IRON MAIDEN ALBUM RANKING: TOP THREE REVEALED

From the best to worst, IMHO (nowadays) :

1) Powerslave
2) Brave New World
3) Somewhere In Time
4) Piece Of Mind
5) A Matter Of Life And Death
6) Seventh Son Of A Seventh Son
7) The X Factor
8) No Prayer For The Dying
9) Dance Of Death
10) Senjutsu
11) Iron Maiden
12) The Book Of Souls
13) Fear Of The Dark
14) The Final Frontier
15) Virtual XI
16) The Number Of The Beast
17) Killers

:D
 
JudasMyGuide said:
As for the most tuneless, the most bereft of melody, the least interesting and the most wretched of all Maiden creations, there are only two:

Wildest Dreams and The Number of the Beast.
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Yeah, the former is one of their weakest reunion era songs and the latter is one of their worst 80s songs.
 
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15: FEAR OF THE DARK
16: VIRTUAL XI
17: NO PRAYER FOR THE DYING

Highest score: 13 points (@Vaenyr)
Lowest score: 1 point (@Lego, @Mosh, @The Mid-Distance Runner, @MindRuler)

Once again it looks like we're going to have a flipped ranking from where things landed in the album survivor, although I would say that Fear of the Dark has had an impressive showing in both games. The scoring is really all over the place which probably reflects where the forum is on this album currently. It has gained a lot of fans over the years and seems to enjoy an underdog status. It landed in virtually every space possible and was surprisingly present on a lot of folks' middle tiers. I suppose a lot of it is due to the fact that unlike No Prayer, there are some stone cold classics on this album. I think The Clansman smokes everything on this album, but I also get that a lot of people don't like Blaze and not everybody loves The Clansman as much as I do.

Personally, I don't get it and never have gotten it. Fear of the Dark is the only Maiden album where it feels like the band isn't even trying. At least with Virtual XI you can hear them going for bigger ideas and creating the foundation for great things to come. Janick really comes into his own as a writer on that album and both guitar players deliver some solid performances. And at least with No Prayer For the Dying there is a clear vision for the album and - for the most part - they see that vision through. Fear of the Dark represents such a huge regression for the band. Songs like Weekend Warrior and The Apparition reach levels of musical and lyrical stupidity that Maiden had never sunk to before. Bruce sounds bored throughout the album and it's like Steve Harris is running out of ideas. It doesn't sound like anybody cares at that point. i'll give it credit for the classic title track and some gems like Judas My Guide and Afraid to Shoot Strangers, but those are diamonds in the rough and this album contains several songs that are worse than anything else Maiden has to offer.

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BTW, an update to the next game. I've given it some thought and I'm going to do all of the games suggested by Kalata and Diesel as they're all great choices! We're going to start with the one artist that they both requested, which is probably going to come as no surprise to you all: Bruce Dickinson. Obviously his new album The Mandrake Project won't be part of this, but I think there's a pretty good chance one of us will host a Bruce survivor to go with that. So if you would like to participate in that game, I will start taking your Bruce Dickinson rankings now. Deadline is whenever this one ends, more information can be found here: https://forum.maidenfans.com/threads/bruce-dickinson-album-ranking-submit-your-lists-now.72372/
 
Mosh said:
Once again it looks like we're going to have a flipped ranking from where things landed in the album survivor, although I would say that Fear of the Dark has had an impressive showing in both games. The scoring is really all over the place which probably reflects where the forum is on this album currently. It has gained a lot of fans over the years and seems to enjoy an underdog status. It landed in virtually every space possible and was surprisingly present on a lot of folks' middle tiers. I suppose a lot of it is due to the fact that unlike No Prayer, there are some stone cold classics on this album. I think The Clansman smokes everything on this album, but I also get that a lot of people don't like Blaze and not everybody loves The Clansman as much as I do.

