DJMayes' Complete Ranking Of Maiden Songs

Which song will win?

  • Run To The Hills

    Votes: 10 62.5%

  • Empire Of The Clouds

    Votes: 6 37.5%
  • Total voters
    16
  • Poll closed .
I always felt that The Prophecy was a hidden gem off of Seventh Son. It's one of the 2 songs that they never played live and, to me, features a gorgeous outro that I could listen to for days.

Quest For Fire gets too much crap for the first line - the rest is a cool song in my book. That first line is no more idiotic than basically all 80's Priest songs so I never get the hate it gets.
 
The prophecy is a unique beautiful, haunting metal piece of art. Having it anywhere near "running Free" is giving me the willies. RF is the value brand of vanilla ice cream. The Prophecy is imported gelato with exotic ingredients .
 
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I never liked both SSoaSS ending songs (The Prophecy and Only the Good Die Young). TBH, the whole album doesn't feel like a masterpiece to me.

I'm heretic in this matter, but i rather hear Dance of Death or AMOLAD than SSoaSS. With that being said, i'll be very sad if Moonchild doesn't appear in the Top 30
 
#145 - 141:

145 - Holy Smoke

I have anticipated that the first few sets of songs I post are a bit of a minefield, as I will inevitably rate someones favourite fairly low. This said, this is a song I am not expecting to tread on too many peoples toes with its placing. For what it's worth, I enjoy Holy Smoke enough when it plays. The post chorus riff is a great one, the solo is great (particularly the very start of it) and in general the song is mostly alright (though some of the lyrics are interesting choices, such as Noah's cadillac). I also think this song perhaps suffers from the existence of a much better song with similar lyrical content - Die With Your Boots On - in perhaps the same way Death or Glory immediately drew comparisons to Aces High.

144 - 2 A.M.

"You won't take me under blood red skies!" - Oh wait, wrong song. This is the immediate thought that occurs to me when 2 A.M. begins. This is not a negative comparison, as I really like the Judas Priest song, but one I considered pertinent. Indeed, I think this song has much more interesting verses than it does a chorus, which strays dangerously close to the X Factor chug. The song has a really cool pre-solo instrumental part starting at 3:01. Unfortunately I've never felt the main solo lives up to it, though it does thankfully stray back to the part I mentioned earlier.

Perhaps this is a comment on the relatively privileged life I've lead, but I've always felt the "and then I wonder why I'm here" lyric feels as silly as many that get mentioned far more often. Perhaps I should simply consider myself privileged to be free of the burdens of existential musing, and I will probably understand it a bit better when I'm older.

143 - Isle Of Avalon

Perhaps this one should come with a trigger warning. I'm aware that this is lauded quite highly on this forum, alongside the better but still overrated (in my opinion) Starblind as one of the best parts of The Final Frontier, but I just cannot bring myself to agree.

I've always felt this is the song that strayed into being too progressive. There are certain parts which feel unnecessary (a riff in the middle of the first verse, for example) and the verse just doesn't click with me. The chorus is better, and whilst it does have the advantage of not being the repetition so reviled on this forum, I also think that it lacks power and, more than anything, is comparatively difficult to get into singing along to. The solo section of this song is certainly musically very intricate and whilst I don't connect to it like other solos, I can appreciate that it's very well done. Whilst it appears like it's going to lead into a second chorus, it then has a jarring transition into another verse. When the next chorus is done, we get my favourite part of the song at around 7:25. Indeed, the next 30 seconds are worth sitting through the rest of the song to listen to. I'd say it's a very strong ending, but we then have the final minute, which just feels unnecessary. It's not even the final "lost souls... on the isle... of the dead!" that seems so unnecessary; just that final build towards it. Had those 40ish seconds been cut I'd have felt this was a much stronger song.

142 - Another Life

This is exhibit #2 of Killers filler. I think it's better than the aforementioned Innocent Exile for a couple of parts - namely, I enjoy the "chorus" more and the section starting at 1:45 lives up to the album name. Beyond this, I find it difficult to write much more about this song because it shares the same problems as Innocent Exile - so much so that I often find it difficult to distinguish between the two without listening to both.

