As
@Perun @MrKnickerbocker and
@LooseCannon , I too will enlist into BNW nostalgia brigade.
In my case, the reason why I stumbled upon it was a huge boom of MP3. Just a year or two before I've encountered Maiden, CD compilations were latest craze and then, suddenly, instead of 80 minutes of music, you get 6 hours of music?! (torrenting appeared, also) Anyway, those MP3 CD-s flowed around like crazy and everybody listened to everything just because they could.
BNW wasn't my first contact with rock/heavy metal (it was Metallica's ...And Justice For All) and it took me a lot time to get into it. But, it kept spinning in the background, some melody got hooked in my ear and... well, almost 20 years later I'm posting on Maidenfans forum.
Depending on the rip, the songs were in alphabetic order meaning album started with Blood Brothers than Brave New World etc. and ended with The Wickerman. It took some time until I've watched Rock in Rio and was like... "oh.... well that's way better to start it."
EDIT: voted for These Colours, Benjamin and Lord of Light. I'm not surprised with The Mercenary and The Fallen Angel, but The Nomad went?!