardly an argument without any basis. This is like Maiden playing one track from the whole of the 80's.

Err not really. The ed hunter tour to welcome Bruce and Adrian back saw a few blaze and other 90’s tracks played. Plus the give me ed tour saw the return of bring your daughter to the slaughter. Plus we got afraid to shoot strangers back on the maiden England tour. Also 2 blaze tracks in rock in Rio and lord of the flies on death on the road. In fact Bruce has sung 5 blaze era tracks since the reunion and all have been made available in official releases.

Granted the 90’s stuff hasn’t been mega prolific but hasn’t been completely washed away and I could see a couple more 90’s tracks popping up on the legacy of the beast tour.

Apart from the trooper what else ever gets played off piece of mind outside of the history tours? Apart from wrathchild how many killers tracks are regulars outside of history tours. I could go on but maiden have a habit of concentrating on the current album combined with the same old classics so a lot of albums get ignored after a while. Brave new world hardly gets a look in outside of blood brothers and the occasional wicker man or the title track. Same with dance of death, mostly ignored these days bar the odd track here and there.

Look at AMOLAD. Apart from the album tour when the did the whole album I’ve not heard a single track played since and I’ve been to tons of maiden shows since then.
 
Err not really. The ed hunter tour to welcome Bruce and Adrian back saw a few blaze and other 90’s tracks played. Plus the give me ed tour saw the return of bring your daughter to the slaughter. Plus we got afraid to shoot strangers back on the maiden England tour. Also 2 blaze tracks in rock in Rio and lord of the flies on death on the road. In fact Bruce has sung 5 blaze era tracks since the reunion and all have been made available in official releases.
Ed Hunter Tour wasn't an album tour. Maiden England wasn't an album tour.
Apart from the trooper what else ever gets played off piece of mind outside of the history tours?
PoM is one album from the 80's.
Apart from wrathchild how many killers tracks are regulars outside of history tours.
Again, that's only one album from the 80's.
I could go on but maiden have a habit of concentrating on the current album combined with the same old classics so a lot of albums get ignored after a while.
Yeh, but the same old classics are a spread of tracks from throughout the 80's. The 90's? It's really only FoTD.
Brave new world hardly gets a look in outside of blood brothers and the occasional wicker man or the title track. Same with dance of death, mostly ignored these days bar the odd track here and there.
Agree with this.
Look at AMOLAD. Apart from the album tour when the did the whole album I’ve not heard a single track played since and I’ve been to tons of maiden shows since then.
Again, agreed.
 
Yeh, but the same old classics are a spread of tracks from throughout the 80's. The 90's? It's really only FoTD.

7 80’s albums compared to 4 90’s albums, 2 of which (the blaze albums) hardly set the world alight sales wise so I can see it being much easier to get a spread of 80’s songs in a set list than the 90’s.

Whilst I totally agree that maiden ignore the 90’s era far too much my point was that they ditch a lot of albums after a time not just the 90’s ones.

At least they haven’t done a Judas Priest and tried to forget the 90’s albums ever existed like Priest have done with the ripper albums.
 
NPFTD and FOTD may have been very succesful at the time based on some songs that were hits like Bring Your Daughter to the Slaughter and Fear of the Dark.
But I agree that majority of the fans nowadays don't consider those albums at par with Powerslave or Seventh Son or any of the first 7 albums.
Both NPFTD and FOTD have lots of filler songs and you could perfectly make one good album with the best songs of both albums.

Maybe Adrian leaving wasn't seen as a problem at the time but I think in retrospective most fans acknowledge that it was a step back in quality.
 
I did really notice a drop off in Maiden's popularity in the States until about FOTD. During that time period, you had the Black album, the Use Your Illusions, and all of the big grunge albums completely overshadowing them at the time.

I actually remember hearing NPFTD stuff on mainstream radio while visiting family in the UK in 1990. I remember, as Wayne mentioned, that it was still business as usual until the Blaze drop off.

I think Maiden has almost always been more about the sum than the parts (though Bruce is probably the exception). To be honest, I didn't realize that Adrian was "deified" until I discovered the web forums.
 
I think SiT was the first CD I bought. About two years after discovering the band. Maybe two years after that, I started allocating more time to heavier metals and progressiver metals and Maiden was pushed a bit down the queue. The last albums I listened to were BNW, VXI, NPFTD, that kind of stuff...already before the pause I was a bit tired with the 1980s because I was on Maiden 16 hours a day back when I discovered them.

Anyways, I gave SiT a spin again, cause it is one of my favourite albums ever, right? This time I actually heard what Smith was doing and frankly it blew me off. After a few years of listening to guitar wizards and virtuosos. Smith was and is untouchable when it comes to sound, lead arrangement, vibrato, phrasing and execution.

I guess once you pass on from listening to Maiden casually to discovering all the little details in songs you might start liking one of the members for what he's doing.
 