141 - The Mercenary

Off the bat, this has an intro riff reminiscent of The Nomad. That's not a strong start, but once Bruce starts singing the verse I think it gets immediately stronger and catchier than the aforementioned song. The problem with this song, for me, is the chorus, for a couple of reasons. The first reason for this is that I feel it really breaks the momentum of the song. Secondly, I don't think it's strong enough to warrant the length of time each chorus takes. The song feels bogged down in these relatively lengthy choruses and would be a lot better with a few less "Show them no fear, show them no pain..." or, even better, a different chorus that jars me a little less.
 
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We've had 18 album songs, and already 10 albums have come up.

DJMayes' album order of first appearance
01) No Prayer for the Dying (least favourite song: Mother Russia, 160)
02) The X-Factor (least favourite song: Blood on the World's Hands, 159)
03) Powerslave (least favourite song: The Duellists, 158)
04) The Number of the Beast (least favourite song: Gangland, 156)
05) Brave New World (least favourite song: The Nomad, 154)
06) Killers (least favourite song: Innocent Exile, 150)
07) Piece of Mind (least favourite song: Quest for Fire, 149)
08) Seventh Son of a Seventh Son (least favourite song: The Prophecy, 148)
09) Iron Maiden (least favourite song: Running Free, 146)
10) The Final Frontier (least favourite song: Isle of Avalon, 143)

DJMayes' non-album song* order of appearance
01) Invasion, 153
02) Virus, 151

*from a group of six
 
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Forostar said:
We've had 18 album songs, and already 10 albums have come up.

DJMayes' album order of first appearance
01) No Prayer for the Dying (least favourite song: Mother Russia, 160)
02) The X-Factor (least favourite song: Blood on the World's Hands, 159)
03) Powerslave (least favourite song: The Duellists, 158)
04) The Number of the Beast (least favourite song: Gangland, 156)
05) Brave New World (least favourite song: The Nomad, 154)
06) Killers (least favourite song: Innocent Exile, 150)
07) Piece of Mind (least favourite song: Quest for Fire, 149)
08) Seventh Son of a Seventh Son (least favourite song: The Prophecy, 148)
09) Iron Maiden (least favourite song: Running Free, 146)
10) The Final Frontier (least favourite song: Isle of Avalon, 143)

DJMayes' non-album song (from a group of six) order of appearance
01) Invasion, 153
02) Virus, 151
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2 more albums will be joining in the next batch of 5, but in both of those cases almost certainly not with the songs people would expect. The final 2 albums, to their credit, will take quite a while.

LooseCannon said:
No Angel and the Gambler yet? Interesting.
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That song won't pop up for quite a while - I think it may actually be in my top half of songs overall, though not much higher. Suffice to say that I don't mind the amount of repetition because it's easy to sing along to and the music underneath changes sufficiently often to maintain my interest.
 
I honestly have kind of always felt that Isle of Avalon was a bunch of really cool sections that somehow don't come off as a cohesive song all that well. It also seems lengthy for the sake of getting all those lyrics in there. It would have had more impact if it was shorter.

I never cared for 2 AM much.

Holy Smoke is more silly than anything else which makes it a bit of an oddball.

Another Life rules even though it's basically the same 2 sections repeated.

The Mercenary would have been so much better with half the repetition. Then again, so would most of the BNW album.
 
Forostar said:
@DJMayes on which of these first mentioned 10 albums do you skip (a) song(s)? Or which albums are skip free (if that's easier)? ;)
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Errm...

1) No Prayer is usually a full listen when I am in the mood. Any other case I have a couple of favourites which get a full play.

2) X Factor tends to be a lot of skips. It has 2 or 3 gems but it is my least favourite album and not by a close margin.

3) Powerslave tends to be skips, but the majority of the album gets into any playlist I make.

4) The Number Of The Beast is skip free.

