Individual song polls

Data collection is complete - next up there will be a topic with the 2016 results once I get some paragraphs written. Contacting the volunteers soon.

It's not too late to volunteer to add a few song paragraphs to this project! Just reply here. So far only @mckindog and @Mosh have volunteered their time.
 
2016 rolling album averages:

8.56 - Powerslave
8.54 - Seventh Son of a Seventh Son
8.48 - A Matter of Life and Death
8.44 - Somewhere in Time
8.42 - Brave New World
8.31 - Piece of Mind
8.26 - The Number of the Beast
8.20 - The Final Frontier
8.08 - The Book of Souls
7.89 - The X Factor
7.88 - Iron Maiden
7.84 - Killers
7.73 - Dance of Death
7.48 - Virtual XI
6.67 - No Prayer For the Dying
6.58 - Fear of the Dark

2016 absolute album averages:

8.64 - Powerslave
8.52 - Seventh Son of a Seventh Son
8.50 - A Matter of Life and Death
8.44 - Somewhere in Time
8.41 - Brave New World
8.38 - Piece of Mind
8.21 - The Final Frontier
8.08 - The Book of Souls
8.04 - The X Factor
8.00 - Iron Maiden
7.99 - Killers
7.75 - Dance of Death
7.66 - Virtual XI
6.71 - No Prayer For the Dying
6.64 - Fear of the Dark

2016 standalone averages:

8.56 - Powerslave
8.54 - Seventh Son of a Seventh Son
8.44 - Somewhere in Time
8.31 - Piece of Mind
8.29 - Brave New World
8.26 - The Number of the Beast
8.20 - The Final Frontier
8.15 - A Matter of Life and Death
8.08 - The Book of Souls
7.89 - The X Factor
7.84 - Killers
7.48 - Virtual XI
7.44 - Dance of Death
7.33 - Iron Maiden
6.67 - No Prayer For the Dying
6.53 - Fear of the Dark
 
LooseCannon said:
Data collection is complete - next up there will be a topic with the 2016 results once I get some paragraphs written. Contacting the volunteers soon.

It's not too late to volunteer to add a few song paragraphs to this project! Just reply here. So far only @mckindog and @Mosh have volunteered their time.
Click to expand...

I never got around to rating the songs, but I could do some writing.

(Edit: still planning to finish my ratings, by the way, just a bit slow with it.)
 
Last edited:
one-to-three paragraph reviews of a song, what you feel about it, why it might have landed where it did, etc.
 
Hi everyone,

I will be collating the data from our polls over the Christmas weekend this year. I encourage everyone to Have a Very Maiden Christmas Season, listen to the albums, and update your rankings.

For those who have never ranked songs here, please feel free to do so. I only ask two things:
1. Don't protest vote. Even if you think a song is over-rated, please do not toss it a super-low score just because you want to see that song's average come down.
2. Keep your rankings consistent. 10s are the timeless classics, the greatest songs, the apex of the experience. 1s are your least favourite song and equivalent.

Feel free to leave a note explaining your choice, or talking about the songs in general!
 
As we move towards the 18th year of these rankings being maintained, I'll be re-opening the polls in the Commentary Threads starting next weekend. This time, I'll re-open them once a week, but the album order will be randomized, with Senjutsu going last to give the album the most time to sink in.

The first album to be opened, around Sept 18th, will be: A Matter of Life and Death.
 
I thought it was today and I checked in AMOLAD Commentary to see if it's open.
Never been too much into polls, not even in the Commentary but this time I'm eagerly waiting for it!
And I mean the whole thing, all 17 albums. That will be another first.
 
Hi, I've reopened the songs from A Matter of Life or Death for voting, after resetting the votes.

Please add your vote for these song and consider the following tips:

  • Try to be consistent across the Iron Maiden catalogue. Don't vote based on the place on the album, but the place in the overall catalogue.
  • 1 should be the worst Iron Maiden songs, 10 should be the best. You can have lots of 10s and 1s as you see fit.
  • Don't vote based on other people's votes. IE, if you think a song is overrated, don't give it a 1 or 2 just because you think it's getting "too high" of votes.
The next album, opening up on the weekend of September 25th, will be Brave New World.
 
LooseCannon said:
Hi, I've reopened the songs from A Matter of Life or Death for voting, after resetting the votes.

Please add your vote for these song and consider the following tips:

  • Try to be consistent across the Iron Maiden catalogue. Don't vote based on the place on the album, but the place in the overall catalogue.
  • 1 should be the worst Iron Maiden songs, 10 should be the best. You can have lots of 10s and 1s as you see fit.
  • Don't vote based on other people's votes. IE, if you think a song is overrated, don't give it a 1 or 2 just because you think it's getting "too high" of votes.
The next album, opening up on the weekend of September 25th, will be Brave New World.
Click to expand...

Thanks for organizing this. Looking forward to voting, and seeing the results.
 
I am new to the forum and am trying to understand the votes (I wasn't even able to find where to set up my signature). Hope i can contribute soon if there are open threads.
 
Dragonchaser said:
I am new to the forum and am trying to understand the votes (I wasn't even able to find where to set up my signature). Hope i can contribute soon if there are open threads.
Click to expand...

A Matter of Life and Death is now open. You need to go to every song and cast your vote. Brave New World will open next.
 
Hi, I've reopened the songs from Brave New World for voting, after resetting the votes.