Personally, I don't get it and never have gotten it. Fear of the Dark is the only Maiden album where it feels like the band isn't even trying. At least with Virtual XI you can hear them going for bigger ideas and creating the foundation for great things to come. Janick really comes into his own as a writer on that album and both guitar players deliver some solid performances. And at least with No Prayer For the Dying there is a clear vision for the album and - for the most part - they see that vision through. Fear of the Dark represents such a huge regression for the band. Songs like Weekend Warrior and The Apparition reach levels of musical and lyrical stupidity that Maiden had never sunk to before. Bruce sounds bored throughout the album and it's like Steve Harris is running out of ideas. It doesn't sound like anybody cares at that point. i'll give it credit for the classic title track and some gems like Judas My Guide and Afraid to Shoot Strangers, but those are diamonds in the rough and this album contains several songs that are worse than anything else Maiden has to offer.
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I really like FOTD as a whole piece, even the weaker songs, I enjoy them. No Prayer and Virtual are more focused, but the melodies, the performances and the production are great/better imo. I disagree about Bruce and Steve, for most of the songs though. I've always said that if the album was 8/9 songs it would have been better. Still, the album was a success for the band. But the fillers really drag the album down (more so than any of the other 90's albums).

The weaker songs are: Apparition, Weekend Warrior (great instrumental section though and with that chorus it should have had a more metal approach); Chains Of Misery is not a bad song (better than Hooks In You and Holy Smoke for me), From Here To Eternity is a lot of fun (the Sun And Steel for its album and a typical song for the 90's era of the band) and the only really weak part of Fear Is The Key is the middle bit, otherwise an interesting song for me with its ''ancient'' melodies.

The other songs are all great/classics. Only the chorus of The Fugitive could have been better.
 
FOTD is on the bottom of my list just because the criminal amount of fillers and the fact there aren´t alot of awesome songs. The best: Afraid To Shoot Strangers, Childhood´s End, Judas Be My Guide and the title track. The Fugitive is good. Don´t care for the rest.
 
As evidenced by my score in that post, FOTD is in my top 5 albums.

It is a very interesting album and succeeds in what NPFTD set out to do. Its atmosphere is unique and most of the songs range from pure dumb fun (Chains Of Misery, From Here To Eternity, Weekend Warrior) to surprisingly good with creative approaches (BQOBD, ATSS, FITK, The Fugitive), to pure fantastic Maiden (FOTD, Judas Be My Guide, and one of the best songs of the entire 90's: Childhood's End).
The artwork is classic as well and easily one of the best Maiden covers.

That said, I will not defend The Apparition. It is utter shite, almost as bad as Speed Of Light, Total Eclipse and Sun & Steel.
 
Vaenyr said:
That said, I will not defend The Apparition. It is utter shite
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This is your best take yet. The rest of the sentence is meh, but this is your best take.

I agree with Mosh: nothing on this album sounds inspired. Even the classic title track sounds lacklustre - I've often wondered if Maiden playing it almost without fail since 1993 is because they feel bad for how weak it comes off on the album. It's not, but the difference between FOTD album and FOTD live explains why a live version ended up on Best of the Beast. Early 90s Maiden is the worst, and while I think the overall efforts on NPFTD are less good in the aggregate, I think FOTD is the only album where it sounds "by the numbers". NPFTD and VXI are attempts that miss for various reasons. Fear of the Dark is Maiden at its least engaged, and we're very lucky it wasn't the last album.
 
The title track is obviously a classic, but the rest of Fear of the Dark is all a bit bland and uneventful to me. Whereas on NPFTD there were several songs I think are really good tracks, here I'd find it very difficult to rate the tracks in any order or preference. Even the singles aren't that catchy (Holy Smoke from NPFTD isn't very good, but catchy enough that you'd expect it to get some airplay, not these two). I never got around to sending my ranking list in, but this would probably have been bottom.
 
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Fear Of The Dark is the worst Maiden album outside of the Blaze years, IMO. "Be Quick Or Be Dead" and "Judas Be My Guide" are great, the title track is overrated and overplayed but still good, and I even think the other singles "From Here To Eternity" and "Wasting Love" are pretty good. Unfortunately, the rest of the album is really subpar both in terms of composition and performance.

