Maiden albums you can’t get into?

RueMorgue

RueMorgue

Invader
I’ve been a Maiden fan for a long time now (since about 1982). Nonetheless there are a couple of albums which never really revealed their charms to me, no matter how hard I’ve tried. Those two albums being Somewhere In Time and A Matter Of Life And Death. In the case of Somewhere In Time, part of it has been how different it sounds, with all the guitar synths etc. But I’m finally starting to embrace it. As for AMOLAD, it’s just never really ‘let me in’ no matter how hard I’ve tried. Maybe it’s the grim subject matter, not sure really. Are there any Maiden albums others can’t get into?


*in the interests of full disclosure I should add that I never really listen to the Blaze Bayley era albums.
 
I have difficulty getting into Iron Maiden, Fear Of The Dark, The X Factor, and Virtual XI.

I think Somewhere In Time and A Matter Of Life And Death are two of Maiden’s best albums.
 
AMOLAD just clicked with me from day one buying it rate it as one of my all time favs, In terms of ones I cant get into probably only VXI
 
Virtual XI and the Final Frontier are definitely the least played albums for me.

VXI because it is awful (in my humble opinion), whereas i guess the Final Frontier for some reason
didn't initiallly impress me that much, and somehow slipped under the radar afterwards.
Actually, I will give TFF a spin right now and see if I have missed out on something.
 
Perun said:
None. All these albums have been with me for so long that there's nothing short of intimate familiarity with them.

Sometimes I suddenly see a song in new light, but not getting into a Maiden album is a concept foreign to me.
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Same for me, although TXF took a few years.
 
Been to Maiden since '86 and every single album works for me and I've got into each, some took more listens and patience while some clicked instantly.
Each might still provide some new shades and colors, it's fun and nice even though I know each album and song really well. With this I mean that time and getting older, you tend to find different meanings, feelings and such on some familiar things that you thought you had known or understood completely before. Being from non-english speaking country, especially even if I understand and speak english very good, sometimes words have hidden meanings and clues (and such weird funny stuff) that don't necessarily open straight away..
 
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I've been a fan since 1993 so there are two periods for me: up to FOTD (what is classic and legendary - especially when you dream about the contents of an album before being able to afford and listen to said album) and after FOTD (often convincing but not really spellbinding, sometimes mundane).

Indeed, what plays a part in this is the difference between when you're 12 and can't play the guitar and when you're close to forty and your experience of music (though amateur) makes you realize that what they play is rather accessible (I'm speaking about the guitars and the bass).

In other words, when FOTD was released, I didn't know Iron Maiden at all and when TXF was released, I knew it all by heart... and TXF took some time to strike the right chord, though I would never associate it with classic Maiden. "Virus" is ok the way you can be ok with a neighbour you don't particularly like but to whom you've grown accustomed. At least, it was accompanied with a particularly dream-inducing package (Beast of the Beast 2 CD). It was later but I was still 15.

The same goes for A Matter of Life and Death: too long, too dark and depressing (including the -perceived- cheesiness of the chorus of "Different World")... but that might have to do with the fact that early September 2006 was a particularly sad and stressful period in my life, which necessarily clouds my appreciation. Today, I really like "The Legacy" and I listen to the rest the way I listen to VXI: respectfully, but without being "fascinated" (I even find XVI more awe-inspiring to be honest).

All in all, I think our appreciation of music (and of our favourite artists' catalogue) really has to do with the context in which we discover it. Killers is not the same album for someone who "lived" its release as for someone who discovered it two months ago. That said, neither of the two persons can be said to be a better fan than the other. ;)
 
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Black Bart said:
All in all, I think our appreciation of music (and of our favourite artists' catalogue) really has to do with the context in which we discover it. Killers is not the same album for someone who "lived" its release as for someone who discovered ot two months ago. That said, neither of the two persons can be said to be a better fan than the other. ;)
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I often find that when it comes to so called "bad" albums it's better to be the second person, discovering the music years later. You give it a fairer chance, because you haven't experienced the bullshit that went on at the time of the original release.

I find that I can listen to albums by hair metal bands or pompous prog bands that I know if I had been around at the time the albums where released I would have been thinking "look at the state of these gimps, I'm not listening to that". Load is one of those albums where I had exactly that feeling, and only returned to it years later with a fresh outlook.
 
I think I’m somewhere between Perun and Ariana. On the one hand, Killers is just an overall weak album to me with a lot of filler that I don’t really care for. On the other hand, it does have five (counting Ides) pretty great Di’Anno era songs and the overall playability is much better than some albums I actually like more, or I wouldn’t have listened to it as often as I have. And for me it’s not like I disliked the album from the beginning; when I was getting into the Maiden discography I thought it was pretty cool, it’s only when I seriously became a Maiden fan that it’s fallen out of favor.
 
Perun said:
None. All these albums have been with me for so long that there's nothing short of intimate familiarity with them.

Sometimes I suddenly see a song in new light, but not getting into a Maiden album is a concept foreign to me.
Click to expand...
I was going to write basically this but then this was already written so I'm quoting and pointing at it. I've been a fan since '88 and to me Iron Maiden has two kinds of albums: great albums, and better than that.
 
The Blaze albums I found hard to get excited about when they came out. Still think they are down there with the worst Maiden have produced.
 
Killers and Virtual XI, though I like around half the songs on each album, I just don't enjoy listening to them in their entirety. They're both albums that I passed over when I first started getting into Maiden, it's actually only in the last eighteen months or so that I listened to them fully so there's still a chance they might grow on me.
 
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