Leftover Songs that Should have been Included on the Album

[CA Bryers]

Since, for the last two albums, we've been in the era of "no song left behind" resulting in double albums, I was wondering if there were any B-Sides that could've/should've been included on the album proper. For instance, Maiden themselves rectified the absence of Total Eclipse on The Number of the Beast, but were there any others that were good enough and fit the tone (i.e. no comedy/cover tracks)? If so, where would you slot them in on the album?

For an example, I've been listening to The X Factor for the last few years with all three leftovers on the album and may even someday include Virus into the mix, since the production of the song gives it the sonic stamp of The X Factor to my ears more so than it does Virtual XI. And yes, I know it was a totally different recording session.

You could argue Women in Uniform--even though it is a cover--could've found its way onto Killers since it was an A-Side...even if the band didn't like the song much. Would it even fit sonically? Fun fact: Women in Uniform is included in the Australian version of Killers, slotted in between the title track and Prodigal Son.

Then there's the big standout track from Somewhere in Time: Reach Out. While it sounds more Adrian solo than a proper Maiden song and it has outside writer credits (a big no-no for Steve), could it fit? Where would you put it?

What else? Burning Ambition and Invasion on the debut?

On the flip side, which overlong albums would you trim down by a song or two to make them a stronger package?

 

[naranja]

Blaze was saying Justice of the peace should have been on X Factor but I think Judgment day is way better and definitely should have been on the album. I've made this up in my head but I'm convinced a certain bass player didn't want two songs called "judgment..." on the album and that's why it didn't make it..

TXF really needed another fast tune

I live my way is shit.

 

[CA Bryers]

Blaze was saying Justice of the peace should have been on X Factor but I think Judgment day is way better and definitely should have been on the album. I've made this up in my head but I'm convinced a certain bass player didn't want two songs called "judgment..." on the album and that's why it didn't make it..

TXF really needed another fast tune

I live my way is shit.

I prefer Judgment over Justice any day of the week as well. And yeah, the album definitely needed another short banger like one of those two.

I used to like I Live My Way a lot, but nowadays it kinda sounds like Maiden doing a bad impression of a Wolfsbane song. The first song written for the album, if I recall, and one Steve thought might've been the lead single. I'll have to sift through my old interviews from the era to verify all that, though. I think the main reason I like including it is because it has energy and is another punchy rocker that adds much-needed dynamics to the album.

 

[Eddieson]

I did a challenge where I wanted to keep each album under 60 min, so I took the albums over 60 min and cut them down to see how that affected them. Here are the results! 5 songs on Book of Souls, that's crazy!

THE X FACTOR - 58 min 4 sec
1. Sign of the Cross
2. Lord of the Flies
3. Man on the Edge
4. Look for the Truth
5. The Aftermath
6. Judgement of Heaven
7. Blood on the World's Hands
8. The Edge of Darkness
9. The Unbeliever

BRAVE NEW WORLD - 55 min 29 sec
1. The Wicker Man
2. Brave New World
3. Blood Brothers
4. Dream of Mirrors
5. The Fallen Angel
6. The Nomad
7. Out of the Silent Planet
8. The Thin Line Between Love and Hate

DANCE OF DEATH - 57 min 57 sec
1. Rainmaker
2. No More Lies
3. Montségur
4. Dance of Death
5. Gates of Tomorrow
6. New Frontier
7. Paschendale
8. Face in the Sand
9. Journeyman

A MATTER OF LIFE AND DEATH - 59 min 35 sec
1. Different World
2. Brighter Than a Thousand Suns
3. The Pilgrim
4. The Longest Day
5. The Reincarnation of Benjamin Breeg
6. For the Greater Good of God
7. Lord of Light
8. The Legacy

THE FINAL FRONTIER - 57 min 47 sec
1. Satellite 15... The Final Frontier
2. El Dorado
3. Mother of Mercy
4. Isle of Avalon
5. Starblind
6. The Talisman
7. When the Wild Wind Blows

BOOK OF SOULS - 58 min 3 sec
1. If Eternity Should Fail
2. The Red and the Black
3. The Book of Souls
4. Shadows of the Valley
5. Empire of the Clouds

SENJUTSU - 54 min 56 sec
1. Senjutsu
2. Stratego
3. The Writing on the Wall
4. Days of Future Past
5. Darkest Hour
6. The Parchment
7. Hell on Earth

 

[CA Bryers]

I did a challenge where I wanted to keep each album under 60 min, so I took the albums over 60 min and cut them down to see how that affected them. Here are the results! 5 songs on Book of Souls, that's crazy!

