Your Top 10 least favorite Iron Maiden songs

I've loved Iron Maiden since I was about 8 years old (I'm coming up 36 now), and I know this is generally controversial but I really don't like Run to the Hills. Sure, there are worse songs (I'm looking g at you Angel and the Gamble), but I've always hated it. Not sure why!
 
LooseCannon said:
You keep saying this, but I don't really think it's true. I think that Blaze simply sings differently, like @MrKnickerbocker once explained. I can certainly accept that the voice isn't for you.
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Jer said:
Then short of getting an isolated vocal track and objectively measuring it, I don't know what would change your mind. It's blindingly obvious that he's off the note all over the place ("a lonely cry for help", "for help to anyone", "to help you on your way", "when I was happy", "to get on with your life", etc., etc.). If by "singing differently" you mean "warbling around different frequencies without caring which one you actually hit", then sure, I guess. But by that standard, literally everyone is a superb singer who just "sings differently".
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I'm actually somewhere in the middle of this argument for this particular song. I do generally think that Blaze has a very specific quality to his voice, something in his timbre, that can make him sound like he's wavering around certain notes. I'm not sure if this is actually a pitch issue or just how his voice sounds.

However, I do have to agree with @Jer about some of the notes on Judgment of Heaven. The problem is in the ends of the phrases and I don't think it's just a Blaze problem, I think it's a problem with Steve's melody. First of all, the major scale is so intense that it is at odds with the incredibly dark lyrics and thus, feels weird when Blaze sings about unhappiness and suicide while trying to put feeling into it. Second, there are notes that are sliding around at the end of the phrases "on your waaa-ay" and "mooo-ore" as if there's a small pull-off or slide on the guitar melody (how Steve wrote it, I'm sure).

I recorded some examples of the melody along with Blaze's tracks, turning Judgment of Heaven into one of my most favorite kind of Iron Maiden arrangements: guitars playing the vocal lines along with the vocals! Here's the original: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1WmghR-IrsYAV58IX6zrsbuGNJhDSAjYI/view?usp=sharing

Hear how Blaze's vocal wavers on those two words along with the guitar? It's a problem with both his vocal performance and IMO the melody itself. He grew into his voice more in his later years and I think sounds much better on the acoustic version from 2 years ago with Thomas Zwijsen. Here's that performance with the guitar melody overdubbed: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1RHf9tniZwY9-NDjUZ20f9rZu_ZjBUDsz/view?usp=sharing

His now lower voice can slide easier and he throws more breath/talk-singing into it to make it less sing-songy, which really helps the overall performance. I still think the melody is silly and could be better by adding a blue note into the mix, so I recorded a variation on the melody over an instrumental track I found online: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1TbMrpY_Txir32LcObXRFXpKqPt9sWFqN/view?usp=sharing

Changing a couple notes on the first and third lines as well eliminated that half-step slide on lines two and three would, I think, actually work a lot better with Blaze's voice (as he has a tendency to dip around some pitches if the melody isn't 100% rooted). But, oh well, we'll never hear him do that and who am I to say my melody is better than Steve Harris'?

Now, no one ever ask me to analyze Judgment of Heaven ever again.
 
Thanks for the insightful post Knick.

Judgement of Heaven is just a sloppy song all around. The pummeling rhythms are also not good and clash with the vocals. Having the guitar also playing the melody really amplified that IMO.

Dark/melancholy lyrics over a melody in a major key can work, but I think the lyrics need to be less on the nose. Blaze singing so explicitly about suicide with that melody just seems a bit ridiculous. There’s an opportunity for something more subtle and even a metaphor for the masks that one wears when suffering from depression. Note choice plays a factor here too. This melody relies heavily on the third and fifth degrees of the scale that, combined with the major chords underneath, really slap you in the face with the major-ness of the whole thing. As Knick said, blue notes could help, or even emphasizing the more dissonant tones of the scale like the 4th, 6th, 7th, or 9th.

Blaze has a some spotty moments on the album but overall I think he turns in a decent performance. He definitely improved a ton outside of Maiden, but tuning down and having melodies that better fit his voice (or any vocalist for that matter) also helped. Maiden isn’t very vocal friendly in general. Part of what makes Bruce such a legendary vocalist is his ability to take a simple or even poorly written melody and sell it. Some of the most beloved Maiden songs have fairly weak vocal parts that were greatly enhanced by Bruce’s performance. This was something Blaze struggled with and I think it’s ultimately where most of the criticism comes from. Even poor singing is given a pass when the performances/melodies are good.
 
...and don't get me wrong, it's perfectly fine to enjoy objectively poor singing. I like Dave Mustaine's and Kai Hansen's vocals, and no one would accuse them of being great singers. But we shouldn't confuse the state of liking something with that thing being objectively good.
 
As of now (and I don't count the B-sides)

Blood on the World's Hands
Virus
Look For The Truth
Age of Innocence
The Mercenary
The Alchemist
The Great Unknown
No More Lies
The Man of Sorrows
The Unbeliever
 
Maiden's least good self written songs:

Wildest Dreams
Face in the Sand
No More Lies
The Talisman
When the River Runs Deep
The Red and the Black
I Live My Way
More Tea Vicar
Pass The Jam
When Two Worlds Collide
 
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