I appreciate the attempts at experimentation here, but nearly all of those experiments fall flat on their face. Bruce is clearly checked out on most of the songs, and this really sounds like a burned out band flailing about, trying anything to reignite a spark that has mostly gone out. (Then The X Factor and Virtual XI showed us what they sounded like when the spark really had gone out!)
 
Mosh said:
Songs like Weekend Warrior and The Apparition reach levels of musical and lyrical greatness that Maiden had never risen to before.
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Kalata said:
The best songs are: Apparition, Weekend Warrior
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LooseCannon said:
Vaenyr said:
That said, I will not defend The Apparition. It is utter shite
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This is your worst take yet. The rest of the sentence is fine, but this is your worst take.
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FTFY. :)

Seriously though, FOTD has a lot of atypical Maiden songs and a lot of them go more in the direction of hard rock than heavy metal, but I really enjoy the bulk of the album. “Childhood’s End” is a dud, “Wasting Love” doesn’t really draw me in much, and “Fear Is the Key” is mostly strong but has a dumb-as-hell bridge. Other than that I really like these songs. BQOBD kicks ass, FHTE is the kind of sleaze I enjoy, “The Fugitive” hits hard, and “Chains of Misery” is a fun stomper with a unique gang vocal chorus.

Then there’s the closing stretch from “The Apparition” to the title track which is my favorite part of the album. “The Apparition” is wonky but in a good way, massively interesting affair with more words than almost any other Steve song; “Judas Be My Guide” has fantastic melodies and an awesome chorus; “Weekend Warrior” is super catchy and while the topic is dumb I dig the performances, and the solo section is awesome; and FOTD is a classic for a reason.

Finally, I love how this album really bridges the gap between classic and future Maiden, best evidenced in “Afraid to Shoot Strangers”. It continues the “Infinite Dreams” path but sets the tone for how a lot of The X Factor would sound. Really good.

Overall it’s an album that finds it was towards the middle of my list. Not perfect, but underrated. It’s a weird Maiden record but I end up liking a lot of those stabs they took. You don’t hear anything like “The Apparition” anywhere else in the discography.
 
LooseCannon said:
nothing on this album sounds inspired.
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Be Quick Or Be Dead, Judas Be My Guide, Wasting Love, Afraid To Shoot Strangers?
Diesel 11 said:
Seriously though, FOTD has a lot of atypical Maiden songs and a lot of them go more in the direction of hard rock than heavy metal, but I really enjoy the bulk of the album. “Chains of Misery” is a fun stomper with a unique gang vocal chorus.
“Weekend Warrior” is super catchy and while the topic is dumb I dig the performances, and the solo section is awesome; and FOTD is a classic for a reason.

Finally, I love how this album really bridges the gap between classic and future Maiden, best evidenced in “Afraid to Shoot Strangers”. It continues the “Infinite Dreams” path but sets the tone for how a lot of The X Factor would sound. Really good.

Not perfect, but underrated. It’s a weird Maiden record but I end up liking a lot of those stabs they took.
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I agree with all of this. I also like Bruce's vocals, they fit that era of the band, the early 90's.
 
Fear of the Dark has many great/good songs but as album it suffers from too many fillers. Imo.
1. Be Quick or Be Dead - great
2. From Here to Eternity - great
3. Afraid to Shoot Strangers - great
4. Fear is the Key - filler
5. Childhood's End - great. Unsung classic.
6. Wasting Love - filler. imo, this song is not maidenish. Guns and Roses wannabe.
7. The Fugitive - above average. Sometimes i think this song is great, other times - not completely fleshed out.
8. Chains of Misery - filler. Some sleazy rock wannabe.
9. The Apparition - filler.
10. Judas Be My Guide - above average.
11. Weekend Warrior - music is not bad, but lyrics sucks. So, filler.
12. Fear of the Dark - great

If album was shorter 8/9 songs, it would be regarded much higher. Also, cover art is great, one of the most recognisable. Imo, this album is at least better than No Prayer, Virtual XI.
 
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