Best Song Contest- Round 3, Part 3- The Grand Final!

Rime doesn't belong in this shootout, if Powerslave were there then it would be a different story. I'm finding it hard to choose between Revelations and Hallowed.
50% of Halllowed's lyrics were shamelessly plagarised, Hallowed gets overplayed, but it is a good song, need to think more on this.
 
Rime and Hallowed are both 10/10 songs for me, but Hallowed is a little less repetitive and more to the point, so I’ll give it the edge here.
 
Rime all the way. Hallowed merely points in the direction of a greater epic to come. Rime is that epic, the pinnacle of classic ‘80s Maiden and the culmination of an already perfect record.
 
This is a really difficult decision between Rime and Hallowed, both are masterpieces, but Rime is just something else.
 
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Hallowed was my favorite IM song for decades until Hell on Earth.

Rime has some brilliant parts but in order to tell the full story there are extended vocal sequences that I find myself sitting through impatiently.
 
So deservedly Rime won the title of "song of the 80s". And now let's see which one of the 2 greatest Bayley-era songs is better...

Still in round 2: No Prayer for the Dying, Fear of the Dark, Sign of the Cross, The Clansman, Ghost of the Navigator, Dance of Death, Paschendale, For the Greater Good of God, The Talisman, The Book of Souls, Hell on Earth

Already in round 3: Rime of the Ancient Mariner
 
Love them both a lot, almost equally. Sign of the Cross gets my vote for that fantastic guitar melody right before the final chorus. That part sounds even better live, when Adrian and Janick play it together. I love harmonies...
 
Sign. I've started to appreciate its grandiosity a lot more for hearing live as part of LOTB the other year. Meanwhile, Clansman has lost some of its novelty to Death of the Celts
 
Both songs are wildly overrated, but “Sign Of The Cross” is better.
 
Very disappointed in the result of the 80's era. I guess you can't account for the bad taste of others.
Rime wouldn't even feature in my top 20 Iron Maiden songs from that era. It's just such a long boring song. They should have either cut it right down to a quarter of the length or put more changes in it, more melodies to add interest for that length of song. My wife actually fell asleep in the concert during this song.

These two Blaze songs, I couldn't care much about but I suppose they are the best from those two abysmal albums. (or maybe Blood on the Worlds hands is better than Sign of the Cross? Don't know, it's like being given a box of turds and being asked to pick out the best one)
I like that Sign of the Cross is more complicated, but I hate the drums tone, and hate the drastic volume difference throughout the song, and the overall gloominess to it. Live, the drums sound much better and so do the vocals now.

My vote goes to The Clansman, now that's a song I can listen to 3 times in a row (the live version, when Bruce sings it)
Sign of the Cross I struggle to listen to once every year.
 
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Very disappointed in the result of the 80's era. I guess you can't account for the bad taste of others.
A different taste to yours should not mean bad taste; it's just different. What you find long and boring (and nothing wrong with that), is a masterpiece for a lot of fans.
 
Two songs I love from two underrated albums. Two epics that will never be boring (like Rime, ofc!) because of Steve's magical songwriting. Some of Maiden's best songs and some of my favorite epics of the band.

It's difficult for me to choose between the two, I like them equally. Clansman has more vocals while Sign Of The Cross is a more instrumental oriented song. I guess the only way I can make a choice is to rank their individual parts:

intro - a narrow win for Clansman
main riff - Clansman
verses - a narrow win for Sign Of The Cross
chorus - again a narrow win for Sign Of The Cross
solos - Sign Of The Cross (Janick's solo in Clansman is great, but Dave's solo is too short)
melodies/harmonies - tie (some of the band's very best)
calm middle part - tie
outro - I'd say Sign Of The Cross
drumming, bass, vocals - tie/it's not fair to the songs to say/Clansman

And I'm still not sure. Ok, Sign Of The Cross by a mile... for today.
 
Meanwhile, Clansman has lost some of its novelty to Death of the Celts
Maybe, but I think only the intro and the melody after the solos in Death Of The Celts are with a really similar vibe to The Clansman. I wonder which of the two songs I like more...
 
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