THE X FACTOR - 58 min 4 sec
1. Sign of the Cross
2. Lord of the Flies
3. Man on the Edge
4. Look for the Truth
5. The Aftermath
6. Judgement of Heaven
7. Blood on the World's Hands
8. The Edge of Darkness
9. The Unbeliever

BRAVE NEW WORLD - 55 min 29 sec
1. The Wicker Man
2. Brave New World
3. Blood Brothers
4. Dream of Mirrors
5. The Fallen Angel
6. The Nomad
7. Out of the Silent Planet
8. The Thin Line Between Love and Hate

DANCE OF DEATH - 57 min 57 sec
1. Rainmaker
2. No More Lies
3. Montségur
4. Dance of Death
5. Gates of Tomorrow
6. New Frontier
7. Paschendale
8. Face in the Sand
9. Journeyman

A MATTER OF LIFE AND DEATH - 59 min 35 sec
1. Different World
2. Brighter Than a Thousand Suns
3. The Pilgrim
4. The Longest Day
5. The Reincarnation of Benjamin Breeg
6. For the Greater Good of God
7. Lord of Light
8. The Legacy

THE FINAL FRONTIER - 57 min 47 sec
1. Satellite 15... The Final Frontier
2. El Dorado
3. Mother of Mercy
4. Isle of Avalon
5. Starblind
6. The Talisman
7. When the Wild Wind Blows

BOOK OF SOULS - 58 min 3 sec
1. If Eternity Should Fail
2. The Red and the Black
3. The Book of Souls
4. Shadows of the Valley
5. Empire of the Clouds

SENJUTSU - 54 min 56 sec
1. Senjutsu
2. Stratego
3. The Writing on the Wall
4. Days of Future Past
5. Darkest Hour
6. The Parchment
7. Hell on Earth

Those are some super-tight tracklists! I found Book of Souls alarming with only 5 songs (very EP-like), but when you account for The Red and the Black and Empire of the Clouds alone, that's 31 minutes right there. I might have to experiment listening to some of these as a playlist to see how they might benefit overall for not being so overlong. I'm especially intrigued to try your picks for The X Factor.

 

[Eddieson]

Those are some super-tight tracklists! I found Book of Souls alarming with only 5 songs (very EP-like), but when you account for The Red and the Black and Empire of the Clouds alone, that's 31 minutes right there. I might have to experiment listening to some of these as a playlist to see how they might benefit overall for not being so overlong. I'm especially intrigued to try your picks for The X Factor.

Haha, yes, I set up so many ridiculous ways of seeing discographies. What happens if each album is a 5-track EP? What happens if you only allow 8 songs per album to match the 80s albums? It always changes the flow and makes you see the albums in different ways.

 

[Clairvoyant Parchment]

Great topic, I totally did this with TXF a few years ago.

I included all 4 single-only songs from that era (including Virus - yes we know it's from much later on, but it totally fits).

I like all 4 of those songs, I don't care, even I Live My Way.

Virus is a brilliant tune, sadly it's kind of overlooked as it was a single only track.

The way I see it, there are two huge problems with TXF: the production and the running order of the songs.

The sequence of the songs is totally wrong, the boys really messed up this one. It can be greatly improved. It needs to be completely changed.

I always loved all the songs individually, they really all are great compositions, very mature, thoughtful, meaningful pieces of art, with a lot of substance to them, but as a whole album, it just didn't used to click with me. I did enjoy listening to it somewhat, but always felt something was off, completely wrong in fact, with it.

There are too many songs with low key, quiet intros, somber songs, one after the other. And it's way too depressing.

On top of all that, the whole thing is brought down greatly by the extremely poor, pathetic in fact, production. TXF is an absolute masterpiece, a treasure, but by many it gets overlooked by the poor sound, and the poor choice of the running order of the songs.

