How old were you when you started listening to Maiden and which 3 albums did you buy first?

At 12, in april 1982, during a school trip to London. Run to the Hills was then a minor hit and I heard it in the family that housed me. Back home, a friend of mine sold me a cassette he had bought and did not like : Killers. I bought it because I remembered the band's name and because of the fantastically appealing cover. I was blown away by Dianno's voice. Thanks again mom for giving me the 30 francs that bastard demanded :okok:.
I think before that I had bought (or been offered) the first Stray Cats album :D, which I liked a lot.I guess the following was Number of the Beast, because I only bought the debut after a few months.
 
My first "contact" with Iron Maiden was in late 1995 or spring of 1996 (I was 14) at my friend's house, he played a Number of The Beast cassette and months later I began to borrow the tapes, starting from latest albums at the time, Fear of The Dark and The X Factor. First cds I bought were the 1995 2cd reissues of first album, Live After Death and Somewhere in Time.
 
I was born in 1981. I came across Maiden in 1993 through my brother's and his friend's cassettes of A Real Live One and Fear of the Dark.
The first Maiden CD I've bought is Killers, followed by The Number of the Beast and then Live After Death and Somewhere In Time at the same time, all in 1994.
 
Zare said:
Why didn't you pull yerself up the bootstraps and got some monies from the money tree?

Seriously, CDs were expensive as fuck for my 16 year old ass back then.
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I'd say they got more and more expensive.

But yeah, it's also about the available money of course. I had pocket money from my parents (for a few years already), which was not much, but I did not really spend it on anything else (e.g. I did not have to pay own money for own clothes at this age, and I didn't need many either).

So buying the 9 albums (8 studio, 1 live), before FOTD came out (or even less because I may have bought 2 or 3 afterwards, in about 10 months time is not exactly troublesome. Therefore I was a bit surprised to see that Ghost bought none in (at least) six months time after he got into them, gathering he'd loved this band as hell.
 
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Forostar said:
Therefore I was a bit surprised to see that Ghost bought none in (at least) six months time after he got into them, gathering he'd loved this band as hell.
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I was in a record shop on the day FOTD was released and I refused to buy it :lol: wouldn't happen now!

A new cassette was IR£9.99, but I could buy AC/DC's Flick of the Switch for IR£3.50 instead and copy FOTD from my sucker friend who bought FOTD.
 
CDs were really expensive at that time and there were no good record shops in the town I was living back then, so having access to music was not particularly easy.
 
Aged 11 in 1987. I inherited my big sister's copy of Iron Maiden when I discovered it had the Lucozade advert music on it! She also gave me Powerslave. I bought my first album while on holiday in Athens in Easter '88: NotB. The vinyl was scratched (I didn't know any better) and the cover was very scruffy, but it looked cool and I had to have it. I also bought my first tee - Killers. Back in Britain, album purchase no. 2 was 7th Son (of course), and no. 3 was Piece of Mind. Happy days. :)
 
Well, not in my experience (and country). Around between Fl. 32,50 and Fl. 37,50 (guilders) for most new albums on CD. That's not more expensive than current Euro prices.
 
srfc said:
I was in a record shop on the day FOTD was released and I refused to buy it :lol: wouldn't happen now!

A new cassette was IR£9.99, but I could buy AC/DC's Flick of the Switch for IR£3.50 instead and copy FOTD from my sucker friend who bought FOTD.
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I remember now, that I checked two vinyl singles in the record shop (listening). Moneytalks from AC/DC, Bring Your Daughter from Maiden.
I only wanted to buy one and picked AC/DC! Would never do that again.
 
In 2003, I had to choose between seeing Maiden and Deep Purple. I thought back then that since Purple were so old, I'd probably not get another chance to see them. And that's why I didn't get to see Maiden until 2006 because I had no money in 2005. Well, even I can't predict the future.
 
Forostar said:
Well, not in my experience (and country). Around between Fl. 32,50 and Fl. 37,50 (guilders) for most new albums on CD. That's not more expensive than current Euro prices.
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Your experience does not have to be like everyone else's. Mine, for instance, was completely different. ;)
 
14 years old. I heard 666 on the Radio 1 Rock Show and asked my mate in school the next day about Maiden as I knew he was a fan. He told me to get Best of the Beast which had just come out. I got the 2CD version.

I must admit I wasn't impressed at first as the tracklisting was reverse chronological so the first four tracks were all Blaze era stuff. Being a young metalhead listening to Metallica, Pantera and Machine Head I thought this was some particular un-heavy weak sounding nonsense.

Then the album started getting better. When I heard BQOBD I thought "this is more like it". By the time we reached the classic 80's era I was a fan.

The next album I bought was SSOASS which became, and is still my favourite album. The 3rd Maiden album I bought was VXI around the release date. And I saw them for the first time on that tour at age 15.
 
GhostofCain said:
Even though I have fond memories of some of those albums, the 90s are the nadir of the band's career, hitting rock bottom with Virtual XI.
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You see, I have always wondered if that's really true. In terms of quality, it is a subjective debate - I think TXF is the band's best album, others think it's their worst, and that's fine. But in terms of success - is it really so? Sure, their album sales took a downturn in Europe and North America, and they played smaller venues, not to mention the two half-cancelled US tours. But at the same time, perhaps out of necessity, they started expanding their market. They played much more extensively in Eastern Europe and South America and visited entirely new countries such as Turkey, Israel and South Africa. In South America, they played stadium gigs. I don't know if it's possible to do the maths, but I'd not be surprised if their total worldwide audience during the Blaze era was bigger than in the late eighties and early nineties.
 
I backed Maiden during the Blaze era, and at the time I enjoyed what we had.

But I can't deny I was over the moon with the shock annoucement of Bruce's return.

