Your Maiden blasphemy

That album grew on me despite bein disappointed at first listen. I got over the weird levels and odd inconsistencies. Although maybe it was the setlist that encouraged me to tolerate it.
 
I own the CD book edition but I haven't listened to it yet. I've heard the album on Spotify a couple of times.
 
The best 3 Iron Maiden albums are:

1) Powerslave
2) Fear of the Dark
3) The Final Frontier

It's blasphemous in the sense that I bet there is no one else with the same top 3. It's probably better described as an extreme outlier opinion.
 
The Red and the Black said:
The best 3 Iron Maiden albums are:

1) Powerslave
2) Fear of the Dark
3) The Final Frontier

It's blasphemous in the sense that I bet there is no one else with the same top 3. It's probably better described as an extreme outlier opinion.
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Great number one. :cool: (It´s my Nr´ 3)
I´d rank FOTD somewhere at the bottom
TFF is great, Top 3 of the reunion albums.
Not really blasphemous at all, but taste never is.
 
Ruflux said:
It's overrated... because it has three of Maiden's all-time top 20 songs on it? Weird logic,
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:ok:
Black Bart said:
And more generally, there is no other Maiden album that can boast a stronger 5-song run than "Children of the Damned", "The Prisoner", "22 Acacia Avenue", "The Number of the Beast" and "Run To The Hills" in a row.
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For me the albums with the strongest 5-song run are: TNOTB (02-06), SSOASS (first 5), AMOLAD (first 5) and BNW (first 5).

BNW is the only album in which I don't have a least favorite song - maybe the closing song... this shows how strong the album is.
 
Pibroch_Whistler said:
SiT has only begun to be highly rated over the past 10-15 years.


It was WIDELY overlooked in Maiden BBS in the 1990's and early era message boards in the 2000s
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This, if true, can be corellated to certain geographic regions.
Maiden BBS was UK only. I mean you could be an idiot and dial in from long distance I guess.

I've been online since the late 90s. However, in my country, true internet adoption was a process starting in 2000 and ending in mid 2000s with mass internet access. The people I've met in my early internet years, I can go on a tangent here but I'll keep it short, were 80% USA and 20% Western Europe. Because those were the countries that had massive proliferation of the internet even back then.

So here's a rather crude but workable hypothesis for you : SiT is more popular in Eastern Europe (again I have arguments why but I'm keeping it short), Eastern Europe arrived to the Internet later, so you were under serious local market bias before. Feel free to disagree and disprove this.
 
I have quite a few 'interesting' opinions on Maiden which seem to get me a lot of flak when I've brought them up elsewhere online, so.... here goes


1) Killers is one of Maiden's weakest albums. It has better production and cover art than the debut, and some classic cuts in the form of Wrathchild, the title track and Prodigal Son which is total Jethro Tull worship, but it lacks an epic song a la Phantom Of The Opera and quite a few of the tunes are blatant B-side material and lack substance. Harris admits that the first two Maiden albums are drawn from the band's repertoire up to that point, and most of the better songs went on the debut, and you can clearly tell. It's baffling that people hold the record up as a classic, although it does retain the noir vibe of the debut.

2) Piece Of Mind isn't that great. The high points are very high indeed, but on side 2 the record runs out of steam, and though To Tame A Land starts well it ends up rather aimlessly. Great production job though.

3) Donington 1988 is often held up by fans and critics as one of the band's career high points (excluding the tragedy that occurred earlier in the day during GnR's set), but if anything the opposite is true. The PA was very loud which may explain why those who were there regarded it as a good show, but listening to the portion of the set released on Eddie's Archive, it is very clear that the band are extremely sloppy. For much of the performance there are points where things go out of sync. The band are very loose and making mistakes everywhere. Harris admitted later that he played wrong notes for most of the night. Dickinson however is just off form to an alarming degree - he sounds like he's singing an octave below where he should be. In short, the performance is abysmal - it is by far the worst Maiden live show they have recorded and/or released. It almost seems as if the band are drunk at times, and TBH the occasion may have gotten to them. People who cite this as one of the best Maiden shows ever quite simply haven't actually sat down and bothered to listen to the performance properly.

