Least favourite album

Your least favourite album

  • Iron Maiden

    Votes: 6 3.7%

  • Killers

    Votes: 7 4.3%

  • The Number Of The Beast

    Votes: 1 0.6%

  • Piece Of Mind

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Powerslave

    Votes: 1 0.6%

  • Somewhere In Time

    Votes: 3 1.9%

  • Seventh Son Of A Seventh Son

    Votes: 4 2.5%

  • No Prayer For The Dying

    Votes: 37 23.0%

  • Fear Of The Dark

    Votes: 13 8.1%

  • The X-Factor

    Votes: 17 10.6%

  • Virtual XI

    Votes: 56 34.8%

  • Brave New World

    Votes: 2 1.2%

  • Dance Of Death

    Votes: 7 4.3%

  • A Matter Of Life And Death

    Votes: 7 4.3%
  • Total voters
    161
From my point of view, I would think this would be quite easy. Just about every album has good and not so good tracks on it (but the not so good are still enjoyable tracks). One or two albums have the odd woeful track (only one or two, mind) - but there exists one album that has around two or three sublime tracks (one being the essential Maiden live track), two or three quite good tracks but the rest are possibly just fillers. That album is Fear of the Dark.

The sublime tracks on this album are: Fear of the Dark, Afraid to Shoot Strangers and Be Quick or Be Dead.
The quite good ones: From Here to Eternity, Wasting Love and Childhoods End.

The rest I don't care too much for.
 
I think I'll have to go with Fear Of The Dark as well. "Be Quick Or Be Dead", "Afraid To Shoot Strangers", "Childhoods End", "Judas Be My Guide" and "Fear Of The Dark" would make for a good album, maybe along with "The Fugitive" and, perhaps, "Wasting Love", but the rest just drag it down. Maybe "From Here To Eternity" isn't all that bad either.

BTW, just because I'm a prat... I know that a lot of people will vote for Virtual XI, and I'm just gonna say it before they do... I do not agree with you! :P
 
Fear of the Dark. The only really good songs as far as I'm concerned are Wasting Love and Afraid to Shoot Strangers. The essential Maiden live track is surprisingly dull in the studio version, and while there's the odd highlight the rest feels like a pretty bland mix of demos the band had lying around. I suppose Be Quick or Be Dead, Childhood's End and The Fugitive have some merit, but I can't say I like listening to this album all the way through. Quite a step down from No Prayer for the Dying.

Virtual XI used to be my least favourite but it has redeemed itself somewhat and now comes in at the nice 13th place.
 
After 9 years, I still think Virtual XI is Maiden's worst album.

The songs on VXI are in some cases very repetitive. Not only the chorus from "The Angel & The Gambler" is, but also parts in "Don't Look To The Eyes Of A Stranger".

The chorus from "When Two Worlds Collide" is imo a rip-off from the couplets in "That Girl". "The Educated Fool" has a great intro, and nice build-up but the midpiece is really a re-used idea, mainly taken from "Judgement of Heaven". 
ON VXI Nicko delivers his smallest contribution ever. There are hardly any drumbreaks/fills to be heard. He might touch his toms 3 or 4 times on the whole album. In an interview he said he did it on purpose, to give the rest of the music more space. Well, the band didn't do much with this "space". For me drums are essential in Iron Maiden's music, since Maiden is one of the very few bands, in which bass guitar and drums have a bigger role than the guitars. Also, Nicko does a crappy job on the fast parts of "Don't Look To The Eyes Of A Stranger", which sounds like a Muppet-part, definitely when you compare it to the fast stuff in BTATS.

Conclusion: Too many ideas used from earlier work and therefore I have a valid reason to say it's my least favourite Iron Maiden album.

Dance of Death has a 13th place. It's low because of the big amount of fillers, but at least the vocals are better.

Fear Of The Dark is less typical Maiden, but at least not repetitive and no lazy songwriting. The only worse songs might be "The Apparation" and "Fear Is The Key". Also it contains one of the best tracks, that I've seen in concert: "Afraid To Shoot Strangers".
 
