Least favourite? Well there are very few bad Maiden songs IMO but here we go...
Iron Maiden -
Running Free. I never did much like this one. The intro reminds me of Cum On Feel The Noize...
Killers - Ugh... for being made up of mostly leftover Iron Maiden tracks, this one in my mind doesn't have any stand out
bad songs. Just a few bad parts (intro to Rue Morgue, intro to Another Life, that ridiculous double-time-hi-hat bit on Innocent Exile). But if I were to choose I'd have to say
Drifter, if only for lyrics like 'Gotta keep on rolling, gotta sing my song'. Blurgh.
Number Of The Beast -
Invaders. I love the riffs in this song, but the chorus makes me want to hurl. The vocal melody line is atrocious, and that ridiculous walk up/down after the 'In-VAY-derz!' call makes me cringe.
Piece Of Mind -
Quest For Fire. Any song that starts off with lyrics like 'In a time when dinosaurs ruled the earth' cannot bode well...
Powerslave - Tough to pick one, but I'll have to go with
The Duellists. I love it, but it just seems weak compared to its albummates. And that ridiculous thing from 1:49 to 2:15, and then again backing the solo, is easily, IMO, the worst bit on the album.
Somewhere In Time - I didn't used to have any least favourite song, but the more I listen to
The Loneliness Of The Long Distance Runner, the more it bothers me. Most of this is attributed to the absoludicrous chorus; Bruce's wailing sounds strained and terrible, and the doubled-up drum tempo reminds me (unfavorably) of the album
No Prayer For The Dying. The weird 'I've got to keep goooooooo-ing' part is also kinda abrasive.
Seventh Son Of A Seventh Son - Yeah, right!
No Prayer For The Dying - Ugh. Can I just pick a song that I don't hate off this album? From the moment this album starts (with the obvious rip-off of Clairvoyant in the beginning of Tailgunner), it just doesn't seem to let up.
Tailgunner's chorus is hideous,
Holy Smoke is mediocre at best (Bruce sounds particularly awful on this song),
No Prayer For The Dying has that horrible start-stop thing in the verse which reminds me more of Nirvana's
Heart Shaped Box,
Public Enema Number 1 loses points for the title alone (come on guys, you already did the 'nail that fokker' pun only three songs ago, and that was bad enough!),
The Assassin is atrocious from start to finish,
Hooks In You is another track with Bruce sounding hideous, and the chorus is mediocre, the whole song sounds like a lame duck from the Iron Maiden session, and
Mother Russia sounds like they just slapped a bunch of Russian sounding riffs together. The only high points are
Fates Warning ,
Run Silent Run Deep, and
Bring Your Daughter To The Slaughter, if only because they sound more like Iron Maiden than
KISS. God, I can't choose. I'd have to go with
The Assassin because, unlike the others, there isn't a single redeeming thing about that song. It is the only track that is solidly awful from start to finish; at least the others have some redeeming parts.
Fear Of The Dark - Would you believe this is the only Maiden album I do not own?
The X Factor - So sue me, I actually like the Blaze albums. But I'd have to give the 'worst' (least favourite) song to
Judgement Of Heaven. It sounds really happy and bouncy for some reason, which makes it stand out. And Blaze going 'yeah yeah' just sounds silly. The chorus is pretty great though. Well, it's not really a chorus. The 'if you could live your life again' part...
Virtual XI - Yeah, I know, consensus is
Angel And The Gambler which is just too way damn long, but I'd have to give my vote to
Don't Look To The Eyes Of A Stranger, if only for the ridiculous whispering part at 3:20, as well as the main riff's resemblance to the previously-mentioned Nirvana song
Heart Shaped Box
Brave New World -
The Wicker Man. No, no, I kid.
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Seriously,
The Mercenary gets my vote, for the arduous, excruciating, laborious 'Show them no pain, show them no fear' part, that repeats, like, 32 times in the whole song.
Dance Of Death - It's really quite a solid album, and
Age Of Innocence and
Gates Of Tomorrow seem to be the consensus tracks. But I have to divurge and go for the title track itself,
Dance Of Death. It's not that bad, but the plodding pace (it doesn't really kick off until almost three minutes in), and the almost-silly riffs that show up after that. The part that really kills me though is the rapid-fire, 'When you're lying in your sleep, when you're lying in your bed' part. It just kills it for me.
A Matter Of Life And Death -
Lord Of Light, for being so forgettable. The intro is lackluster, at best, which is kind of a tragedy, because the awesome riff at about 1:30 is great. But the chorus is the most forgettable of the album. I recognize it because it sounds so different, but I never really remember it.
Of course, it should be noted that my opinions on all these songs are relative to OTHER Iron Maiden songs, not music in general. Mind you, there's only two Iron Maiden songs I absolutely refuse to listen to (The Mercenary and The Assassin), which, out of ... what, 9,000 studio tracks is actually an excellant ratio. Compare that to Megadeth, who I love to Deth, put out almost an entire album of absolutely unlistenable songs (Risk) or... another San Francisco area metal band who shall remain nameless... I guess it speaks volumes that I've never once felt the need to cut any Iron Maiden off my iPod to make space for Poison or Manowar or something...
Well, that's all for me...