There's gonna be two main Chapters to this long ass post, bear with me here.

Chapter 1 is gonna detail my efforts to change the running order, Chapter 2 is gonna show the even better, "expanded" version of TXF I eventually came up with.


Chapter 1:

This was my thought process:

-Sign Of, Man On and Lord Of are the 3 best songs on the album for me, so they should be spread out evenly, to keep the vibe up, instead of "getting rid of them" at the start

-the most crucial aspect: how to start the album? Sign Of does work as an opener, but Man On works much better, also they opened live with that one anyway, that was the most obvious choice live

-the ending sucks with 2AM and The Unbeliever; good songs, but it's a poor choice to close the album; I really love 2AM, but it's way too depressing to come so late, TU has some great melodies, but it drags in places, the verse and pre-chorus especially, it's a poor song to close the album

-in my mind, if possible, a Maiden album should always close with the best song on the album, the most epic song; of course I took this idea from their 80s classics: Hallowed, To Tame, Rime, Alex

-with this in mind, TXF should close with the best, most epic song: Sign Of; an absolute, all time masterpiece of a song, a monster of a song (I debated for days whether to keep it as the opener, as it really does work that way too, or put it last, as per the mentioned 80s classics rule; after many days of thinking about it, it was obvious it should be the closer, and Man On the opener)

-so now we had our opener and closer, 2 of the 3 best songs used up already, so Lord Of should come somewhere in the middle, to keep things even, to have a highlight in the middle also

-regarding the rest of the songs left to use, 2AM, Edge Of, Blood On and Look For are the better songs for me, they represent a higher tier than the rest, so they should come later on than the other ones

-the most difficult thing was to decide where The Unbeliever should come, as it's the weakest song on the album for me - after days of experimenting with different sequences, the song didn't work anywhere else but at the beginning, as the second song, to "get rid of it early" - and actually as a song it does work much better in that place

-unlike many other fans, I do like Look For a lot, and somehow I knew early in my endeavour, that it would work perfectly as the penultimate song, just before Sign Of, so that's done and dusted also

-Fortunes works early as it is, but after it, there needs to be a more "upbeat" song, and not Look For with it's bleak intro, so in comes Judgement Of Heaven

-then can come The Aftermath, and then, obviously, Lord Of, to have it in the middle, it works great

-now we need a strong ending portion to the album, an album should always end with the strongest possible impression, so 2AM can come, a very powerful, emotional song, but then we need to switch up Blood On and Edge Of, both are great but I do think Blood On is a slightly stronger song

-then the already mentioned Look For and the magnificent Sign Of - what a song to close this now brilliant album

And that's it, we have our fabulous, brand new album now. The soundmix still sucks though.

So the final order looks like this:

01 - Man On The Edge
02 - The Unbeliever
03 - Fortunes Of War
04 - Judgement Of Heaven
05 - The Aftermath
06 - Lord Of The Flies
07 - 2 AM
08 - The Edge Of Darkness
09 - Blood On The World's Hands
10 - Look For The Truth
11 - Sign Of The Cross

I literally spent weeks with this, on-off of course, changing the order in a Winamp playlist, trying to find the best possible scenario.

Now some of you might disagree with my choices of course, that's cool, but to me this is a HUGE improvement. It totally changes the whole vibe of the album, it flows much better. It still keeps it's character, it's still dark and somber, but not so depressing and most importantly, more "bearable". It's interesting throughout, and you don't want certain songs just to end and move on.

Starting with Man On totally changes everything, and gives it a huge punch, a great start. Then the vibe is kept up with more or less one low key, "boring" song, then a more upbeat one, and they take turns.

If any of you reading this dislike TXF, feel free to try it with this tracklist, hopefully you'll find it an improvement. For me it's a huge one, I'm extremely pleased with my efforts. It feels almost like a brand new album, one that can be enjoyed much better.

Chapter 2:

So I was very happy with my new TXF, but then I thought: we have those 4 single-only songs, which I all like, perhaps, why the fuck not, we should try and expand the album with them, add them in, see if they fit somewhere. The idea was to make the album even more energetic, and not so low key and lifeless, and those 4 songs are all more upbeat.

