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

GhostofCain said:
It is always possible to appreciate the contributions from other band members but still feel that without Adrian Smith the band is not at the same level of greatness, isn't it?
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The guitar sound suffered without him for sure. Maiden with just Janick and Dave was a much thinner sound and far less innovative than what Dave and Adrian were doing in the 80's.
 
I was 16 years old in 2001 when I first bought Brave new world, I didn’t really like it at first. A year later I read some great reviews about the Rock in Rio DVD, and I had to check it out, and then I felt like I became reborn. In summer 2003 I finally bought a bunch of albums, not sure which one was first, but maybe Seventh son of a seventh son. Also got Piece of mind, Powerslave and Rock in Rio on CD during the same days, and everything else later that summer and autumn.
 
Im a very new fan, I was born in 92. I remember hearing Brave New World when I was around 10. And that made me somewhat off a casual Maiden fan, I liked it and I liked some of the classic songs but I never dug into the band or their music. Im a huge Metallica fan and they were always "my" band and still is. And I listened alot to Rammstein and Pearl Jam and some other stuff.

But then I had a moment with Maiden in 2018. Where I was having a hard time with alot of personal shit going on. And I wasent in the mood of listening to anything I usually listened to. So I put on Brave New World, kinda like a nostalgia thing. Remember the good old times as a happy young kid. And then I truly heard the album. And it was just awesome and I felt a connection to the music. The drums, the guitars and the lyrics. And Bruce vocals.
So then I was hooked. Looked through their discography and based on the album covers I bought Piece of Mind, Fear of the Dark and Seventh Son. And worked my through the catalog and their history. I had a late revelation, haha
 
Forostar said:
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
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You’ve got the causality reversed, and you’re exaggerating my point of view. I didn’t come in with a preconception that I was only going to like songs written by certain people, and there are of course plenty of Steve and Dave songs that are great, and even Janick’s “The Timelegacyman of Deathsouls” is a pretty great song (though I’m not sure why it’s reappeared on every album since 2003). I’m saying that my personal impression, the things that I naturally responded to most, were the performance and songwriting contributions of Bruce and Adrian. That was a conclusion drawn from my experience, not a preconception that influenced my experience.

Steve Harris does some amazing stuff, of course. Probably 2/3 of his ideas are brilliant, and the other 1/3 are repetitive, ill-considered chaff. His worst instincts need to be tempered by others for him to be at his best, but the trend over time has been to let him run unchecked as a songwriter, producer, and even video editor, and the band has been worse off for it, IMO.

Forostar said:
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.
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I never said I didn’t appreciate their work, just that I didn’t like it as much overall. Should I pretend that I love it? What purpose would that serve?
 
Although I, personally, enjoy 99% of Iron Maiden's output and I still think there's a ton of fun in the 90s, I don't blame anyone who doesn't, as long as they've given it an honest try, which Jer certainly has based on his detailed opinions.

The alternate timeline where Bruce, H, and Z work together for the next 10, 20 years is going to have some interesting music too. I don't know that it would be better than what Iron Maiden's done - but there's a greater-than-zero-chance of it!
 
I'm 45 years old and was 11 when I first listened to Maiden (Wasted Years clip on TV back in 87). First 3 albums I had recorded on tape were Live After Death, The Number Of The Beast and Somewhere In Time. The remainder were recorded short after and the first I had in vinyl was Killers. Then was given Seventh Son some days after it came out in 88. Bought No Prayer the very day it was released here (missed a class to do it).
 
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LooseCannon said:
Although I, personally, enjoy 99% of Iron Maiden's output and I still think there's a ton of fun in the 90s, I don't blame anyone who doesn't, as long as they've given it an honest try, which Jer certainly has based on his detailed opinions.

