Iron Maiden Album Art Showdown

[Diesel 11]

Promoted to the Finals:
Powerslave - 26 points

Promoted to Round 2:
"The Clairvoyant" - 17 points
A Matter of Life and Death - 14 points

Eliminated from the Tournament:
"Women in Uniform" - 8 points
Behind the Iron Curtain - 0 points
Ed Hunter - 0 points

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Round 2: Ladder 5

1. "Wildest Dreams" [DVD] (2003)


2. "Stratego" (2021)


3. No Prayer for the Dying [remaster] (1998)


4. "Rainmaker" [DVD] (2003)


5. "Speed of Light" (2015)


6. "Be Quick or Be Dead" (1992)


Template:
0 "Wildest Dreams" [DVD]
0 "Stratego"
0 No Prayer for the Dying [remaster]
0 "Rainmaker" [DVD]
0 "Speed of Light"
0 "Be Quick or Be Dead"

 

[Diesel 11]

3 "Stratego" +3
2 No Prayer for the Dying [remaster] +2
1 "Be Quick or Be Dead" +1

A still from Maiden's absolute worst music video. A red flag with a samurai Eddie. An edit of a solid album cover. An orange re-color of an already bad single cover. A black-and-white version of an album cover. Eddie strangling a businessman against a background of newspaper clippings.

What a fucking round. I'm so sorry guys.

 

[Azas]

4 "Be Quick or Be Dead" +3
4 No Prayer for the Dying [remaster] +2
4 "Stratego" +1
0 "Wildest Dreams" [DVD]
0 "Rainmaker" [DVD]
0 "Speed of Light"

Make this round short if possible.

 

[MindRuler]

Worst round so far.
None of them deserve to go to the finals to be honest.

7 "Be Quick or Be Dead" +3
6 No Prayer for the Dying [remaster] +2
5 "Stratego" +1
0 "Wildest Dreams" [DVD]
0 "Rainmaker" [DVD]
0 "Speed of Light"

 

[Vaenyr]

8 "Stratego" +3
7 "Be Quick or Be Dead"
7 No Prayer for the Dying [remaster] +1
2 "Speed of Light" +2
0 "Wildest Dreams" [DVD]
0 "Rainmaker" [DVD]

Stratego is neat. SoL kinda cheating due to TBoS being awesome. NPftD is better than its original version but still pretty poor.

LOL at WD's CGI. Rainmaker is kinda neat, but the colouring makes me think of piss instead of rain...
BQoBD has a cool concept, but I don't like the execution of it.

 

[Kalata]

Weak and easy Round. They won't have a chance in the next rounds.

10 No Prayer for the Dying [remaster] +3
10 "Stratego" +2
8 "Be Quick or Be Dead" +1
2 "Speed of Light"
0 "Wildest Dreams" [DVD]
0 "Rainmaker" [DVD]

NPFTD is a weak and boring cover for Maiden, but Eddie is still good and at least it has something going on.
Stratego's cover is cool (probably a perfect one for the album and considering the theme; the other options were: Samurai Eddie with another armor like for LOTB game and the more interesting one, him playing the chess), the Samurai head is great, and the red color adds a lot to it (lures you to like it, even just with a head).
Be Quick Or Be Dead gets a vote simply because it has a (nice) Eddie, the background and the rest of the stuff are kind of creative, but I'm not a fan of, at all.

Wildest Dreams (2nd cover) and Rainmaker are just photos from the video, always a bad decision. Rainmaker should have been better (in the style of the previous 2 singles). Speed Of Light cover is an all time low for the band!

 

[Kalata]

Rainmaker is kinda neat, but the colouring makes me think of piss instead of rain...

Yeah, Rainmaker could have been effective with an actual drawing of this photo from the video. Blue and dark color, showing more of Eddie with the dancing figure/s. The Eddie head in the sky from the end of the video could have been added too, like in theme.

BQoBD has a cool concept, but I don't like the execution of it.

Given the song's theme, I doubt they could have made something else. The most important thing is that everything on a cover should be a drawing. And this one is bad at that. It could have been like Holy Smoke cover.

Stratego is neat.

The SJ flags are a great idea.

SoL kinda cheating due to TBoS being awesome.

The weird thing about Speed Of Light cover is that they had the arts to use:

1- Dan Mumford's art with SOL Eddie and the arcade game. It's a good one.
2- the actual drawing of a baby(?) SOL Eddie from the video sketches.
3- even the frame from the video where SOL Eddie travels through a hole.

Check them: here

A still from Maiden's absolute worst music video.

Hey, it's a fun video.

 

[Kalata]

NPftD is better than its original version but still pretty poor.

Agreed, although the original is more interesting. As Rod and Steve have said in old interviews, they just didn't think enough about a cover theme for the album. Run Silent Run Deep would have probably made the best Eddie. The missing water theme for an album cover.

 

[Saapanael]

Wildest Dreams WTF!?!? It reminds me of the podrace scene from Star Wars The Phantom Menace but a million times worse.

 

[Saapanael]

13 "Stratego" +3
10 No Prayer for the Dying [remaster] +3
9 "Be Quick or Be Dead" +1
4 "Speed of Light" +2
0 "Wildest Dreams" [DVD]
0 "Rainmaker" [DVD]

 

[Siddharth]

16 "Stratego" +3
10 No Prayer for the Dying [remaster]
11 "Be Quick or Be Dead" +2
5 "Speed of Light" +1
0 "Wildest Dreams" [DVD]
0 "Rainmaker" [DVD]

Loved the minor details in the sketch-style Eddie in Stratego. Be Quick Or Be Dead doesn't hesitate to call out the system and is very interesting and I find the Speed Of Light cover in black and white to be actually better than the album art which tries to be more real-life, which I think doesn't fit that good... It was pretty much a tie between it and Rainmaker, though the blue version of Rainmaker is much better!