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

1986 and I was 12. A friend of my brother gave me NOTB copied on cassette from his vinyl. The song order was wrong with side B before side A so the opening track was the title track (although the spoken word intro was missing) and the tape cut off during the slow part of 22AA. I’ve always thought the title track would have made the perfect album opener, probably because of this early exposure to it that way. Next I was given a copied cassette of Live After Death.

My first official Maiden purchase was a cassette of SIT later in 1986 - thanks Mum!! I then did use my own cash (pocket money I imagine) to buy SSOASS on vinyl when it came out and the third may have been a second hand Killers vinyl.

To cap off my 1986 discovery of Maiden I was on holiday with my family in the US over Christmas and the band where touring there. So my first ever gig was their Somewhere On Tour show in Largo Maryland on Jan 87.

My first ever music purchase was in 1985 and wasn’t Maiden though…Hot Chocolate’s Greatest Hits on cassette and the Weird Al Jankovic’s single Eat It on vinyl.
 
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9, first 3 were piece of mind , number of the beast , Iron Maiden .First «new» Maiden album that i bought was Powerslave.
 
Forostar said:
I knew a few songs before (Holy Smoke, Daughter and probably also Madness and Evil), but really getting into Maiden: age 16, in the summer of 1991.

First bought:
Live After Death (second hand LP), Somewhere in Time (CD), Piece of Mind (CD).

First album I heard was the debut (cassette from a friend on a walkman, I was hooked immediately when the fast part in Prowler started). I also heard Killers and SSOASS, borrowed LP's from a classmate, probably before I bought the CD's, but after LAD.
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Extended edition:

I became a huge fan in 1991, the period in between No Prayer for the Dying and Fear of the Dark (two albums I bought today on vinyl). You could say I'm a rare species on this forum. Most people here became a fan since the "reunion era", since the "golden years", or since the "Blaze years".
I am from the often neglected, and IMO also often underestimated early nineties period, when Grunge started to take over.

I had no one in my family into metal. It all started after having heard a recorded cassette of the debut album during a Scouting camp.
Out there, one guy had cassettes with albums by Kiss and Maiden. I think he had Alive II & Dynasty, and from Maiden the debut album, all recorded from his brother's LP's. Before that I'd heard Holy Smoke on the radio, and I must have seen the Can I Play With Madness video, but these songs never led me to further investigation. I have never been so addicted to new music after hearing this stuff in my walkman. I was completely in another world. The two tracks which totally triggered me were Prowler and Transylvania. I was totally spellbound by Prowler. That mid part! I'd never heard such aggressive and fast music. It grabbed me totally. I liked the whole album, although Remember Tomorrow sinked in a few listenings later and Strange World, Charlotte and Iron Maiden were the more difficult ones to get into. So: the first Maiden album was my first Maiden album.

After getting hooked, I bought the Live After Death LP-set (2nd hand of course), plus the Sanctuary 12" vinyl single, which I chose because Prowler was the b-side on it. Perhaps I bought the single before LAD, or even both at the same time, can't remember :--/

After LAD I bought two videos: 12 Wasted Years and The First Ten Years.

First bought studio albums (also in 1991): Two at the same time: Somewhere in Time & Piece of Mind. I just HAD to buy SIT, because I was totally mesmerized by the fragment of Caught Somewhere in Time that I knew from 12 Wasted Years.

Before I bought my first studio albums, I already knew Killers, Seventh Son of a Seventh Son (which I both borrowed from a classmate) and the before mentioned debut album.

After this, all went very fast and I purchased all Maiden albums before I witnessed Iron Maiden for the first time ever in concert, 2 September 1992. It was my first concert experience. From that gig, Can I Play With Madness landed on A Real Live One.
 
I first started listening in 1981 when I was 15 (I'm 56 now). First album I was exposed to was Killers, which a friend of mine bought sound-unheard, based solely on the album's back cover. He said it "looked rockin'," so he gave it a shot and bought it. So, the first three I bought were Killers, Number of the Beast, and Piece of Mind. After that I went back and grabbed the first one and Maiden Japan before Powerslave came out. I didn't get to see Maiden live until the World Piece Tour (with Saxon and Fastway, Norman OK, 22 July 1983). I missed out seeing them open for .38 Special on the Beast on the Road tour the summer before because I was out of town. Argh!
 
I started listening to the band in 1980 when I heard the first Iron Maiden album. I was 15 at the time and clearly that was the first album I ever bought. The next was Killers and that was when I first saw the band live. My third album was The Number of the Beast, so my first three albums were entirely driven by when they were released.
 
My Maiden fandom started in 2009, I had just turned 14, and it was actually my mother (who isn't a metal fan at all) who suggested I give Maiden a listen as I was getting into other hard rock/metal bands at that time. I didn't actually buy an album for a while after that, the first few songs I bought from iTunes were Run to the Hills, Bring Your Daughter, Transylvania, and The Evil That Men Do. The last one is the song that made me a Maiden fan, I started calling them my favourite band then, even though I only knew those few songs.