So all I needed to do is find a place for each, put each preferably between 2 songs that are slow starters, to improve the vibe even more.

My only self imposed "rule" this time was this: with my previous efforts in Chapter 1, the second half of the album is (deliberately) much stronger than the first, so if possible, all 4 extra songs should come somewhere in the first half.

I knew with the expansion, it's gonna become a double album, so I thought Aftermath would be a cool way to close the first disc. And I wanted to have Virus, a super strong song, just before it, to have the first disc end on a powerful note.

Then I wanted to give the second disc an upbeat, energetic opening, and I went with Judgement Day in that slot (it worked better than Justice Of), just before Lord Of. (Could've kept Lord Of as the opener, but Judgement worked slightly better.) (Great song, and the title always reminds me of one of my favourite films of all time - T2 of course.)

The remaining 2 tracks were a piece of cake to place now.

So below is my final version of TXF.

I call it "The X Factor (expanded)".

CD1 (44:59)

01 Man On The Edge
02 The Unbeliever
03 Justice Of The Peace
04 Fortunes Of War
05 I Live My Way
06 Judgement Of Heaven
07 Virus
08 The Aftermath

CD2 (43:47)

01 Judgement Day
02 Lord Of The Flies
03 2 A.M.
04 The Edge Of Darkness
05 Blood On The World's Hands
06 Look For The Truth
07 Sign Of The Cross

So in my universe, this is Maiden's very first double album. (Which I think it was meant to be, they just didn't dare go with it at that time.)

With these new changes, the first portion of the album, CD1, is also super strong now, not just the second half.

And guess what, this way Dave also gets no less that 2 credits on the album now.

I only ever listen to TXF this way now, and I enjoy it immensely. It's my 9th favourite Maiden album now.

I super-strongly feel this is the version of TXF we all were always destined to have. We just didn't know, but somehow we all felt it in our Infinite Dreams.

Anyway, I actually went ahead and changed filenames, tags, "hardcoded" everything, the new sequence, with the additional tracks, into all my digital copies, this is the only way TXF exists for me now. I'm never going back to the original version. Only my ancient CD has the original order, which I never listen to CDs anyway. I keep that as a souvenir.

Thanks for reading all this bollocks.

Hopefully this will help someone somehow. You might want to try my version, but of course this new, improved, expanded sequence is not set in stone, not iron clad for everyone. Not everyone likes those 4 single-only songs. You might want to remove some, or change something else. For me, it works perfectly, it's actually a pleasure to listen to the album now, I find it very exciting, like a new album. I'm never going back to the old one.

So this was my big adventure I wanted to share with you all regarding TXF.

Now I just wish they re-recorded the whole damn thing, all 15 songs, in a proper studio with a proper producer.

 

[karljant]

Iron Maiden: All songs here are great but Invasion and Sanctuary are must haves IMO. I´m glad they rectified it for the latter in 1998.

Killers: Once again no bad songs here, yet without being brilliant, Twilight Zone is also welcome.

TNOTB: Yeah... Total Eclipse is certainly a must include unlike Gangland.

POM: Drop Quest For Fire and you've got yourself a perfect album IMO.

Powerslave, SIT and SSOASS: Perfect as they are.

NPFTD: drop Holy Smoke and Hooks In You and add the All In Your Mind cover.

FOTD: I don't care the damn thing becomes short: off with Fear Is The Key, Wasting Love and Weekend Warrior. FHTE stays just for length sake.

TXF: A couple of songs are merely ok but I'd keep them all. As for adding Justice Of The Peace is really good but doesn't fit the mood. Now, Judgement Day being just a B side is a crime: must include.

VXI: Get TAATG short version to make the damn thing minimally decent. Not much else to do with this one.

BNW: Ditch Dream Of Mirrors... and as much as I like The Nomad it would be also a good move due to the blatant plagiarism.

DOD: Off with Age Of Innocence. Other than that make out of Montsegur the album's opener.

AMOLAD and TFF: Apart from dividing the intro from the title track on TFF (like on En Vivo), nothing wrong here.