I think SiT was the first CD I bought. About two years after discovering the band. Maybe two years after that, I started allocating more time to heavier metals and progressiver metals and Maiden was pushed a bit down the queue. The last albums I listened to were BNW, VXI, NPFTD, that kind of stuff...already before the pause I was a bit tired with the 1980s because I was on Maiden 16 hours a day back when I discovered them.

Anyways, I gave SiT a spin again, cause it is one of my favourite albums ever, right? This time I actually heard what Smith was doing and frankly it blew me off. After a few years of listening to guitar wizards and virtuosos. Smith was and is untouchable when it comes to sound, lead arrangement, vibrato, phrasing and execution.

I guess once you pass on from listening to Maiden casually to discovering all the little details in songs you might start liking one of the members for what he's doing.
John Petrucci learned vibrato from listening to H.
'nuff said.
 
This stuff usually gets bundled under a "feel" term. Gilmore is one of the guys with insane feel, so much that musically (at least for me and a few other millions) it's more effective than virtuoso techniques. Roy Z said that if he could sound like one guy, it would be DG.

H has enough flash to take the spotlight in metal soloing, let alone the feel...
 
Look at AMOLAD. Apart from the album tour when the did the whole album I’ve not heard a single track played since and I’ve been to tons of maiden shows since then.

Not being picky chaps but they played TROBB and TCDR of AMOLAD in Dublin in 2010, I know this because I was lucky enough to be there....
 
I’ve had a few more staging ideas:
They flood the stage and the band play on a boat for Ghost of the Navigator, The Talisman and ROTAM.
For Invaders they will have actual vikings who will come and pillage the monastery from Sign of the Cross.
 
Not being picky chaps but they played TROBB and TCDR of AMOLAD in Dublin in 2010, I know this because I was lucky enough to be there....

Yeah, they played some AMOLAD songs on The Matter of the Beast tour after the AMOLAD album tour.. Was that 2010?
 
Yeah, they played some AMOLAD songs on The Matter of the Beast tour after the AMOLAD album tour.. Was that 2010?

Well all I can say is the shows I’ve seen since the AMOLAD tour haven’t featured a single song from the album. There was no songs on any gigs I saw on the final frontier tour or the book of souls tour. Seems like they did play a couple of tracks in the first leg of the final frontier tour but dropped them by the time they hit the U.K. in 2011.
 
to put some new info in, The Book of Souls has been confirmed Gold in 11 countries and Platinum in 2 countries. Neither status was achieved in the USA though but the demands are significantly higher for those ratings here. Both Germany and the UK have over 100,000 confirmed albums sales each as well as the USA but you need 500,000 to get gold in the USA.
 
Iron Maiden may be the biggest band out there that never quite made it in the US but still is one of the most succesful bands worldwide.

I mean, for most bands making it in the United States is a condition to gain success.

Maiden's downfall in the USA was their hatred of television. You HAD to be on TV a lot to make it stateside. You had to have consistent music videos and such or you were doomed to fail. They did not do very much tv appearances in the USA and I think because of that, they missed a lot of opportunities
 
Maiden's downfall in the USA was their hatred of television. You HAD to be on TV a lot to make it stateside. You had to have consistent music videos and such or you were doomed to fail. They did not do very much tv appearances in the USA and I think because of that, they missed a lot of opportunities
Maiden was just another metal band in America during the first Era of Bruce, but they always had a certain mystique about 'em, 'cause their shirts / merch was so bad-ass. People knew OF them, but didn't really know any of their songs. Yeah, they were popular amongst the head-banging crowd (jean jacket & mullets -- Gawd bless the 80s), but nobody else really paid too much attention. Virtually no radio play, and MTV only played their videos during that goofy Headbangers Ball. (BTW, Blaze B. is kinda looking like Matt Pinfield these days. Have ya noticed???)

But nowadays in the States, they're getting much more love & respect. Everyone knows their songs now... As for why, I think it's because of their longevity; the reverence most of the major metal bands have for 'em; and the proliferation of new music platforms that will showcase their songs in ways MTV & mainstream US radio never did (SiriusXM in particular is all over 'em... even had a dedicated IM station when BOS came out).

Plus, their new albums have been soooo strong... that helps, too. Sometimes, the best PR of all is simply having good material.
 
Maiden is an interesting phenomenon in the States based on my experience. Nearly every American rock/metal fan I know respects them, but most people really don't listen to them over here. People will spend an eternity dissecting every corner of Metallica's catalogue, waxing philosophically about the different eras of Sabbath, debating Pantera's lasting impact to modern metal, or interpreting Tool's cryptic lyrics, but if I mention anything Maiden related outside of NOTB or POTM, most people look at me as if I were from another planet. Maiden is treated sort of like the cool, mysterious war-hero Grandfather that everyone in the family is proud of, but no one really knows the actual details.
 
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