Why Judas Priest aren't as popular as Iron Maiden?

I heard Priest before I ever did Maiden - that's because they're a very accessible band and are even played on radio. Metallica came next because they're also a radio band these days. It was a while before I heard Megadeth and Maiden, but Priest was certainly a building block to that point.

So I see it more as, you start out with Priest or Metallica, you move onward to Maiden - then wherever the metal path leads you, lol.
 
T shirts with colourful pictures.

I've always seen Maiden as ambassadors and recruitment. They literally fly the flag for metal music whilst their artworks attract a younger audience.
Priest I see as research and development, changing their style and sound, being more innovative.

I think there might be some truth to this in regards to Maiden appealing to a younger audience in general. You can't say that they haven't tried that either with a lot of their marketing/merchandise stunts lately (angry birds collaboration, app games, comic book series etc) I don't think Priest has seen the same "ebb and flow" in their fan base that Maiden has. Instead they've probably had some years where they stagnated quite a bit, probably because they've been more conventional and hasn't really pushed the marketing stuff as much as Maiden. I could be totally wrong though :) It's just more common to see very young Maiden fans and not so much young Priest fans IMO.
 
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I'm still a child when it comes to Priest's discography, but I think the 90's and the reunions are the answer here. As others have said, Priest were probably bigger than Maiden in the 80s (especially in the US), but then came the 90's, the vocalist swap, and fans drifted away.

When Halford came back, fans loved it, but the consensus seems to be that the material they put out after his return was mostly average at best. So they had a big reunion, wrote new records and toured again, but the sense of vitality never returned.

When Bruce came back to Maiden, and Rod marketed the living shit out of it, they got bigger. The band released a bunch of music that sounded inspired, they had three guitarists which made them seem more alive than ever, and they kicked up the PR machine (airplanes, merchandising, etc.) to 11. Not speaking of the music (because I can't speak as an expert on Priest), I think management and marketing has a whole lot to do with why Maiden continue to grow in popularity and Priest declined.

Also, having seen live performance videos and interviews, I would also argue I giant difference between the two is Bruce. He's an old man, but he has the spirit of a child, he's always in the news for one reason or another, he's incredibly lively onstage and off, whereas Rob is an old man hulking around like an old man with a teleprompter and sounding like he's doing a job in his interviews.
 
I just checked on Facebook.

Judas Priest has 4.5 Million followers
Iron Maiden has 13 Million followers

And since FB is how you measure popularity in this time and age I guess we can conclude that Maiden wins :p :D

Metallica has 37 Million followers though!
 
Personally I think it simply comes down to one thing. When Bruce and Adrian came back to Maiden the management really capitalised in this. Marketing and promotion went through the roof and a ton of media interest was pounced on. I remember literally every metal magazine for a long time had a ton of band interviews.

On top of this the band themselves got a fantastic album out almost as soon as the reunion happened (BNW). Dance of death followed fairly shortly as well as putting live albums out like rock in Rio and death on the road made sure their wasn’t much wait for a maiden product.

Plus they were out on tour all the time and introduced the history tours pretty quickly which gave them an excuse to play greatest hits tours as well as staying relevant with new material.

The management and marketing strategy combined with the great work ethic the band has all combined to push maiden Just at the time when the nu metal phase was dying and traditional metal was coming back in vogue.

Compare all the above to what Priest did when rob halford returned then it’s really obvious how maiden got bigger and bigger.

I love angel of retribution and think its one of priests best albums but they really didn’t capitalise on the publicity surrounding robs return quite like maiden did with Bruce and Adrian’s return. Until recently their had only been 3 albums released since rob came back which is a bit lazy in my opinion. The marketing and promotion and merchandising has been no where near the level of maiden. Priest rely a lot on older fans still being interested where maiden have been clear in their goal which has been to appease older fans whilst bringing new younger fans on board.
 
Until recently their had only been 3 albums released since rob came back which is a bit lazy in my opinion.
You're not looking well at this:

February 1999 - April 2018: Maiden 5 studio albums; 19 years and 2 months; album ratio per year: 26,09%
July 2003 - April 2018: Priest 4 studio albums; 14 years and 10 months; album ratio per year: 26,97%

Priest is less lazy than Maiden.
 
Maiden: LAZY Cabaret band
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You're not looking well at this:

February 1999 - April 2018: Maiden 5 studio albums; 19 years and 2 months; album ratio per year: 26,09%
July 2003 - April 2018: Priest 4 studio albums; 14 years and 10 months; album ratio per year: 26,97%

Priest is less lazy than Maiden.

Fair point I guess but maiden somehow make it seem like they have released loads of stuff. Maybe I’m counting the live albums and the greatest hits stuff and the history dvds etc. Seems like theirs been loads of stuff released. Oh and eddies archives plus a Bruce solo album too so it just maybe feels like theirs been plenty of maiden.

I haven’t been pedantic enough to google it so maybe Priest have released more other stuff than I remember.
 
I just checked on Facebook.

Judas Priest has 4.5 Million followers
Iron Maiden has 13 Million followers

And since FB is how you measure popularity in this time and age I guess we can conclude that Maiden wins :p :D

Metallica has 37 Million followers though!
Twitter: Priest - 83 426 followers, Maiden - 2 179 443 followers

I’ve also saw both Maiden and Priest play here where I live a few weeks apart from each other. Priest pulled about 4000 people, Maiden 23 000. However, it was around Nostradamus/Somewhere back in time so of course there were lot of hype around Maiden at the time.
 
Fair point I guess but maiden somehow make it seem like they have released loads of stuff. Maybe I’m counting the live albums and the greatest hits stuff and the history dvds etc. Seems like theirs been loads of stuff released. Oh and eddies archives plus a Bruce solo album too so it just maybe feels like theirs been plenty of maiden.

I haven’t been pedantic enough to google it so maybe Priest have released more other stuff than I remember.
Priest have re-released some albums but not made any «old school tours» like Maiden have done with ME and LAD
 
People who were around back then, who were bigger during the 80s? I get that Turbo and Ram It Down might have ruined the momentum for Priest but British Steel and Screaming for Vengeance were albums with some huge hits
 
Depends what market. In the US, I remember Priest being much more visible.

Despite the gold and platinum albums, I always remember Maiden being underground in the 80s (no mainstream radio support and no videos during primetime on MTV). There was a small stretch in 86/87 where Wasted Years got some attention, but that's all I remember. Priest were more in the limelight. You got another thing was their big 80s anthem that was everywhere. Maiden never had anything like that.
 
Priest was bigger in North America in the '80s.
Similar love among fans of heavy music, but Priest got more love in the mainstream.
 
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