My uncle had been a casual Maiden fan when he was younger, so as I was getting into them he started buying their albums and lending them to me. He gave me Killers, Number of the Beast, Piece of Mind, Powerslave, Seventh Son, Brave New World and Dance of Death. I was in the habit of acquiring my own music through, er... questionable methods back then, so I completed my collection with Iron Maiden, Somewhere in Time and A Matter of Life and Death. I'd skipped the 90s albums as the internet told me they were no good, but about a year later I heard Fear of the Dark for the first time and liked it enough to actually buy the whole album with my own money, it wasn't long after that that The Final Frontier was released, which I also bought the CD of. I can't remember what my third purchase was, but around that time I also bought CDs of Seventh Son, Number of the Beast and Brave New World because I wanted my own copies, and I've also since purchased versions of the first 3 albums I downloaded.
 
I got into Maiden when I was 13, shortly after AMOLAD came out. I had a friend who was playing some Maiden riffs and he inspired me to check them out, so the first album I bought was 'Edward the Great', followed by AMOLAD and Dance of Death in the next few weeks after.
 
I was 14. My brother had gotten Edward the Great for christmas I think, and then got Dance of Death in febuary 2004. I might have bought The Number of the Beast shortly after, and around May I know I bought Killers and was shocked by hearing Paul singing instead of Bruce. I remember thinking "this must be that Blaze guy". I don't know what the third album I bought was though. I think it was either Piece of Mind of Seventh Son.
 
When I was 12, my uncle gave me a copy of Somewhere In Time. 1 listen and I was a fan for life! Also, a really good friend who I met about a year later had Seventh Son. I didn't really look for ways of making extra money and my dad was against me listing to metal so it would have been hard to buy more stuff. However, he also had a store where he sold CD's and unfortunately, that went out of business a couple years later and as a result, all the inventory ended up at our house and amongst it were Iron Maiden, Number Of The Beast and Piece Of Mind. I got a job when I was 18, but I don't remember what I bought first.
 
Bought The Final Frontier second or third week of release at 17, then I think I bought Piece of Mind and Powerslave a bit after that... certainly before Book of Souls came out.
 
MindRuler said:
When I was 6 I got a Vinyl of The Smurfs. :lol:
Happy belated birthday btw. :cheers:
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I listened to all kinds of music and children's stuff, too, but, Iron Maiden, from the moment the stylus dropped and Aces High started, it was the pied piper showing the way. I remember jumping on the couch, while tv showed Rock In Rio footage, in 1985, and screaming 'Running Free' as Maiden was playing it.

Thanx a lot, man.
 
Must have been either at the end of '87 or the beginning of '88, I was 14 years old, and a class mate gave me a copy cassette of SIT.
Don't remember if HCW was the first song or whether I didn't rewind first but that's the one that's stuck in my memory, especially the
Whohoho part :)
A LAD copy cassette tape followed until I purchased SSOASS on release and the rest is history...Together with a friend to our first concert (having just turned 15): the majestic Monsters Of Rock tour (Sept '88,Tilburg,Holland)..what a line up, what a day!
 
Iron Maiden had always been in my orbit starting around 1982 (age 9), but I never really focused on them. I’d hear their songs and enjoy them, especially the killer tracks from the first 5 albums with Bruce; but I was heavily into Metallica and Megadeth at the time, and yes, Dokken and Scorpions and Def Leppard, and who knows what else.

When I went to college in 1990, I had a re-broadening of my metal tastes and came back around to some of the stuff that I’d liked but never fully explored. With Iron Maiden some of the songs that had really stuck with me were “2 Minutes To Midnight” and “Powerslave”, so I started with Powerslave and expanded in both directions until I was finally current with Fear Of The Dark in 1992 and had everything back to the debut. Even at the impressionable age of 19 I recognized that something was sorely lacking on the albums where Adrian Smith was absent, and that Paul Di’anno wasn’t really my cup of tea, though he had his moments. The core of what I loved about Iron Maiden was emblazoned in those amazing classic lineup albums from 1982 to 1988, and most often in the songwriting and performances of Bruce Dickinson and Adrian Smith.

Bruce promptly left the band soon afterward, and while I tried to get into the Blaze material, I found it to be a really hard slog with 2 of the 3 core songwriters gone, and Maiden came off like just a shell of their former selves. Bruce had a bit of a rocky start to his solo career, but by the time Skunkworks came along he really had his act together, and when Adrian joined the fold with Roy Z. I was ecstatic with the results. I was actually disappointed when Bruce & Adrian rejoined Iron Maiden, and felt it was a questionable decision until A Matter Of Life And Death came out, which finally made the reunion worthwhile to me. But I still wonder what we might have gotten out of that Bruce/Adrian/Roy team during the 21st century if Maiden had never reunited — it probably would have been stellar.

