Your Maiden blasphemy

Weird. I prefer Wilkinson's stuff to Grant's, and if if you showed me the Book of Souls cover and told me it was actually Derek Riggs, I'd have believed it. Wilkinson's Eddie is the the most "Eddie" Eddie we've had since Riggs. At least Book of Souls is. Senjutsu is a little more "out there" similar to Grant's cover for The Final Frontier.
Speaking of TFF cover, I think Eddie is great, but the cover does not show his full potential - good cover though. I like the covers from Melvyn Grant (FOTD is my all time favorite album cover), he's great. Mark Wilkinson is also a fantastic artist - both of his Eddies are one of Maiden's best imo.
 
I came to a conclusion that The X Factor album has no fillers or weak songs - every song is good and I like them all.

Hear hear. Maybe some more time in the oven production-wise wouldn't hurt and maybe some better track sequencing (Fortunes of War followed by Look for the Truth and Blood on the World's Hands followed by Edge of Darkness I always found weird, personally) as well, but the album is indeed brilliant.
 
I dunno about that. I find The Unbeliever to be one of their worst songs. I never really cared about Blood On The World's Hands or Man On the Edge either.
I'll do you one better - there are only three songs from the album (Sign Of The Cross, The Edge Of Darkness, Judgement Of Heaven) that I enjoy.
 
I do enjoy The X-Factor very much. To me it's the best album to not have Bruce on vocals and also better than some of them that have Bruce. While I think that the mood and atmosphere on TXF are very consistent, the quality of songs varies a bit more. There are definitely lots of songs on it that I rate very highly (Fortunes of War, Sign, Judgement, Flies etc.)
 
All this discussion makes me want to listen to The X Factor. I've never gone further than Look for the Truth (except for playing the intro the The Unbeliever, which I enjoyed). Actually, come to think of it, I haven't listened to any of the '90s albums in their entirety.
 
Hear hear. Maybe some more time in the oven production-wise wouldn't hurt and maybe some better track sequencing (Fortunes of War followed by Look for the Truth and Blood on the World's Hands followed by Edge of Darkness I always found weird, personally) as well, but the album is indeed brilliant.
The production is perfect for the atmosphere/vibe of the album. I think the track sequencing is great (especially if we consider that most of the songs are with quiet intros).
Number Of The Beast is the most overrated Maiden album on the planet.
6 out of 8 songs are classics - not many albums can boast of such stats.
 
6 out of 8 songs are classics - not many albums can boast of such stats.

I think you have a bad definition of a classic. Prisoner and COTD are deep cuts and whatever you have on sixth slot is even deeper :)

I do enjoy The X-Factor very much. To me it's the best album to not have Bruce on vocals and also better than some of them that have Bruce. While I think that the mood and atmosphere on TXF are very consistent, the quality of songs varies a bit more. There are definitely lots of songs on it that I rate very highly (Fortunes of War, Sign, Judgement, Flies etc.)

Out of 4 that do not have Bruce, X Factor belongs in the better half. But better than Killers? I don't think so, on average.
 
I think you have a bad definition of a classic. Prisoner and COTD are deep cuts and whatever you have on sixth slot is even deeper :)
22AA is surely the sixth, and whilst it isn't necessarily a classic it's certainly a very popular deep cut in the same way that COTD and The Prisoner are. I think it's reasonable to mention these songs in the context of why TNOTB is so highly rated (fairly or otherwise).
 
Sure, but the thing with early years is that entire early years are a classic. Everything bar a song or two is at least "a very popular deep cut".
 
Sure, but the thing with early years is that entire early years are a classic. Everything bar a song or two is at least "a very popular deep cut".
I'm not sure that's true. 22 Acacia Avenue, The Prisoner and Children Of The Damned have all seen setlist rotation in the reunion period. You don't see the 6th most popular song from other albums still popping up 20+ years later.
 
I'm not sure you picked up what I was saying, TNOTB is also a part of early years and the album is entirely 'classic', so you could say all those songs are classics but then you'd have to accept there are first and second tier classics on that album, which is not an usual nomenclature...Although those songs seen some exposure recently (as in last 20 years), the wording is ambiguous, The Prisoner was played on one tour (just like Lord Of The Flies), COTD's 2002 and 2007 appearance is in 'technical' numbers it hasn't been fully featured until 2009. 22AA, one tour, almost 20 years ago.

Pitted against HBTN, TNOTB and RTTH the rest had little commercial and little live impact, in comparison.

But the thread is not about standards and comparisons so let's give it a rest. I certainly don't mind if someone calls Prisoner a classic or any of those tracks for that matter. They're not The Fugitive tho.
 
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