TBOS: IMO Shadows of The Valley and The Man Of Sorrows should go.

Senjutsu: Darkest Hour is pretty dull IMO so I'd drop it. Another song to ditch was one I liked but grew tired of: Death Of The Celts.

 

[CA Bryers]

Great topic, I totally did this with TXF a few years ago.

I included all 4 single-only songs from that era (including Virus - yes we know it's from much later on, but it totally fits).

I like all 4 of those songs, I don't care, even I Live My Way.

Virus is a brilliant tune, sadly it's kind of overlooked as it was a single only track.

The way I see it, there are two huge problems with TXF: the production and the running order of the songs.

The sequence of the songs is totally wrong, the boys really messed up this one. It can be greatly improved. It needs to be completely changed.

I always loved all the songs individually, they really all are great compositions, very mature, thoughtful, meaningful pieces of art, with a lot of substance to them, but as a whole album, it just didn't used to click with me. I did enjoy listening to it somewhat, but always felt something was off, completely wrong in fact, with it.

There are too many songs with low key, quiet intros, somber songs, one after the other. And it's way too depressing.

On top of all that, the whole thing is brought down greatly by the extremely poor, pathetic in fact, production. TXF is an absolute masterpiece, a treasure, but by many it gets overlooked by the poor sound, and the poor choice of the running order of the songs.

There's gonna be two main Chapters to this long ass post, bear with me here.

Chapter 1 is gonna detail my efforts to change the running order, Chapter 2 is gonna show the even better, "expanded" version of TXF I eventually came up with.


Chapter 1:

This was my thought process:

-Sign Of, Man On and Lord Of are the 3 best songs on the album for me, so they should be spread out evenly, to keep the vibe up, instead of "getting rid of them" at the start

-the most crucial aspect: how to start the album? Sign Of does work as an opener, but Man On works much better, also they opened live with that one anyway, that was the most obvious choice live

-the ending sucks with 2AM and The Unbeliever; good songs, but it's a poor choice to close the album; I really love 2AM, but it's way too depressing to come so late, TU has some great melodies, but it drags in places, the verse and pre-chorus especially, it's a poor song to close the album

-in my mind, if possible, a Maiden album should always close with the best song on the album, the most epic song; of course I took this idea from their 80s classics: Hallowed, To Tame, Rime, Alex

-with this in mind, TXF should close with the best, most epic song: Sign Of; an absolute, all time masterpiece of a song, a monster of a song (I debated for days whether to keep it as the opener, as it really does work that way too, or put it last, as per the mentioned 80s classics rule; after many days of thinking about it, it was obvious it should be the closer, and Man On the opener)

-so now we had our opener and closer, 2 of the 3 best songs used up already, so Lord Of should come somewhere in the middle, to keep things even, to have a highlight in the middle also

-regarding the rest of the songs left to use, 2AM, Edge Of, Blood On and Look For are the better songs for me, they represent a higher tier than the rest, so they should come later on than the other ones

-the most difficult thing was to decide where The Unbeliever should come, as it's the weakest song on the album for me - after days of experimenting with different sequences, the song didn't work anywhere else but at the beginning, as the second song, to "get rid of it early" - and actually as a song it does work much better in that place

-unlike many other fans, I do like Look For a lot, and somehow I knew early in my endeavour, that it would work perfectly as the penultimate song, just before Sign Of, so that's done and dusted also

-Fortunes works early as it is, but after it, there needs to be a more "upbeat" song, and not Look For with it's bleak intro, so in comes Judgement Of Heaven

-then can come The Aftermath, and then, obviously, Lord Of, to have it in the middle, it works great

-now we need a strong ending portion to the album, an album should always end with the strongest possible impression, so 2AM can come, a very powerful, emotional song, but then we need to switch up Blood On and Edge Of, both are great but I do think Blood On is a slightly stronger song

-then the already mentioned Look For and the magnificent Sign Of - what a song to close this now brilliant album

And that's it, we have our fabulous, brand new album now. The soundmix still sucks though.

