When did Steve really start playing power chords so much

I think everyone does. Bass loses its magic when its only purpose is to beef up the guitar sound. The prevelance of that approach in modern metal productions annoys me quite a bit.

Shame 'Arry went that route as his career progressed as well. No stand out basslines from him in the Reunion era.

Well he has had his moments. I quite like the bass work on The Longest Day or the little details he adds to Empire of the Clouds, to name just two examples.
 
Killers is Steve's finest hour as a bassist. Nowhere near his finest as a songwriter, but Steve and Clive's performances make the album a worthwhile listen for me.

The Number of the Beast probably has his best combination of basslines and songwriting.
Absolutely... Although my favorite Maiden bass line is by far Invaders. It almost makes me forget that awful chorus... (almost). Stuff like Killers, Innocent Exile, Wrathchild, Purgatory or MITRM are atonishing bass compositions as well.
 
Well he has had his moments. I quite like the bass work on The Longest Day or the little details he adds to Empire of the Clouds, to name just two examples.

Longest Day just follows the guitars though. Nothing special going on in the bassline. The intro sounds cool, though it's just 'Arry gallopping an E note on the A string, the most common fixture of all Maiden basslines.

Absolutely... Although my favorite Maiden bass line is by far Invaders. It almost makes me forget that awful chorus... (almost). Stuff like Killers, Innocent Exile, Wrathchild, Purgatory or MITRM are atonishing bass compositions as well.

Invaders is one of my favorite basslines of his as well. Weird considering how weak the song is. A great bassline by itself can't salvage a badly written song, clearly.
 
I was just listening to the middle four tracks of Powerslave, and I have to say that I don't think those songs would be half as good without the amazing work Steve put in on the basslines. They definitely elevate the otherwise rather by the numbers tracks and it makes me a little sad because I think some of the weaker reunion era tracks might've been lifted by a similar attention being paid to the basslines.

I do agree that a good bassline can't fix a crappy song (Invaders is like the poster child for this) but I do think it helps, if nothing else. It's kind of a shame Steve almost entirely altered his approach in the 90s and onward. I think I actually heard somewhere that he had a very specific, meticulous way of writing the basslines up until FotD, after which he decided to just wing it a lot more? Don't quote me on that, but I wanna say it was actually mentioned in some documentary somewhere.
 
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