So, my answer for the first three albums I bought:
1. Powerslave
2. Somewhere In Time
3. Piece Of Mind
 
Killers, Beast, Piece of Mind all within a year of each other (82-83)

I discovered heavy music in the 9th grade.

My first purchases included Rush, AC/DC, Ozzy and Van Halen and discovering new music became an obsession. Within a year or so I was starting to buy albums based on such sketchy sources as music magazine hype and album covers.

I lived off the beaten track in a small town and music news was hard to come by then. I had certainly heard of Iron Maiden and I think I might have even heard Run to the Hills. But no one I knew talked about them or was listening to them. I decided I needed to give them a try. Number of the Beast was probably current, but the cover of Killers spoke to me more. I bought it, fell in love and followed up with Beast within weeks.

By the time Piece of Mind was scheduled to be released a few months later, I knew every groove of those records and was at the record store the day it arrived.

That remained the case until Fear of the Dark. That said, that album and the previous hadn’t affected me like the previous. Between ‘90 and ‘94 I moved away to college, fell in love, launched a career and got married.

Maiden and I faded away.

I knew Bruce had left and I didn’t like the idea of Maiden without him. I think I knew they had a new singer and a new album, but I didn’t pay a lot of attention. A friend played me X Factor one day, probably not long after it was released. He bought it but didn’t like it. I didn’t like it either. I didnt buy it.

Sometime in ‘99 I was missing the connection used to have with music and started fishing around from the decade I had mostly missed. I found Virtual XI - an album I didn’t know existed - in a used CD store. I bought it, and connected all over again. It’s probably why I like that album more than its reputation seems to deserve.

Within months I was primed for the release of Brave New World. And I have never strayed again.
 
It was 2003 and I was in the 6th grade. My first ever album (not just Maiden) was Powerslave and I've been hooked ever since. My next 2 albums were Piece of Mind and Dance of Death (brand spankin' new at the time). Maiden were not only my first but also inspired me to pick up guitar and make my own music. They were the catalyst.
 
I was 13 and a classmate gave me the Cassette Tape for Fear of the Dark back in 94. I bought Number of the beast, Somewhere in time and Seventh Son after that
 
Jer said:
Iron Maiden had always been in my orbit starting around 1982 (age 9), but I never really focused on them. I’d hear their songs and enjoy them, especially the killer tracks from the first 5 albums with Bruce; but I was heavily into Metallica and Megadeth at the time, and yes, Dokken and Scorpions and Def Leppard, and who knows what else.

When I went to college in 1990, I had a re-broadening of my metal tastes and came back around to some of the stuff that I’d liked but never fully explored. With Iron Maiden some of the songs that had really stuck with me were “2 Minutes To Midnight” and “Powerslave”, so I started with Powerslave and expanded in both directions until I was finally current with Fear Of The Dark in 1992 and had everything back to the debut. Even at the impressionable age of 19 I recognized that something was sorely lacking on the albums where Adrian Smith was absent, and that Paul Di’anno wasn’t really my cup of tea, though he had his moments. The core of what I loved about Iron Maiden was emblazoned in those amazing classic lineup albums from 1982 to 1988, and most often in the songwriting and performances of Bruce Dickinson and Adrian Smith.

Bruce promptly left the band soon afterward, and while I tried to get into the Blaze material, I found it to be a really hard slog with 2 of the 3 core songwriters gone, and Maiden came off like just a shell of their former selves. Bruce had a bit of a rocky start to his solo career, but by the time Skunkworks came along he really had his act together, and when Adrian joined the fold with Roy Z. I was ecstatic with the results. I was actually disappointed when Bruce & Adrian rejoined Iron Maiden, and felt it was a questionable decision until A Matter Of Life And Death came out, which finally made the reunion worthwhile to me. But I still wonder what we might have gotten out of that Bruce/Adrian/Roy team during the 21st century if Maiden had never reunited — it probably would have been stellar.

So, my answer for the first three albums I bought:
1. Powerslave
2. Somewhere In Time
3. Piece Of Mind
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While you really emphasize "recognizing" something was missing without Adrian, overfocusing on Adrian(lessness) certainly has been a handicap as well, hasn't it? For decades you did not enjoy what Iron Maiden was doing (even on work when he was in the band, you felt the minority of the songs were better than the majority without his writing; and also when he returned, it was hard to accept, because his other stuff with Bruce was better). Adrian, Adrian, Adrian ....

It's Iron Maiden. There are other people (as well) who are the heart and soul of this band and without appreciating them and their work (as well), one only likes a small slice of pie this band has done.

*and realize you're living in the golden years... *
 
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