First off, I don't even have all the albums! I can't judge NP, FOTD, X Factor or VXI. I'll go by the ones I do have

1. Iron Maiden-all 9 I like
2. Killers-only one I don't like is Prodigal Son
3. NOB-I dunno, Gangland is OK...and I said RTTH is overrated, so I'll say I don't like 2
4. Piece Of Mind-QFF is kinda boring
5. Powerslave-all! Fabulous
6. SIT-all fabulous
7. 7th Son-The Prophecy is one of Davey's best songs, but it just doesn't fit in the album! Too slow/melodic/whatever for the rest of the album
8. Brave New World-Out Of the Silent Planet I couldn't get into. Nomad and Thin Line grew on me cuz it's Davey  :D So I only dislike 1
9. Dance Of Death-I never got into Montsegur or Age Of Innocence, Gates Of Tomorrow is OK..I guess
10. AMOLAD-all killer!
(not including live albums, they're great!)

Geez...my least favorite out of all those? Uh...shit....none of them! But going by that, I guess it's DOD...cuz there's 3 songs I just couldn't get into.

Paschendale is STILL the best Maiden song ever, and yes, it's on DOD. But it's least favorite ALBUM, Pasch is only one song!
 
Forostar said:
As much as I appreciate this thread, I fear that it could take away some attention from this one:

http://forum.maidenfans.com/index.php?topic=15455.0
Please vote, if you haven't done it yet, for your least favourite Maiden album.


Cheers! :)
Click to expand...

he he thanks for the reminding !!
....I voted for XI of course

this is Iron Maiden's misfortune....
I have a theory for this album : as you probably know, before the reunion Iron Maiden -like David Bowie once- entered in the Bourse.... :ninja:

...he he, you see what I mean ? the angel and the gambler

so, virtual XI, it could be -according to my conspiracy theory- a virtualy bad album, to can make more profits from the rise of shares....Sanctuary really started to arise, until the fucking merger with the company of Beyoncé, which prooved to be Smallwood's destruction

if this get confirmed as a true fact someday, I will retire my vote from here, but until then.... is another conspiracy theory and nothing more

virtual XI is as bad as it takes....Steve Harris and Nicko did their best to give to us the worst possible result
(but still we have some very nice passage in the album)

-poor production
-weak and silly choruses (even if some are enough melodic)
-drum machine like playing
-enormous repetitions
-discusting album cover
-change of the original Iron Maiden logo (which unfortunatelly continue to exist until now)
 
If you had asked me in mid 2002 what my favourite album was, VXI would have been near the top, and Seventh Son would have been at the bottom.

But to answer honestly?  Killers is my least favourite album.  I dislike a healthy majority of the tracks on the album.  Songs like Another Life, Twilight Zone, Purgatory, Drifter, Innocent Exile...eh.  Sure, they capture the "early power" of Iron Maiden, but I am a fan of the later sophistication.  I juggled Killers and Fear of the Dark in my head, and while Fear of the Dark has what is imo Maiden's worst song, Killers has more songs I always skip.

That said, the title track, Wrathchild, Murders in..., and Prodigal Son have always hit the mark for me.  But I'm just not a huge fan of the album.
 
The three weakest Maiden albums are, for me, No Prayer For The Dying, Fear of the Dark and Virtual XI.  I'll go through them individually.

No Prayer For The Dying
Is quite different from Fear of the Dark, in that, instead of having a few great tracks and some woeful ones, has a very consistent level of songwriting.  This makes it better as an album than Fear of the Dark, but the individual songs are worse...certainly, the best songs on No Prayer... (Holy Smoke, Mother Russia) are much worse than the best on Fear of the Dark (Judas Be My Guide, Afraid To Shoot Strangers).

Fear of the Dark
You know what, I love it, so screw you :P.  Be Quick Or Be Dead is a great hyperkinetic opening track, and From Here To Eternity is just fun.  Fear is the Key, Wasting Love and Weekend Warrior are throwaways, but Afraid to Shoot Strangers, Judas Be My Guide and Fear of the Dark are all excellent.  A lot more polarised than No Prayer....

Virtual XI
I've always had a soft spot for this one, as it was the second Maiden LP I bought.  Yes, the production and drumming are very poor, but the repetition is something I can ignore.  The Educated Fool and The Clansman are excellent songs, and Futureal paved the way for The Wicker Man, Wildest Dreams and Different World.  The fact that it is such an oddball album makes it my choice here, since No Prayer... has the merits from being tacked on at the end of the Golden Years, whereas Virtual XI isolates itself.  I still like listening to it, though.
 
