Just look at Judas Priest's new album Firepower. It's received a lot of acclaim since its release, and people have praised it for being the most metal album of recent time? Yeah, the production is superb but if that's all it's got going for it, why is it so incredible? To me it feels like a shallow record that reuses the same structure for each song and if there's actually some meaningful to be found, the band at this point obviously doesn't know how to extract it these days. Only three songs did I actually feel succeeded: the title track, "No Surrender", and the instrumental intro "Guardians". Everything else fell flat. (Eh, the guitars were nice though.)
Some of the same people who praised Firepower are ones that have criticised the last four / five Maiden albums for being "complete dogshit". "Maiden haven't released a good album since forever!" I disagree on so many levels. Maiden is a completely different beast than it was in 1984. Powerslave is one of my favorite albums ever, but would I really want them to return to something like it? I don't think so. Maiden has matured one way or another with each subsequent release (even if at times it seemed they were sliding back). The stuff they've released now is some of the smartest, much intelligent, most meaningful music I've ever heard. And yet - criticisms. "Man, why can't they get good production like Priest?" Because Maiden is not Priest, and they don't need good production to prove they're the best band in the world. The songs are what's important, and Maiden have delivered almost every time. Having good production or being METAL isn't worth jackshit if you can't write good songs.