4) Related to the above: Maiden's live form was incredible up to and including 1985, but went downhill in the mid to late 80s. The colossal Powerslave tour exhausted the band mentally, especially Dickinson. On almost every bootleg I've heard from the SiT tour, Bruce is singing on about 60% power and seems tired. In 1988 he was on better form, but as noted above Donington was woeful and even on the Maiden England performance he's clearly struggling in certain areas (admittedly he did have a cold at that point). The arrival of Janick Gers turned things around. Too many armchair critics express their dislike of his onstage antics and claim he doesn't add anything to the band, but if you look at any of the evidence from the first half of the FotD tour (i.e. before Bruce decided to quit the band), it's quite clear that he gave the band a huge kick up the **** in the live arena. Most of the Maiden shows from 1992 are way better performances than almost anything from the 1986-88 period.

5) Which leads on to the fact that Gers is the most underrated member of Maiden and gives way more to the band than critics say. He plays guitar superbly, is entertaining onstage, and has his own individual songwriting approach which lends an extra dimension to Maiden's sound. He's a true asset to the band.

6) Donington 1992 is one of the best Maiden shows of all time and the concert video is great. The album was a missed opportunity however, as for some reason the mix is extremely muddy. Harris needs to release the video sound mix on CD, as it's potentially one of the greatest live albums ever.

7) The Blaze Bayley years were much better than a lot of people give them credit for. The X Factor in particular is a masterpiece, dark, brooding and one of the rare albums that I personally find catharsis in listening to when feeling depressed (most of the time I just don't want to listen to music when in that frame of mind). Sign Of The Cross is Maiden's best song, no question. Virtual XI isn't as good but still has some worthwhile moments.

8) Brave New World is a good reunion album but DoD and AMOLAD are superior in both production, songwriting and arrangements, and both belong in the top 5 Maiden albums. AMOLAD may well be their finest album.

9) The band's live form post Bruce rejoining has been superb and arguably their live performances have been better in the last 20 years than they were in the mid to late 80s.
 
