Maiden Albums: Head to Head

Vote for your favourite song from each pair

  • Total voters
    34
  • Poll closed .
Where Eagles Dare - The Wicker Man
Revelations - Ghost of the Navigator
Flight of Icarus - Brave New World
Die With Your Boots On - Blood Brothers
Cross Eyed Mary - The Mercenary
The Trooper - Dream of Mirrors
Still Life - The Fallen Angel
Quest for Fire - The Nomad
Sun and Steel - Out of the Silent Planet
I Got the Fire - The Apparition
To Tame A Land - Thin Line Between Love and Hate

Pretty easy except The Trooper vs Dream of Mirrors. Totally different songs that I like for different reasons. I'm actually pretty confident about the rest of my choices. Zero doubts about The Wicker Man being better than WED and I gotta say I've never liked To Tame a Land, so it sucks to see them lose. I'm leaning towards Ghost of the Navigator, but I'm not mad, because Revelations is obviously amazing too.

It really is beyond me that The Apparition is almost universally considered the worst Maiden track around here. In my book it is nowhere near that region. I don't even find it the worst track on FotD. The pre- and mid-solo parts are fucking great, this alone saves the song for me.
 
Where Eagles Dare - The Wicker Man
Revelations - Ghost of the Navigator
Flight of Icarus - Brave New World
Die With Your Boots On - Blood Brothers
Cross Eyed Mary - The Mercenary
The Trooper - Dream of Mirrors
Still Life - The Fallen Angel
Quest for Fire - The Nomad
Sun and Steel - Out of the Silent Planet
I Got the Fire - The Apparition
To Tame A Land - Thin Line Between Love and Hate

Saapanael said:
Blood Brothers is the most "overrated" song ever, Boots is way more fun.
Click to expand...

The only tough choices were Revelations/Ghost and Tame/Line. On any other day, those might have ended up differently.

I don't see why should I listen to Maiden's cover of Cross Eyed Mary when I can go straight to the original. And it doesn't really matter whether it's Bunker or Barlow behind the drums for the Tull rhythm section to blow away most of the competition, even Maiden (and we're talking 'bout 'Arry and Nicko here, remember).
 
It's hard to beat Navigator's tension/drama. Fantastic instrumental part. One of Janick's mindblowing solos and later that great acceleration with "double" single bass drums. Revelations is dull and monotone compared to this spectacle.

Dum dum dum. Dum dum dum.
 
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I almost liked that post, but then... Revelations is not dull. It's fun to listen to - the intro feels epic and melody-wise, is very memorable (and it quotes Chesterton <3) , the plaintive verse has its charm and those "segmenting" chords, simplistic as they might be, do indeed have some power. I'm quite happy I have heard the song live in 2014. But yeah, Navigator beats its ass. I just wanted to stand up for the song I really like (funnily enough, it might be one of my favourites off PoM, but thanks to the "song vs song" nature of this contest, it actually lost :D ).
 
Revelations is one of the most meh of the '80s tracks but Navigator is a song it can beat. Both the weakest of their respective albums.
 
Where Eagles Dare vs The Wicker Man
Revelations vs Ghost of the Navigator
Flight of Icarus vs Brave New World
Die With Your Boots On vs Blood Brothers
Cross Eyed Mary vs The Mercenary
The Trooper vs Dream of Mirrors
Still Life vs The Fallen Angel
Quest For Fire vs The Nomad
Sun and Steel vs Out of the Silent Planet
I Got The Fire vs The Apparition
To Tame a Land vs The Thin Line Between Love and Hate


Both Top 5 albums for me. Both are my favourite at times but much more often its POM. It was untouchable for 10 years. Sometimes I think BNW is better than it actually is, I have very fond memories of it; the reunion, the fresh production compared with 90s efforts, the brighter artwork, the great weather on the day I bought The Wicker Man single and a hundred other factors. The first 4 tracks are golden and the last 2 as well but in the cold light of day, the 4 tracks inbetween pale in comparison. Not bad songs by any means but not at the same level, for me. POM has the best 6 song run (first 6) of any Maiden album, in my opinion and the others are good too.
Some tight ones here. GOTN and DWYBO can count themselves unfortunate in my voting. There's amazing instrumental sections in both that I love but Revelations and Blood Brothers just have something that clicks in a bigger way with me. Still tight though.

Not a fan of The Apparition but the instrumental section is brilliant, in parts. Although I never listen to it just to hear that bit. This was a puzzling one for me. The live version of I've Got The Fire with Paul is better than both these songs and I was thinking that POM deserved the vote but in the end I went for an original Maiden song with approx 60secs of decent/good music over a sanitised version of a cover.
I've changed this vote 3 times. I may do so again before this closes.

6-5 to Brave New World. Again, the album I rank higher loses out. I think that says something about Maidens consistency. Either they are consistent or they are not, I'm not sure!

Great round, great game.
 
I can't resist saying that I grin when looking at To Tame a Land vs The Thin Line. 21 fucking 9.

That is because of the discussions about these songs we've seen here. Always To Tame a Land trashed for its said silly lyrics. And very often if not always Thin Line loved with hardly any criticism.

And that's the cool thing about this game. To look at the works from a different perspective.
 
6-5 for Piece of Mind in one of the closest battles yet, won on the strength of the B-side over an album track (even if it was from another album)

Up next a favourite of the hardcore fan versus an album that seems to have slipped in people's estimation Seventh Son versus Final Frontier :edmetal:
 
@mckindog Satellite 15... The Final Frontier is one track.

3-8 for Seventh Son:

Satellite 15.... vs Moonchild
The Final Frontier vs Infinite Dreams
El Dorado vs Can I Play With Madness
Mother of Mercy vs The Evil That Men Do
Coming Home vs Massacre
The Alchemist vs Seventh Son of a Seventh Son
Isle of Avalon vs The Prophecy
Starblind vs The Clairvoyant
The Talisman vs Black Bart Blues
The Man Who Would Be King vs Sheriff of Huddersfield
When the Wild Wind Blows vs Only the Good Die Young
 
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