5) Brave New World is skip free

6) Killers gets a few skips.

7) Piece Of Mind is an odd one because all the songs I like the most are first half, so I tend to listen to just that on occasion.

8) Seventh Son is a full album experience.

9) Iron Maiden doesn't get skips.

10) The Final Frontier gets Isle of Avalon and Starblind cut out half the time.
 
Interesting. Some higher ranked songs are skipped and some lower ranked songs never.
E.g. some songs from Killers are skipped and that never happens on Beast.
DJMayes said:
160 - Mother Russia

As a general rule I don't skip Maiden songs, but this track is a big exception.
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Err.
DJMayes said:
1) No Prayer is usually a full listen when I am in the mood. Any other case I have a couple of favourites which get a full play.
Click to expand...
I guess that mood is pretty rare then.
 
I mean absolutely no offence, but this list is looking very odd to me for now. You put drastically different songs next to each other on these lowest spots and I would expect to notice at least some visible preference in song type or era by now. Another World above Isle of Avalon is just... wrong to me. ;) And Mother Russia is soooo far from being the worst.

I appreciate the effort, though. Especially that you bother to write about each song.

Forostar said:
We've had 18 album songs, and already 10 albums have come up.

DJMayes' album order of first appearance
01) No Prayer for the Dying (least favourite song: Mother Russia, 160)
02) The X-Factor (least favourite song: Blood on the World's Hands, 159)
03) Powerslave (least favourite song: The Duellists, 158)
04) The Number of the Beast (least favourite song: Gangland, 156)
05) Brave New World (least favourite song: The Nomad, 154)
06) Killers (least favourite song: Innocent Exile, 150)
07) Piece of Mind (least favourite song: Quest for Fire, 149)
08) Seventh Son of a Seventh Son (least favourite song: The Prophecy, 148)
09) Iron Maiden (least favourite song: Running Free, 146)
10) The Final Frontier (least favourite song: Isle of Avalon, 143)

DJMayes' non-album song* order of appearance
01) Invasion, 153
02) Virus, 151

*from a group of six
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Classic Foro. :D
 
Well, there can always be certain aspects in a song that DJ is less fond of. Even if whole songs are different, there are always the details, or lack of interesting moments. Sometimes it's difficult to put these under words. Just a feeling.

Wayne Bond can certainly be impressed with all the interest this list has. Keep going DJ!
 
Forostar said:
Interesting. Some higher ranked songs are skipped and some lower ranked songs never.
E.g. some songs from Killers are skipped and that never happens on Beast.

Err.

I guess that mood is pretty rare then.
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For me skipping isn't necessarily just a function of the song but also its placement with respect to other songs. NOTB has Gangland placed lower but it's fairly isolated whereas Killers has an entire midsection of songs I care about less. In the same vein if Powerslave put one of its songs I like less between 2M2M I'd probably skip that less.

As for that slight contradiction - yes. I was thinking of playing songs on shuffle when I spoke of the frequency of skipping it.

Srogyy said:
I mean absolutely no offence, but this list is looking very odd to me for now. You put drastically different songs next to each other on these lowest spots and I would expect to notice at least some visible preference in song type or era by now. Another World above Isle of Avalon is just... wrong to me. ;) And Mother Russia is soooo far from being the worst.

I appreciate the effort, though. Especially that you bother to write about each song.


Classic Foro. :D
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Forostar summed this up fairly well in his above post I think. There are also songs that on the face of things are similar styles but one just does things better than the other. Another Life and Innocent Exile are examples as it is the instrumental section of the former that elevates it that much higher. But ranking these songs is always going to be subjective, I will probably contradict myself multiple times (though will always be happy to correct myself and explain) and there will always be points with two songs where it is entirely feeling.

Which song do you mean by "Another World"?
 
Everyone to their own of course, but I'd never let song placement (or "other song-bias") be a discriminating influence on enjoyment when I hear it. But you remove this aspect in this list! :ok: I'm curious what will be next!
 
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