NO PRAYER FOR THE DYING - Your thoughts…

[Eddie's Uncle]

I am perplexed about all the dislike for Mother Russia. Brilliant song. Experimental for Maiden, but with great results (not every Maiden experiment worked out that well). The middle section gets a bit carried away, but the same is true for the middle sections of ATG or Montsegur, so it's not really a minus.
Title track, RSRD, and yes, Holy Smoke are also on the list of great Maiden hits. That's "only" 4 really great songs, but at least they are true gold. Daughter is a bit cheesy, but still a good song. The album's problem is that the remaining songs are not just less great, but even awful at times. PEN1, Assassin and HIY are dreadful. Tailgunner has some great riffs, but is basically a poor man's Aces High with an annoying chorus and subpar vocal lines.

 

[dickinson1978]

I am perplexed about all the dislike for Mother Russia. Brilliant song. Experimental for Maiden, but with great results (not every Maiden experiment worked out that well). The middle section gets a bit carried away, but the same is true for the middle sections of ATG or Montsegur, so it's not really a minus.
Title track, RSRD, and yes, Holy Smoke are also on the list of great Maiden hits. That's "only" 4 really great songs, but at least they are true gold. Daughter is a bit cheesy, but still a good song. The album's problem is that the remaining songs are not just less great, but even awful at times. PEN1, Assassin and HIY are dreadful. Tailgunner has some great riffs, but is basically a poor man's Aces High with an annoying chorus and subpar vocal lines.

Tailgunner and mother russia if you compare to what they did in their previous album (seventh as you know) is exactly the problem with n prayer. For me its more a rock album. But not their worst one but one of their worst

 

[Helmuth Von Moltke]

I loved both No Prayer and FOTD at the time. I think being young youre maybe a bit less critical, or at least discerning...

But I can barely listen to either now and I sort of hate that. FOTD and a Real Live One were everything to me at the time.

Still think Live One is great, very happy memories of sneaking away from a School trip to run into Virgin Megastore to buy my first ever record!

Would love to get back to those vibes and appreciate those records again but old me is a moany twat

I still love Real Live One and Dead One for those reasons. Also, Raising Hell and Donington 92 on video, because of the vibes. Maiden looked and sounded and dressed more up to date and 90s, to my 12 year old senses.

Whereas I found LAD brilliant but very 80s by comparison, and I wanted a band that was rooted in the present not the past.

Having said that, I always thought NPFTD was a filler album and preferred the highs and epics and art of FOTD

 

[Eddie's Uncle]

I think the production gets too much heat as well. They wanted to strip it down, which was a good decision in theory, given the musical direction of the album. Unfortunately they went a step too far and ended up with a sound that had too little punch. However, it still sounds better than XF and VXI, which were their lowpoint in terms of sound.
While not top notch, the spund on NPFTD at least fits to the songs, and they did not try to sound trendy.

I think NPFTD is another example for my thesis I also mentioned in other threads: some albums have a built-in opinion that becomes a law of rock. Everybody constantly says they are masterpieces / turds for decades and it becomes a sort of common myth being accepted as truth.
Works both ways.
NPFTD constantly gets slammed as Maidens worst or 2nd worst album, so many people automatically assume it is wben they hear it.
It's like in that oreo experiment: test subjects got some oreos and some cheap oreo-fakes, and were asked which one tasted better. They did not know that both brands were switched: the cheap copies were labeled true oreos, and he real ones as fake. Almost every test person said the cheap ones were better, thinking they were real oreos.
It works with music too.
Thats why Appetite For Destruction will always be praised until the end of mankind, and NPFTD will always be at the bottom end of Maiden ratings.