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

Eli

Educated Fool
I was happy to see most of you voted for my favourite song The Book of Souls in the last part. As usual, there were other favourites which is very normal thinking how great the album is.

We are finishing Round 1 with Senjutsu, the most recent album of the band. Hell on Earth really stands out on this album and I think it will be the winner of this last part. However, I'm sure there are other favourites too, as IMO there are literally no fillers / weak songs on Senjutsu.

Already in round 2: Phantom of the Opera, Killers, Hallowed Be Thy Name, Revelations, Rime of the Ancient Mariner, Caught Somewhere in Time, Infinite Dreams, 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
 
I went with TWOTW. However, it could be Stratego, Hell on Earth, The Time Machine or The Parchment another day as my favourite song on the album keeps changing every month. And that's beacuse all those are great songs for me.
 
Lots of great songs here. The longer ones are the better ones
Hell on Earth
The Parchment
Death of the Celts
Lost in a lost world
All fantastic.

I'm still not totally sold on Days of future past, but its OK.The parchment is quite a bit repetitive and does drag on a little, but it is a great song none the less.
vote goes to Hell
 
Hell on Earth is my favorite IM song.

I wish they would have repeated the chorus, but I guess in showbiz the rule is ‘always leave them wanting more’.
 
p.s. Death of the Celts is fantastic. My wife who does not like metal likes this song because at times it sounds like a jig set to a hard rock tempo.
 
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That's really difficult for me to choose only one song in this list... I think that the winner will be "The Writing On The Wall", "The Parchment" or "Hell On Earth"... So, that's why I will surely pick "Lost In A Lost World". But, I'll vote tomorrow to be really sure of my choice, because I don't want to have regrets.
 
For me this is between “The Parchment” and “Hell On Earth”, both 10/10 songs in my book. The only mild weakness of “The Parchment” is its repetitiveness, while “Hell On Earth” is enthralling from start to finish, with awesome melodies and the newly iconic “love(/lost) in anger, life in danger” bits.

It’s an absolutely killer final 24 minutes on Senjutsu, but “Hell On Earth” is superlative.
 
Absolutely great album, love every song here. I have zero complaint.
So, very difficult thing to think what so to pick for this round. I could pick up any song here.
Seriously Senjutsu was even better than I had expected, even though I already had set somewhat high hopes for it.

Hell On Earth for me this round. It's one helluva epic from 'Arry and he didn' disappoint on this album. I think Iron Maiden nailed it totally.
Everytime I listen to Senjutsu, I just listen to it in full..then once the last moments of HOH are on, I just so wish the song could last little longer..
 
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Senjutsu is a modern classic! Every song could be my favorite. It's that good.

-> the 3 epics that end the album are some of Steve's best, Darkest Hour is one of my favorite ballads of the band, the title track is on a whole new level, Stratego and DOFP are one of the band's best short rocker, TWOTW is one of the band's best singles and unique songs, The Time Machine is a great song too (already underrated) and LIALW has amazing intro & outro, one of the band's best for sure.


I voted for Hell On Earth because it's one of the best and most special Maiden songs of all time.
 
p.s. Death of the Celts is fantastic.
100% true.
Hell on Earth is my favorite IM song.

I wish they would have repeated the chorus, but I guess in showbiz the rule is ‘always leave them wanting more’.
Me too. It's true that you want to listen to the whole song again after it's over.

I thought about this decision by Steve and I think he wanted the song to have 2 distinctive (and amazing) choruses, but why he didin't repeat the first one (like the second one) is really curious. Someone should ask him. This is the only song in the album for which the main chorus is repeated only once! The song easily could have been 14-15 minutes long. In the end, I guess Steve didn't want this song to have the usual formula - I mean the song has only one verse, one pre-chorus, one main chorus, a calm middle part (which can be viewed as a sort of second verse) and additional chorus (repeated twice). On the onther hand we have so many amazing and different melodies, a unique calm middle part, 3:30 minutes without singing and the first song to fade out since 1988.

I like the purpose of the outro, but it's kind of too long (nearly 2 minutes). The song is amazing as it is, but if the outro was replaced with another (necessary) repeat of the chorus, then it would have been untouchable!

Edit: The only other song with a similar atypical structure is ''To Tame A Land''. But I think that's because Senjutsu is one of Maiden's albums with the most instrumental passages.
 
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Finally, I decided to vote for "The Parchment", my favourite song on 'Senjutsu'. I love this middle-east vibe in the music, as I loved this vibe on "To Tame A Land" and "The Nomad". It reminds me a lot of the movie Lawrence Of Arabia or some others films about sands, pyramids and so on. It's really "hypnotic" and it makes you travel through time and space. That's the most perfect track on 'Senjutsu'.
 
It already feels like a cliché, but it's Hell On Earth. It has a beautiful, haunting, bittersweet air about it, like it could be the end of Maiden, but it's also a celebration of everything that's come before. I don't think a day's gone by since Senjutsu's release where I haven't had the wonderful riff that this song fades out on stuck in my head.
 
I freaking love this album. My favorite of the reunion era. For the best song I could choose almost anyone of them but it boils down to The Parchment and Hell on Earth. Parchment gets the nod. I love the grove it has and how the song builds up to Bruce singing “meet me there”. That’s still a goosebump moment for me
 
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Alright friends, we ended Round 1 with a really tough competition between The Parchment and Hell on Earth. The winner was Hel on Earth by 2 more votes only.

Now, before we move on to Round 2, here is a new playlist for you:

"The best of Iron Maiden as voted by the members of the maidenfans.com forum"
:) A triple album spanning the whole discography of the band, beginning with the very first epic, ending with the latest one.

1. Phantom of the Opera
2. Killers
3. Hallowed Be Thy Name
4. Revelations
5. Rime of the Ancient Mariner
6. Caught Somewhere in Time
7. Infinite Dreams
8. No Prayer for the Dying
9. Fear of the Dark
10. Sign of the Cross
11. The Clansman
12. Ghost of the Navigator
13. Dance of Death
14. Paschendale
15. For the Greater Good of God
16. The Talisman
17. The Book of Souls
18. Hell on Earth


Allow me couple days to enjoy this playlist before we start round 2. See you soon...
 
Playlist full of amazing and classic songs! I guess it's not a surprise that all but one of the songs are written (or co-written) by Steve.
 
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