So the final order looks like this:

01 - Man On The Edge
02 - The Unbeliever
03 - Fortunes Of War
04 - Judgement Of Heaven
05 - The Aftermath
06 - Lord Of The Flies
07 - 2 AM
08 - The Edge Of Darkness
09 - Blood On The World's Hands
10 - Look For The Truth
11 - Sign Of The Cross

I literally spent weeks with this, on-off of course, changing the order in a Winamp playlist, trying to find the best possible scenario.

Now some of you might disagree with my choices of course, that's cool, but to me this is a HUGE improvement. It totally changes the whole vibe of the album, it flows much better. It still keeps it's character, it's still dark and somber, but not so depressing and most importantly, more "bearable". It's interesting throughout, and you don't want certain songs just to end and move on.

Starting with Man On totally changes everything, and gives it a huge punch, a great start. Then the vibe is kept up with more or less one low key, "boring" song, then a more upbeat one, and they take turns.

If any of you reading this dislike TXF, feel free to try it with this tracklist, hopefully you'll find it an improvement. For me it's a huge one, I'm extremely pleased with my efforts. It feels almost like a brand new album, one that can be enjoyed much better.

Chapter 2:

So I was very happy with my new TXF, but then I thought: we have those 4 single-only songs, which I all like, perhaps, why the fuck not, we should try and expand the album with them, add them in, see if they fit somewhere. The idea was to make the album even more energetic, and not so low key and lifeless, and those 4 songs are all more upbeat.

So all I needed to do is find a place for each, put each preferably between 2 songs that are slow starters, to improve the vibe even more.

My only self imposed "rule" this time was this: with my previous efforts in Chapter 1, the second half of the album is (deliberately) much stronger than the first, so if possible, all 4 extra songs should come somewhere in the first half.

I knew with the expansion, it's gonna become a double album, so I thought Aftermath would be a cool way to close the first disc. And I wanted to have Virus, a super strong song, just before it, to have the first disc end on a powerful note.

Then I wanted to give the second disc an upbeat, energetic opening, and I went with Judgement Day in that slot (it worked better than Justice Of), just before Lord Of. (Could've kept Lord Of as the opener, but Judgement worked slightly better.) (Great song, and the title always reminds me of one of my favourite films of all time - T2 of course.)

The remaining 2 tracks were a piece of cake to place now.

So below is my final version of TXF.

I call it "The X Factor (expanded)".

CD1 (44:59)

01 Man On The Edge
02 The Unbeliever
03 Justice Of The Peace
04 Fortunes Of War
05 I Live My Way
06 Judgement Of Heaven
07 Virus
08 The Aftermath

CD2 (43:47)

01 Judgement Day
02 Lord Of The Flies
03 2 A.M.
04 The Edge Of Darkness
05 Blood On The World's Hands
06 Look For The Truth
07 Sign Of The Cross

So in my universe, this is Maiden's very first double album. (Which I think it was meant to be, they just didn't dare go with it at that time.)

With these new changes, the first portion of the album, CD1, is also super strong now, not just the second half.

And guess what, this way Dave also gets no less that 2 credits on the album now.

I only ever listen to TXF this way now, and I enjoy it immensely. It's my 9th favourite Maiden album now.

I super-strongly feel this is the version of TXF we all were always destined to have. We just didn't know, but somehow we all felt it in our Infinite Dreams.

Anyway, I actually went ahead and changed filenames, tags, "hardcoded" everything, the new sequence, with the additional tracks, into all my digital copies, this is the only way TXF exists for me now. I'm never going back to the original version. Only my ancient CD has the original order, which I never listen to CDs anyway. I keep that as a souvenir.

Thanks for reading all this bollocks.

Hopefully this will help someone somehow. You might want to try my version, but of course this new, improved, expanded sequence is not set in stone, not iron clad for everyone. Not everyone likes those 4 single-only songs. You might want to remove some, or change something else. For me, it works perfectly, it's actually a pleasure to listen to the album now, I find it very exciting, like a new album. I'm never going back to the old one.

So this was my big adventure I wanted to share with you all regarding TXF.

Now I just wish they re-recorded the whole damn thing, all 15 songs, in a proper studio with a proper producer.