The alternate timeline where Bruce, H, and Z work together for the next 10, 20 years is going to have some interesting music too. I don't know that it would be better than what Iron Maiden's done - but there's a greater-than-zero-chance of it!
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Call me a sceptic but there's no way the Bruce, H and Z line up does anymore than release a third album, unless that somehow becomes a massive success financially (I don't mean critically, he's already critically successful). I can just see Bruce jacking it all in around the early 2000's when he has the pilots bug and he doesn't want to be self financing tours to play toilets.
 
srfc said:
Call me a sceptic but there's no way the Bruce, H and Z line up does anymore than release a third album, unless that somehow becomes a massive success financially (I don't mean critically, he's already critically successful). I can just see Bruce jacking it all in around the early 2000's when he has the pilots bug and he doesn't want to be self financing tours to play toilets.
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Yeah, I mean, I'm skeptical too, which is why I phrased it as a "greater than zero" chance rather than a "good" chance or anything like that. Who knows, really.
 
I have a story that parallels mckindog with a bit of Jer thrown in. I started listening to Maiden when I was 10--Piece of Mind was their latest and I dubbed it off a friend. At the time I was into Rush, Quiet Riot, Scorpions, Triumph, U2 and Van Halen--mostly due to a friend's older brother who was in a band.

My first purchased Iron Maiden album was Powerslave, a few days after it came out (bought The Last in Line on that day as well). A few weeks later, I simultaneously bought The Number of the Beast and Killers on cassette and was given Iron Maiden and a real copy of Piece of Mind for Christmas 1984. I remember thinking that if there was a third instrumental on Killers that I was going to return it.

For the next several years I bought every album the first chance I got, even riding my bike 6 miles to the mall to get Somewhere in Time (by then I was 13), and saw them live on the next three tours.

No Prayer... came out my first week of college and a local store opened at midnight so I snatched it up then. Over the next few years, my interest waned, culminating with the complete embarrassment that was Raising Hell. I previewed (but didn't buy) X Factor in the HMV in Herald Square, NY (RIP), but wasn't into it and I never truly listened to VXI until the early 2010s.

I did get back about the Maiden train in 1999 (for the obvious reasons), but missed out on that tour due to Dave Murray's broken finger. I was thrilled when The Wicker Man dropped ahead of Brave New World and knew for sure that Maiden was back by about halfway through Ghost of the Navigator. The rest of my story can be pieced together across these pages.
 
14 years old . first album i listen was The Number Of The Beast . then went and bought Somewhere in time . then all the albums up till then. my first new maiden album as a fan was seventh son.
 
Jer said:
That was a conclusion drawn from my experience, not a preconception that influenced my experience.
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The way I see some Adri(f)anatics reason, to me it can start to come across as some sort of principle, a truth.
So, sorry for doubting about this somewhat, sometimes: preconception not playing a role.
Experience (and emotion about the this experience) can (at some point) create preconception, which can influence a new experience.
 
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Perun said:
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.
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they played in small venues,even in spain.
 
dickinson1978 said:
they played in small venues,even in spain.
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Did I say anything to contradict that? I think I said explicitly that "their album sales took a downturn in Europe and North America, and they played smaller venues". Actually, looking at it, it's even in the quote you posted.
 
I was 14. The first song I heard was Children of the Damned, and that got me hooked.

My first three albums were TNOTB, Dance of Death and Edward the Great. The first new album for me was AMOLAD, and it's still my favourite.
 
I’m 28, started listening to IM around 15, first song I heard was “Aces High”. First bought were Rock in Rio DVD, Dance of Death CD and years later The Final Frontier.

PS
I keep buying their older albums, lately bought Senjutsu CD and waiting for my order of Powerslave and Senjutsu boxset.
The IM collection grows every day.
 
I'm 32 and started listening to Maiden at 22. First song I heard was Run to the Hills on classic rock radio.

First three LPs I bought was Piece of Mind, Somewhere in Time and then Killers. I also have Number of the Beast, Iron Maiden, Powerslave and Seventh Son of a Seventh Son, all on LP(I prefer them over CDs).
 
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