Cosmic_Equilibrium said:
I have quite a few 'interesting' opinions on Maiden which seem to get me a lot of flak when I've brought them up elsewhere online, so.... here goes 1) Killers is one of Maiden's weakest albums. It has better production and cover art than the debut, and some classic cuts in the form of Wrathchild, the title track and Prodigal Son which is total Jethro Tull worship, but it lacks an epic song a la Phantom Of The Opera and quite a few of the tunes are blatant B-side material and lack substance. Harris admits that the first two Maiden albums are drawn from the band's repertoire up to that point, and most of the better songs went on the debut, and you can clearly tell. It's baffling that people hold the record up as a classic, although it does retain the noir vibe of the debut. 2) Piece Of Mind isn't that great. The high points are very high indeed, but on side 2 the record runs out of steam, and though To Tame A Land starts well it ends up rather aimlessly. Great production job though. 3) Donington 1988 is often held up by fans and critics as one of the band's career high points (excluding the tragedy that occurred earlier in the day during GnR's set), but if anything the opposite is true. The PA was very loud which may explain why those who were there regarded it as a good show, but listening to the portion of the set released on Eddie's Archive, it is very clear that the band are extremely sloppy. For much of the performance there are points where things go out of sync. The band are very loose and making mistakes everywhere. Harris admitted later that he played wrong notes for most of the night. Dickinson however is just off form to an alarming degree - he sounds like he's singing an octave below where he should be. In short, the performance is abysmal - it is by far the worst Maiden live show they have recorded and/or released. It almost seems as if the band are drunk at times, and TBH the occasion may have gotten to them. People who cite this as one of the best Maiden shows ever quite simply haven't actually sat down and bothered to listen to the performance properly. 4) Related to the above: Maiden's live form was incredible up to and including 1985, but went downhill in the mid to late 80s. The colossal Powerslave tour exhausted the band mentally, especially Dickinson. On almost every bootleg I've heard from the SiT tour, Bruce is singing on about 60% power and seems tired. In 1988 he was on better form, but as noted above Donington was woeful and even on the Maiden England performance he's clearly struggling in certain areas (admittedly he did have a cold at that point). The arrival of Janick Gers turned things around. Too many armchair critics express their dislike of his onstage antics and claim he doesn't add anything to the band, but if you look at any of the evidence from the first half of the FotD tour (i.e. before Bruce decided to quit the band), it's quite clear that he gave the band a huge kick up the **** in the live arena. Most of the Maiden shows from 1992 are way better performances than almost anything from the 1986-88 period. 5) Which leads on to the fact that Gers is the most underrated member of Maiden and gives way more to the band than critics say. He plays guitar superbly, is entertaining onstage, and has his own individual songwriting approach which lends an extra dimension to Maiden's sound. He's a true asset to the band. 6) Donington 1992 is one of the best Maiden shows of all time and the concert video is great. The album was a missed opportunity however, as for some reason the mix is extremely muddy. Harris needs to release the video sound mix on CD, as it's potentially one of the greatest live albums ever. 7) The Blaze Bayley years were much better than a lot of people give them credit for. The X Factor in particular is a masterpiece, dark, brooding and one of the rare albums that I personally find catharsis in listening to when feeling depressed (most of the time I just don't want to listen to music when in that frame of mind). Sign Of The Cross is Maiden's best song, no question. Virtual XI isn't as good but still has some worthwhile moments. 8) Brave New World is a good reunion album but DoD and AMOLAD are superior in both production, songwriting and arrangements, and both belong in the top 5 Maiden albums. AMOLAD may well be their finest album. 9) The band's live form post Bruce rejoining has been superb and arguably their live performances have been better in the last 20 years than they were in the mid to late 80s.
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Cosmic_Equilibrium said:
4) Related to the above: Maiden's live form was incredible up to and including 1985, but went downhill in the mid to late 80s. The colossal Powerslave tour exhausted the band mentally, especially Dickinson. On almost every bootleg I've heard from the SiT tour, Bruce is singing on about 60% power and seems tired. In 1988 he was on better form, but as noted above Donington was woeful and even on the Maiden England performance he's clearly struggling in certain areas (admittedly he did have a cold at that point). The arrival of Janick Gers turned things around. Too many armchair critics express their dislike of his onstage antics and claim he doesn't add anything to the band, but if you look at any of the evidence from the first half of the FotD tour (i.e. before Bruce decided to quit the band), it's quite clear that he gave the band a huge kick up the **** in the live arena. Most of the Maiden shows from 1992 are way better performances than almost anything from the 1986-88 period.
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Regarding Bruce's performances on Somewhere on Tour & Seventh Tour, I can sort of agree about the 60% power statement. Obviously, I wasn't there to see it myself, but judging by the bootlegs... His best performances from 1986-87 were quite good, more relaxed and probably less tired than on some of the late World Slavery tour shows, but there's definitely some of the raw power gone. When listening to Seventh Tour stuff, including the mentioned Donington show or Maiden England, he's got a bit more rasp and powerful edge in his performance, but hitting higher notes is a struggle... obviously, the cold seemed to catch him and never really let go. Same with a lot of Somewhere on Tour shows too. Might be that his body sort of reacted to the relentless touring, stress and whanot, so it's probably not all about just catching a cold somewhere in the Northern Europe or whatever.

As for early 90's, I think No Prayer on the Road performances are often overlooked in that regard. While Bruce was probably more on control with his clean/rasp ratio or something in Fear of the Dark tour, I think the live stuff from No Prayer era give us a look at what some of the 7th Tour live footage could have been if Bruce wasn't as fried up then. The Sledgehammer bootleg is praised for a reason. Bruce's performance on various songs, like Die With Your Boots On, The Trooper, Hallowed be Thy Name and Run to the Hills are quite great. Somewhat close to how he sang those on the late 80's, expect that this time he could hit and hold the high notes much better. Great stuff!
 
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