NPFTD.

I just can't get into this album. Believe me, I've tried. But only one song rocks my boat: "Run Silent Run Deep". And if that song was on FOTD, it would be getting grouped with all the other filler in the middle of that album.
 
Raven said:
...and Futureal paved the way for The Wicker Man, Wildest Dreams and Different World.
Click to expand...

Come to think of it, I like Futureal better than those other three openers!  :)
 
I'd have to say 'Fear of the Dark.'

The album has an adrenaline pumping intro w/ Be Quick of Be Dead, an atmospheric live or studio version in Fear of the Dark and one of their best songs of all time in Afraid to Shoot Strangers.  Judas Be My Guide is good too, surprisingly for such an ordinary song.  The rest of the album is fading in influencing for me.  This is surprising as I used to love this album when I first started listening to Maiden.  I no longer get the same kicks from songs like 'Wasting Love', 'Childhood's End', etc.  I still listen to the album, mind you, but I'd rank it last.  To quote Raven, the album is "polarized".

(See Onhell, I do not plagiarize).  :P

Oh, and I not only do not mind the repetition in Virtual XI, I love the repetition in Don't Look to the Eyes of Stranger.
 
i'd have to go for Virtual XI as the least impressive Maiden album. There are some good songs on there (Futureal, The Clansman, Two Worlds Collide, Como Estais Amigo) but the rest i'm just not that bothered about. I also think The Angel and the Gambler is plain awful. What disappointed me the most about this album was that it was a poor follow up to the excellent X Factor album.
 
No Prayer here......

Almost every album has a weak track or two, but they will have standout tracks to make up for it.  This one, to me, has only one great song and all the rest well.....could be forgotten.  I've bought every album since Killers when they came out, and it would take a few days or weeks to really get into the new music.  I do own Iron Maiden, but didn't buy it until after I purchased Killers, so it's not like I haven't heard that one.  Anyways, back when No Prayer came out, I just couldn't connect with any of the songs and to this day I still think this album is not that good at all.  Of course this is all my opinion, and it could very well be someone's fav.
 
Still filling in missing gaps in my collection so can't really put a vote in yet, but at the moment it's X Factor. Can't really get into it at all. Once I get my hands on Virtual XI and give it a few listens I'll be able to cast my vote  ;)
 
Egads!  You have to think a little darker to get into The X Factor, friend.  It takes a few listens, it took me quite a few.  But once I got into it...
 
*ugh*...I hate to say this...I wanna change my vote... :S

Now that I have listened to X Factor and VXI...Blaze has moved his way up the list for me. He did great with those 2 albums! (Except Angel and the Gambler...too damn repetitive)

I vote No Prayer cuz Bruce...I think Harris influenced him to go that way...he wanted the band to go back to a "traditional" rock direction or whatever...I don't care for Bruce's singing on that one. i can't believe "Bring Your Daughter..." is Maiden's ONLY #1 song! Shit , if Brighter Than A Thousand Suns would have been played on the radio? I think it would have moved to #1...sorry, I'm ranting here.

As long as the mods don't have a fit, I vote No Prayer...not DOD
 
At this time I will have to say NPFTD.  (I also have not heard X-factor or VXI)  Thus, I still say NPFTD.  The reason being that H was not there. :(
 
I'm really out of place in this poll, but I say Powerslave was my least favorite. The only songs on that album that I enjoy are Aces High (The first Maiden song I heard), 2 Minutes to Midnight, and Powerslave. The rest..I don't really like. I can't stand Rime of the Ancient Mariner.
 
No Prayer for the Dying.

The title track is wonderful, "Run Silent Run Deep" and "Mother Russia" are also pretty enjoyable, and when I'm in the mood for something silly, I can dig "Hooks in You".

However, the rest of it is... not so good. I know some fans like "Holy Smoke", but I think it's just pants. I really wish Bruce hadn't experimented with the harsh vocal style on this album and FOTD. "Tailgunner" is my least favourite track one by Maiden (although to be fair, the song is beefed up a bit when you hear a live version of it). Then you've got tracks like "Fates Warning" and "The Assassin" which are dreadful. Whenever I try to give the album a chance and listen to it again, it's during this middle portion of the album that I fall asleep.
 
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