This was exactly the kind of deep dive I was hoping for when making this thread, and I nerded out like a madman reading the whole thing. Thanks so much for typing it all out. One thing I was going to bring up in the original post but passed on it was whether to reorder TXF, because it's always felt like there's a better sequence for it more so than any album of theirs. Absolutely cannot wait to try this out once I get my iPod up and running again. I'll start with a playlist to test it out. If I love it, into the metadata I go.

Did you go so far as to edit out Nicko's "that's it, that's the one" off the end of The Unbeliever? I remember having to do a tiny edit to Justice of the Peace to cut out Nicko's little count-in.

As for the crappy sound mix, I still haven't gotten around to biting the bullet to see if the 2015 remaster of it is any better than the original CD version. I've heard some say it's better, others say the original is the way to go.

 

[CA Bryers]

Iron Maiden: All songs here are great but Invasion and Sanctuary are must haves IMO. I´m glad they rectified it for the latter in 1998.

Killers: Once again no bad songs here, yet without being brilliant, Twilight Zone is also welcome.

TNOTB: Yeah... Total Eclipse is certainly a must include unlike Gangland.

POM: Drop Quest For Fire and you've got yourself a perfect album IMO.

Powerslave, SIT and SSOASS: Perfect as they are.

NPFTD: drop Holy Smoke and Hooks In You and add the All In Your Mind cover.

FOTD: I don't care the damn thing becomes short: off with Fear Is The Key, Wasting Love and Weekend Warrior. FHTE stays just for length sake.

TXF: A couple of songs are merely ok but I'd keep them all. As for adding Justice Of The Peace is really good but doesn't fit the mood. Now, Judgement Day being just a B side is a crime: must include.

VXI: Get TAATG short version to make the damn thing minimally decent. Not much else to do with this one.

BNW: Ditch Dream Of Mirrors... and as much as I like The Nomad it would be also a good move due to the blatant plagiarism.

DOD: Off with Age Of Innocence. Other than that make out of Montsegur the album's opener.

AMOLAD and TFF: Apart from dividing the intro from the title track on TFF (like on En Vivo), nothing wrong here.

TBOS: IMO Shadows of The Valley and The Man Of Sorrows should go.

Senjutsu: Darkest Hour is pretty dull IMO so I'd drop it. Another song to ditch was one I liked but grew tired of: Death Of The Celts.

Lots of great thought put into this. I don't typically love Maiden's covers, but All in Your Mind is definitely one of the better ones they've done. I also really dig Kill Me Cesoir. And yeah, the fact they stuck the Satellite intro to Final Frontier is irritating. I went and split them myself just to have a standalone version of the title track.

 

[Kalata]

I think - Sanctuary, Twilight Zone (instead of Another Life), Total Eclipse (instead of Invaders, although I don't want to lose a fast song), Judgement Day (maybe instead of something like Aftermath/Truth; Justice Of The Peace could have been too), Virus - could easily have been on their albums.

Trim an album? I guess only FOTD (cut Apparition and Weekend/Chains/Key, or two of them), or DOD (Age). I don't want to say The Man Of Sorrows. Satellite 15? Also, replace Hooks In You with ASAP's The Lion.

For some other albums, I would prefer some songs shorter or faster, here and there.

 

[Kalata]

I used to like I Live My Way a lot, but nowadays it kinda sounds like Maiden doing a bad impression of a Wolfsbane song.

It really does sound like Wolfsbane. Steve going along with Blaze's voice/style of his previous band for starters, kind of like Bruce with Gangland, Janick with Fear Is The Key, and Adrian with 22 Acacia Avenue (Maiden-ized).

The first song written for the album, if I recall, and one Steve thought might've been the lead single. I'll have to sift through my old interviews from the era to verify all that, though.

It would have been a poor choice for a single. But as a single oriented song and structure, it fits (similar to Angel And Gambler).

 

[srfc]

Lots of great thought put into this. I don't typically love Maiden's covers, but All in Your Mind is definitely one of the better ones they've done. I also really dig Kill Me Cesoir. And yeah, the fact they stuck the Satellite intro to Final Frontier is irritating. I went and split them myself just to have a standalone version of the title track.

Without doubt All in Your Mind and Kill Me Ce Soir are the best side B of a Maiden single