Please add your vote for these song and consider the following tips:

  • Try to be consistent across the Iron Maiden catalogue. Don't vote based on the place on the album, but the place in the overall catalogue.
  • 1 should be the worst Iron Maiden songs, 10 should be the best. You can have lots of 10s and 1s as you see fit.
  • Don't vote based on other people's votes. IE, if you think a song is overrated, don't give it a 1 or 2 just because you think it's getting "too high" of votes.
The next album, opening up on the weekend of October 2nd, will be Killers.
 
Hi, I've reopened the songs from Brave New World for voting, after resetting the votes.

Please add your vote for these song and consider the following tips:

  • Try to be consistent across the Iron Maiden catalogue. Don't vote based on the place on the album, but the place in the overall catalogue.
  • 1 should be the worst Iron Maiden songs, 10 should be the best. You can have lots of 10s and 1s as you see fit.
  • Don't vote based on other people's votes. IE, if you think a song is overrated, don't give it a 1 or 2 just because you think it's getting "too high" of votes.
The next album, opening up on the weekend of October 9th, will be Somewhere in Time.
 
LooseCannon said:
Hi, I've reopened the songs from Brave New World for voting, after resetting the votes.

Please add your vote for these song and consider the following tips:

  • Try to be consistent across the Iron Maiden catalogue. Don't vote based on the place on the album, but the place in the overall catalogue.
  • 1 should be the worst Iron Maiden songs, 10 should be the best. You can have lots of 10s and 1s as you see fit.
  • Don't vote based on other people's votes. IE, if you think a song is overrated, don't give it a 1 or 2 just because you think it's getting "too high" of votes.
The next album, opening up on the weekend of October 9th, will be Somewhere in Time.
Click to expand...

It looks like Killers is open now, not Brave New World - right?
 
The purpose of this post is to explain why I gave so many 2 -5s for songs that are objectively good as well as my methodology of ranking them. After having done AMOLAD, BNW & I was ready to vote for Killers, I noticed that my ratings were 80% above 8.

I looked my draft notes for the rest of albums and saw a mere 20 songs below 5. What’s the point of a 1 -10 scale then?
I decided to start over with the purpose to distribute the songs more uniformly.
Senjutsu needs some time to sit, so I will exclude it for now. Thus we are talking 152 catalogue songs.

First I put a few songs to no.5 & no.10 positions in order to have some perspective.
I left rating 1 for 2 songs only and distributed the rest 150 songs uniformly from 2 -10. That is 16 songs for each position plus 6 surplus songs, which I redistributed to positions 7 -10. Below how the catalogue distribution for each rating looks like:

Songs Distr. 5.png

Considering that my initial list of 10s would include at least 20 (and more likely ~30) the process was painful and took me a fair amount of time to complete. For example Children of the Damned which was a 10 had to move into 9 rating since the places for 10 were pre-determined to be 18. Similarly many songs were removed 1 or 2 places below the initial draft ranking, for the purpose of uniformity of distribution. If there are 2 songs of rating 9 and one position left I move the one that I like less to 8.
The result is satisfying. Regarding the album ratings, there was a nearly absolute agreement between the average albums scores with the ranking on top of my mind.

I’m posting this now so to have a reference I can hyperlink in my Individual Album Judgement posts and will re-adjust AMOLAD & BNW soon, before proceeding with the rest of catalogue.
I’ve done the ratings for all songs already in an excel sheet and I’ll take a few days more for fine tuning.
 
____no5 said:
The purpose of this post is to explain why I gave so many 2 -5s for songs that are objectively good as well as my methodology of ranking them. After having done AMOLAD, BNW & I was ready to vote for Killers, I noticed that my ratings were 80% above 8.

I looked my draft notes for the rest of albums and saw a mere 20 songs below 5. What’s the point of a 1 -10 scale then?
I decided to start over with the purpose to distribute the songs more uniformly.
Senjutsu needs some time to sit, so I will exclude it for now. Thus we are talking 152 catalogue songs.

First I put a few songs to no.5 & no.10 positions in order to have some perspective.
I left rating 1 for 2 songs only and distributed the rest 150 songs uniformly from 2 -10. That is 16 songs for each position plus 6 surplus songs, which I redistributed to positions 7 -10. Below how the catalogue distribution for each rating looks like:

View attachment 17536

Considering that my initial list of 10s would include at least 20 (and more likely ~30) the process was painful and took me a fair amount of time to complete. For example Children of the Damned which was a 10 had to move into 9 rating since the places for 10 were pre-determined to be 18. Similarly many songs were removed 1 or 2 places below the initial draft ranking, for the purpose of uniformity of distribution. If there are 2 songs of rating 9 and one position left I move the one that I like less to 8.
The result is satisfying. Regarding the album ratings, there was a nearly absolute agreement between the average albums scores with the ranking on top of my mind.

I’m posting this now so to have a reference I can hyperlink in my Individual Album Judgement posts and will re-adjust AMOLAD & BNW soon, before proceeding with the rest of catalogue.
I’ve done the ratings for all songs already in an excel sheet and I’ll take a few days more for fine tuning.
Click to expand...
I always struggled with this too, I'd do a ranking and realize I only have like 10 songs below 5. Like, I'd say Octavarium is a good amount of tiers above Lord of Light any day of the year, but it's hard not to give LoL 10 just because better songs exist. I write all the praises in the world and then not give it the highest marks? How can I explain detracting from the score?
 
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