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
I counted Twilight Zone in the 'rest'.

And yes it is. The other contender (Fear of the Dark) has Weekend Warrior (which I forgot on my list of worst songs), The Apparition and Chains of Misery. And I even find Chains of Misery to be catchy.

The other typical worst albums - No Prayer and Virtual XI are fairly consistant really. I don't actually dislike a song off of No Prayer (maybe Holy Smoke), although only the title track is better than good. Virtual XI has one of my favourite songs ever (The Clansman) and 3 other songs that I think are good or better (Futureal, Educated Fool, Como Estais Amigos). Maybe Lightening Strikes Twice and When Two Worlds Collide are both standard songs with good sections. The Angel and the Gambler is okay. It's intro annoys me and it's too long but the song is kinda fun really. DLTTEOAS is just horrific. The instrumental section is so annoying. I get to about 3 minutes in think "this isn't as bad as I think is" and then the instrumental section kicks in and annoys the hell out of me.

As for Drifter: when someone mentions a Maiden song I know how the song goes but I genuinely can't remember how Drifter goes unless I listen to it. And then I realise why I try not to remember it. The solo is good I guess. But the intro is annoying, the lyrics shoddy and it to be about 2 minutes longer that it should be. And it's an album closer. Compare it to the next album closer and tell me it's a good song :P

Edit: And the outro (which I just got to) is terrible. My ears!
 
Good analysis, from your point of view. I'll give mine on my three least favourite Maiden albums. :)

I like Virtual XI and Dance of Death both less than Killers (my 2nd but worst Maiden album) mainly because imo Killers contains only one "weaker" song, namely Drifter. Drifter is imo the worst Maiden song of the eighties.

Still nice compared to a lot of crap by other bands from the eighties, but for Maiden standards I find it worse than the average.

DOD has imo only three great songs (Rainmaker, Paschendale and the title track) and some annoying ones. Especially the over happily sounding Montsegur, the crappy Nicko co-written track, and Wildest Dreams with its bad chorus, I find Face in the Sand too repetitive despite its awesome intro, and No More Lies has an overused instrumental part (already done in Judgement of Heaven and The Educated Fool), and a few fine ones as you call it.

Virtual XI has more great songs than DOD, but also some worse ones. DLTTEOTS has muppet drums in the fast part of the instrumental section, TAATG has its long chorus at the end (and I'm also not so happy with that organ), the chord progression in When Two Worlds Collide's chorus reminds me too much of the couplets in That Girl, The Educated Fool has the already described copying of Judgement of Heaven, Nicko's drums are the dullest from all the records (he touches his toms 4 or 5 times on the whole album), and I am not over the moon when hearing Como Estais Amigos, where Janick Gers kind of repeats his solo of Wasting Love and 2 A.M.

As you see I have quite some more negative associations with these albums compared with Killers.
More thoughts on Killers here.
 
See, because I got the albums out of order* I never really noticed what comes from where in terms of copying. So if anything Judgement of Heaven copies from No More Lies from my perspective :P

The other thing is that you have to take my comments and compare them to Maiden rather than the rest of the music world. I might only give Killers 1/10 compared to the rest of Maiden's discography but if I did it based on everything then it would probably be a 6 or 7!


*-Somewhere Back in Time Complimation
- AMOLAD
-DoD
-BNW
-TNotB, PoM, PS, SSOASS, IM
- TXF
- Killers
- SiT
- VXI
- NPFTD, FotD
 
Forostar said:
DOD has imo only three great songs (Rainmaker, Paschendale and the title track) and some annoying ones. Especially the over happily sounding Montsegur, the crappy Nicko co-written track, and Wildest Dreams with its bad chorus, I find Face in the Sand too repetitive despite its awesome intro, and No More Lies has an overused instrumental part (already done in Judgement of Heaven and The Educated Fool), and a few fine ones as you call it.
Click to expand...

It's like you spoke my mind word for word  :P
 
I have to say I've never had a problem with Montsegur, nor with most other "happy" choruses from Maiden; I even used to love Invaders (oh really?).