And in hindsight, looking back while there is still enjoyment to be had when I listen to VXI, I can't ever imagine recommending it to a new fan, or worse, telling them to check out any bootlegs from that tour.
 
Forostar said:
I'd say they got more and more expensive.
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No, that's not how it goes.
In 1999 avg. Croatian paycheck was 400 euros net, in 2021 it's 900. The CD prices remained largely the same.

I still have price stickers on the first CDs I bought around Y2K ... enhanced remasters, yes, but we don't have an option.
The price tag on them is 115 kn, which would be 16 euros.

So if you divide average paycheck by 30 days you'll get that one CD costs more than daily paycheck. If you divide it by number of working days an not entire month, it comes 1 to 1. You work for entire day to have one CD without taking account that you need to eat.

This becomes more fucked up when you consider minimal paycheck, which was about 250 eur back then. And then you take into account the dire economic situation in a post war country.

The same CDs can now be bought for bout 100 kn, which is 14 euros. The average paycheck in Croatia today is a bit less than 1000 eur/month. When you factor in the inflation, the price drop is huge. It could be 2x.

Economy wasn't normal back then, there were cabals around. I remember the pre globalization music shops and how every fucking thing cost 2x than in USA. Even deep in internet days, mid 2000s, I could get a DiMarzio pup from USA for $100 with shipping while every article sold through legal Croat business was $200 to $250. A guitar shop located in a cultural monument in downtown? $250. A hangar sale, mail order, online catalog thing. $220.

So yes while your experience might me more relevant for overall picture, there are specifics for countries in that time period. Also even without that, there are a lot of poor people in Europe. I mean, they can afford a CD, but whether they have a long list of more important stuff is to be asked too.

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There were many topics like this in past, nowadays, with family around me relying on my memory to recall the events of past with some fidelity and pinpoint them with some precision, I can't be sure exactly when I became a fan.

It was in the period between Virtual XI and Brave New World.
It was in 2nd grade high school, which means September 1999 to June 2000.

I got a compilation tape from a comrade from school.

My music up to then could be summarised as general 'hard rock' stuff in mid to late elementary school, such as guns and roses, 90's Metallica (Load was the first CD I ever bought), Nirvana, the popular TV and radio stuff. Followed by spark for crossover rap and HC sometime in the high school start.

So we've met in 1st grade high, started hanging out and talking to music, we both played guitar. He asked me do I know who Bruce Dickinson is. I said 'yeah sure'. Who is he then? I responded 'he's a writer'. My buddy went lmao no that's Charles Dickens. Do you know who Iron Maiden is. 'yeah sure, "Best of the Beast and stuff"'. He went yeah, great, you know where they're from. I said, umm...New York? He went laughing again and said that he'll make me a tape.

The only thing I knew about Iron Maiden for sure (although I have some recollection of hearing them prior but cant be sure) is from comments from buddies from my prior school, one was commenting "Best of the Beast" how its a great album and another, in reply from me being amused @ Metallica and Kirk's wah wah, said "nah Metallica can't play". I replied what the fuck are you talking about, he said "nope Iron Maiden is the only metal band that can actually play".

I remembered all this and was very keen to see what it's all about. I was alone at home, and I put the tape in the living room's stereo. Aces High started and I was blown away.

There was no moment, still isn't, comparable to this one in my entire life, in the context of music.
What I heard in just one second, everyone uses the phrase "blew me away", for me it was a nuclear strike, those waves hitting me changed my DNA permanently.

On that tape there were songs from 4 albums. Powerslave, Somewhere in Time, Seventh Son and No Prayer.

I went havoc and started acquiring stuff immediately. I went to bootleggers to get copies taped, I bought the First Ten Years VHS, I got a copy of LAD on VHS.

First CD that I bought was Somewhere In Time enhanced remaster.

And then I've been rewinding and reviewing video tapes of the night's music TV runtime and suddenly - Bruce Dickinson The Tower. So I discovered Bruce solo.

Where it doesn't check out is the fact that when discovering Bruce solo I, and people around me, still thought that Blaze is in the band, Virtual XI was the latest record and we saw it as OK. When I went on ironmaiden.com for the first time I saw the news release about Dickinson/Smith back in the band and Ed Hunter tour commencing I relayed the news and they didn't believe me.

It might be that we were out of touch with news, and reunion news bit being still the latest thing published in late 1999 on the site.

Sorry for wall of text I just wanted to clear out my recollection. In the end funny thing about pre-mass-internet age. Metalheads in a 2nd largest city of a European country not knowing Bruce Dickinson is back with Maiden? Surreal.
 
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Got to know the music at about 12, started listening with 14 or 15, I'd seen BQOBD on MTV and it was awesome, then the FOTD live video on MTV, awesome. My religious environment at that time at school warned me about music like that and showing devil signs with hands. But the cool guys listened to metal, and I think I'd already bought the Metallica black album. So I dared to buy Maiden next: Fear Of The Dark cassette, followed by Live After Death cassette. Then I recorded a TV version of Raising Hell, awesome. Guys at school gave me more Maiden and Metallica CDs and cassettes to listen to. Then I bought Donington 92 and Raising Hell VHS; BTW, the Raising Hell VHS was differently edited from the TV version that I'd taped, never saw that version again.
 
I first got Best of the Beast (single disc edition) around 98 when i was around 14. I had no idea about Iron Maiden beyond the name and being familiar with the album cover of Number of the Beast, didn't even realise there were two different singers on my first few listens, but i found myself listening to Virus and Man on the Edge a lot and so the seeds of my weird Blaze fixation were sown.

After that i bought Number of the Beast and the X Factor and then laid low for a bit till Brave New World. I filled in the gaps quite quickly after that, or at least as fast as my teenage budget would allow
 
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