Most overrated Maiden album?

Still Life
Stranger In A Strange Land
Run To The Hills
Back In The Village
Wasting Love
The Book Of Souls
The Assassin
Innocent Exile
Strange World
The Educated Fool
Gates Of Tomorrow
The Aftermath
The Prophecy
Dream Of Mirrors
Isle Of Avalon
The Time Machine
Out Of The Shadows
 
I have no idea if I've responded to this thread before and I don't care to check, but I am gonna come back and say that although I enjoyed The Future Past tour immensely, I still think my answer is Somewhere in Time. It's not as big of a gap as it was, but I don't think it's a perfect album, nor anywhere close to the best of the discography, which is often what I see on Maidenfans dot com. Still a great album, of course.
 
Honestly 2 days ago, I listened to the first 5 albums with Bruce in the row. From Number to 7th son.
The only album, that didn't have a filler track imo, was SIT. I didn't skip any songs, but I really wanted to skip Gangland or Sun and Steel after the first chorus. I also wanted to skip Back to the Village or Losfer words. In the end, I skipped CIPWM, I coudn't resist.
So for me SIT is their best album and also Wasted Years their best hit. Then probably Piece of Mind comes 2nd for me, because I really love the first few tracks and the last one. 3rd place goes to Seventh Son (because it has only 1 bad song imo, the rest are so good together). Then probably Powerslave (I honestly like half of the album, but the half I like consists of perfect songs : Rime, Powerslave, Aces and Flash).
So, for me Number is the most overrated, as it's probably their best album for casual fans.
(of course, I wanted to skip Number, Hills, Trooper etc, but that is because they're overplayed and also I hate 2 mins, but this time around it didn't bother me)
 
Yeah, I would probably put Number of the Beast up there on my personal overrated list. Side 2 of Piece of Mind is also a little weaker, but that's because To Tame a Land doesn't really work for me, probably my second least favourite Harris epic. Still a good song, of course. It's all pretty darn good (well, Gangland is kind of a stinker).
 
Dick Brucinson said:
And if I did a "Which is the best 6th song on a Maiden album" poll, Back In The Village would slay any other 6th song on any other Maiden album. Mark my words. :cool:
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Only falls short to Still Life and The Prophecy for me. And it's not by much: Back In The Village is an amazingly wild track. Love it!

P.S. : Powerslave? Fillers? WTF?
 
LooseCannon said:
I have no idea if I've responded to this thread before and I don't care to check, but I am gonna come back and say that although I enjoyed The Future Past tour immensely, I still think my answer is Somewhere in Time. It's not as big of a gap as it was, but I don't think it's a perfect album, nor anywhere close to the best of the discography, which is often what I see on Maidenfans dot com. Still a great album, of course.
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Exactly this, and I’ll go a step further and say Future Past reaffirmed my take on this as those songs were significantly less powerful live than any of the classic McBrain era 80s songs.

I personally don’t think Beast qualifies just because it always ends up rated in the mid tier in survivors/polls/etc. In general SIT is the only album that seems to cast a large shadow over the rest of the albums, I find the 80s generally to be rated accurately.

If anything, the other candidate for me would be Brave New World, as there are two or three albums since then that are better and the back half has some unforgivably weak moments.
 
To be clear, when I was talking about Beast, I meant it in popular opinion rather than Maidenfans opinion. I think we generally rate it correctly here. A landmark album but just the beginning for what comes next.

25 years of distance has given me some perspective on BNW, but I still think it's a great song. However, I've skipped The Thin Line Between Love and Hate a lot to not give you some level of agreement. I still put it so very high, but I can admit a significant percentage of that is nostalgia.
 
Killers - I'm sure at some point Harris has admitted somewhere that the first two Maiden albums consisted of the band's entire repertoire up to that point, and that most of the strongest songs went on the debut, and the lesser ones on Killers. Compared to the rest of the band's classic 80s period it's noticeably more lightweight. Sure, there are some classic songs there - Wrathchild, the title track and Purgatory - and Prodigal Son is total Jethro Tull worship that really works well. The cover art is excellent and the production is improved, plus the 'urban street noir' vibe of the debut is retained. But too many of the songs here - Another Life, Innocent Exile - are blatant B-side material. It also lacks an epic a la Phantom Of The Opera and had one been included I would rate it higher.

Piece Of Mind - Great production job and a bunch of classic songs, it's hard to argue with Where Eagles Dare, Revelations, The Trooper etc. But Side 2 tails off quite a bit despite featuring the underrated Still Life, and To Tame A Land is the weakest of the 80s Maiden epics.

Brave New World - This being the reunion album it got tons of praise from critics and fans who had been slagging off the Bayley years and particularly Virtual XI. The hilarious thing is that several of the songs on BNW are left over from VXI but no one realised this. Often cited as the best reunion era album or the only album after Seventh Son that's worth getting, which is just lazy thinking and completely inaccurate as DoD and AMOLAD are clearly superior albums in terms of songwriting and feel like the complete package. The production feels rather tame too.
 
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