As for my least favourite album, it's either Fear of the Dark or Virtual XI.  Both have a very good atmospheric song (Como, Afraid) and a very good live song (Clansman, Fear).  Virtual has a better intro song, but it also has what I consider the worst Maiden song (Angel).  However, Fear has more what I consider to be bad songs (Fear is the Key, Chains of Misery, The Apparition), and I also dislike Bruce's singing on it mostly.  I might also be a bit biased, since I've seen The Clansman and Futureal live by Blaze, and that might have affected my judgement.  But even so, I'll have to go with Fear of the Dark.

Others that I don't enjoy very much are Killers and No Prayer, but they are IMO more consistent. When I originally got the actual CD versions of the Maiden discography, I remember I listened to No Prayer a lot more than Fear (got them at the same time), and though I can't properly compare Killers with this because I got it at another time, I am quite sure I listened to it more too.
 
I think that mine's Virtual.
I only really like Futureal; Other songs like lightning and clansman are nice, but nothing to get all excited about.
 
Invader said:
I have to say I've never had a problem with Montsegur, nor with most other "happy" choruses from Maiden; I even used to love Invaders (oh really?).
Click to expand...

I am not talking about a happy chorus in Montsegur, per se. Especially its couplets sound happy..

(la la la la la la la la la laaa, la la la la la la la la la laaa)

.. and my main problem is that it doesn't fit the lyrics. I don't feel Invaders sounds that happy.
@Invader: how do you compare the good songs from FOTD with VXI and Killers?
How many on each album, and which ones?  Just curious.

@Mega, you just mentioned my favourite three tracks from Virtual XI. All brilliant, from start to finish.
 
Forostar said:
.. and my main problem is that it doesn't fit the lyrics. I don't feel Invaders sounds that happy.
Click to expand...
I think the chorus is quite happy, specifically the "Invaders" bit. But I listened to it now for the first time in a while, and you're right, it's not as happy as I remembered.

@Invader: how do you compare the good songs from FOTD with VXI and Killers?
How many on each album, and which ones?  Just curious.
Click to expand...

I mentioned them in my earlier post, but maybe it wasn't clear.  Specifically:
Excellent ones:
Fear of the Dark
Afraid to Shoot Strangers
Futureal
The Clansman
Como Estais Amigos

Good ones:
Be Quick or Be Dead
Childhood's End
The Educated Fool (I love some of the melodies, but the song as a whole is diminished by the horrible chorus)

Average ones:
From Here to Eternity
Wasting Love
The Fugitive
Judas Be My Guide
Weekend Warrior
Lightning Strikes Twice
When Two Worlds Collide

Bad ones:
Fear is the Key
Chains of Misery
The Apparition
The Angel and the Gambler
Don't Look to the Eyes of a Stranger (it has its moments but as a whole it's annoying)

If I grade those from 1 to 4, then Fear of the Dark gets 27/12= average 2.25, which is just above average.  Virtual gets 21/8= 2.625, which is closer to "good" than "average".  By Maiden standards, of course, and in the context of these two albums.  And of course it isn't as mathematical as this, it's based on emotions and what I like to listen to; and preferences change over time.  In another context, I might grade these differently; e.g. I might drop Futureal to "good" and Weekend Warrior to "bad" when compared to, say, The X Factor.
 
Ah, forgot about that.  Well, I haven't listened to it in a while, so I'll give it a listen and then reply.
 
A lot of people will disagree with me here, but I voted for Dance of Death.  The production is terrible, Nicko's drums sound completely dead, and the worst songs off it (Wildest Dreams, Age of Innocence, Gates of Tommorrow) are the worst they've ever done.  Face in the Sand is the best song.
 
Man, for me, it's gotta be Virtual XI/The X Factor. Both have good music, but Blaze's voice is just absolutely horrible. He has no talent singing, to be honest. It's like he can't do anything with his voice, use different vocal angles, or anything, it's just a very plain, a very straightforward deep voice.  :(
 
Stan said:
Man, for me, it's gotta be Virtual XI/The X Factor. Both have good music, but Blaze's voice is just absolutely horrible. He has no talent singing, to be honest. It's like he can't do anything with his voice, use different vocal angles, or anything, it's just a very plain, a very straightforward deep voice.  :(
Click to expand...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Pd9DQGZRs8

I found his solo material much more listenable than the Maiden stuff.  You're right, his voice kills my enjoyment of either of those records.

I voted X Factor as I found the writing on Virtual XI to be more accessible.
 
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