Maiden Albums: Head to Head

Vote for your favourite song from each pair

  • Total voters
    34
  • Poll closed .
mckindog

mckindog

Living for Sanctuary from the law
Staff member
It has been a long time since we've had a Maiden game going and I want to try something we haven't done before.

It clicked with me the other day that they have 16 albums, perfect for a bracket-style competition. The point of this game is to match up one album against another, song for song as they appear on the album. Vote for your favourite song in each pair. Album that wins the most pairs, wins the round. Simple.

Well, not quite

* To work, each album needed the same amount of songs.
* I chose 11 songs because we needed an odd amount of songs and it worked for most albums.
* To fill in the missing spots I added B sides from the album's time frame
* Tracks are listed in the same order as my North American releases
* For albums with sides, the most popular bonus track went into slot 5 when available
* The last song of an album always went into slot 11 because I wanted the closers matched up
* Any other bonus tracks went into slots 9 and 0r 10 (and in one case 8), typically home to weaker songs.
* Fear of the Dark, as the only album with 12, dropped its least popular song.
* The Apparition moved to Brave New World, the next Bruce album, which also had no B sides.
* The extra original songs from X Factor needed to be in the game and moved to Virtual XI, which had space
* Number of the Beast, with no original B sides, got the two re-recorded song B-sides marking the transition to Bruce
* I filled the gap created by moving those songs from the 7th Son sessions with the leftover B side from SiT

You may have done it differently, but my game, so :p

But for the purpose of the game, that's all you need to know.

I've divided the albums into four preliminary round groups (IM, PS, FoD, DoD) (K, SiT, XF, AMOLAD) (NoB, SS, VXI, FF) (PoM, NPFD, BNW, BoS). Each group will face off in a round-robin to set up the seeding for the bracket in a traditional Sweet 16 Tournament.

We start with Iron Maiden versus Fear of the Dark

:fencing:
 
These pairings (and the subsequent results) are going to enrage 90s fans.

Edit: On the other hand, Iron Maiden vs FOTD (the songs) is one of the most appropriate matches ever.
 
Mosh said:
These pairings (and the subsequent results) are going to enrage 90s fans.

Edit: On the other hand, Iron Maiden vs FOTD (the songs) is one of the most appropriate matches ever.
Click to expand...

All the pairing s are very one-sided so far, but the overall race is very close.
 
This looks really cool!

mckindog said:
I've divided the albums into four preliminary round groups (IM, PS, FoD, DoD) (K, SiT, XF, AMOLAD) (NoB, SS, VXI, FF) (PoM, NPFD, BNW, BoS).
Click to expand...
Based on these groups, my final four prediction is: Powerslave, AMOLAD (or Somewhere in Time, it's essentially a coin-flip), Seventh Son, and Book of Souls I guess (or possibly Brave New World). Powerslave and Seventh Son are the only ones I'm fairly certain about.

As an aside, if anyone votes for Fear is the Key over Phantom of the Opera, they will need to permanently have their voting privileges revoked. :p
 
Mosh said:
These pairings (and the subsequent results) are going to enrage 90s fans.
Click to expand...
I can actually see this one going either way; it's all going to come down to the battles among the "lesser songs" (i.e. Burning Ambition v Childhood's End, Sanctuary v Chains of Misery, Women in Uniform v Weekend Warrior)
 
Ok, I'm actually going to try to listen to each song together to make up my mind. This is lit.
 
On second thought, this is a pretty easy round. Most of the FOTD songs are better, but there are a couple gems from IM.

But

but

but

but

WHERE THE FUCK IS THE APPARITION?!?!

:scared::scared::scared::scared::scared:
 
The more I think of it, the more appropriate of a pairing Women In Uniform vs Weekend Warrior is. It makes sense that they're tied. While one is a cover, both are rare attempts by Maiden at a commercial sounding hard rock song. The music and lyrics are dumbed down and there's not much to either. I give Women the edge for the awesome instrumental break and use of twin guitar harmonies. Weekend Warrior has a nice little guitar harmony too but not quite as good. Women In Uniform also sounds oddly more authentically Maiden, despite being a cover.
 
Cool idea! Some of the pairings were pretty easy, others gave surprising results, and Charlotte vs Judas was the toughest one IMO :P
I'm curious to see the final results!
 
Iron Maiden vs. Fear of the Dark

The ultimate clash of the overplayed live songs. Will one of them be up against 'The Number of the Beast' in the next round?
 
Yay, nice game.

  1. Prowler - exactly what you would expect from Maiden's first song on their first album. Iconic wah lick.
  2. From Here to Eternity - catchy, but why the spoken parts?
  3. Afraid to Shoot Strangers - good song.
  4. Phantom of the Opera - Fear is the Key has grown on me but Phantom is in another league of course.
  5. Burning Ambition - not that great but Childhood's End is ruined by some awful parts.
  6. Wasting Love - Transylvania is iconic but I currently like Wasting Love a lot. Janick played many great solos on FotD.
  7. Strange World - very beautiful song, just a tad long.
  8. Chains of Misery - not a fan of Sanctuary, and Chains is actually pretty good.
  9. Judas Be My Guide - love the slow part in Charlotte. Judas is awesome from beginning to end.
  10. Weekend Warrior - it's not great, I just find Women in Uniform hella boring. Damn, they both had sick solos on FotD.
  11. Fear of the Dark - It's a better classic than Iron Maiden.
 
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