BEST IRON MAIDEN STUDIO ALBUM

"Wasted Love" was pretty bad. My least favourite is still "Holy Smoke" from No Prayer. It was practically a novelty song...how far my heroes had fallen.

"Wasted Years"

Oops, "Wasting Love" is the title I meant. "Wasted Years" is an undeniable classic.

I wonder what would win a favourite Iron Maiden song poll.

Had to go for the debut, just edging out Killers. It all went downhill when The Foghorn joined, in retrospect.

This is tough. Those first five are just about as good as you can get (Seventh Son is great too). I heard "Flight of the Icarus" today at the gym. I actually like the studio version better than on Live after Death, it's slower, it works better. This poll is impossible, it's either Beast or Powerslave.

Jeez, all these Killers votes are making me wish I gave that one a bit more attention back in the day. I do wish they kept their original singer, even tho I didn't find the earliest material as consistent. Powerslave and Number Of The Beast are my favourites, from which I guess I'll choose "Beast" for its occasional rhythmic trickery, and because "Mariner" was pretty damn tedious.

Also: Hated Somewhere In Time and never bought another Maiden album after that.

the answer is number of the beast. fantastic closer ('hallowed'), and the most consistent thing they ever came up with. best track is 'the trooper', however.

genrally...an overrated and not great band ;/

actually i thought dance of death was the last one they put out...behind the times with these podgers

"genrally...an overrated and not great band ;/"

Totally wrong. And I don't understand the dislike for "Mariner"

they aren't bad, and most of the output is fairly melodic and listenable. it's just that they constantly leave me cold on some level or another. perhaps it's because i've always thought the guitars should be a little bit louder and heavier in the mix. i dunno. maybe it's just because i'd rather listen to megadeth.

I kinda love them because the guitars aren't very loud/high in the mix! maybe it's the bass player inside me.

Each to his own Charlie. I agree that they aren't "heavy" per se, and I still don't understand why they are currently a three guitar band, four if you count Harris, whose bass is essentially a lead instrument.

i guess when they reintroduced dickinson and smith (and it was sort of necessary that BOTH came back into the fold, so as to fulfill the whole return-to-the-glory years mystique) they were confronted with a bit of a dilemma as to what to do with gers. i'm sure he's barely hanging in there and doesn't contribute a great deal. but i suppose the band's neither better or worse for it.

After careful consideration - Powerslave it is! Number was really the only thing close for me. And you know what? 'Matter of Life and Death' rules! It's a prog-metal masterpiece, it is. (and an old acquaintance from my college days - Tim Bradstreet - drew/designed the awesome cover! - yes the Derek Riggs covers are missed!).

i'm grateful for this thread. haven't listened to maiden in probably more than a year.

listening to 'beast' and am really quite enjoying it. had forgotten all about 'children of the damned'!

perhaps it's because i've always thought the guitars should be a little bit louder and heavier in the mix. i dunno. maybe it's just because i'd rather listen to megadeth.

That's always been one of my favorite things about Maiden. They're sort of a finesse band, where it's quite obvious they could punch it up if they wanted to, but don't feel the need. That's what Judas Priest is for.

I'm down with keeping Gers in the lineup, I think. Loyalty should count for something. I saw them at the Meadowlands last year, and I had no idea where he was in the mix, though.

Jeez, all these Killers votes are making me wish I gave that one a bit more attention back in the day.

you're not dead yet! I was huge a maiden fan in the early 80s and hadn't listened to them for at least a decade, last year I went back and listened to everything up through powerslave and decided killers is stone cold classic. dickinson's a little too dungeons and dragons for me, and I love the production job on killers. drums still have that 70s warmth.

Or would Live After Death simply win by a landslide?

the full length maiden japan ain't nothing to sneeze at, either.

the thing is watching the 3 guitar players on stage at the same time shredding their asses off, fighting eddie and spinning the guitars around their necks is really exciting. along with steve and bruce running around doing their thing its almost like a 3 ring circus.

I'm glad to see some love for "A Matter of Life and Death"! I remember we had a couple of people return it/sell it back used on the grounds that it was a terrible album, that Bruce couldn't sing anymore, the band had totally lost it, etc.

I just couldn't understand where all that was coming from. My only real complaint is that the album is just too long -- a little editing could've gone a long way.

nobody likes blaze right? please nobody?

There's a handful of Blaze songs that, as I said earlier, are actually very good. Sign of the Cross, The Clansman, Man on the Edge, Futureal, Lord of the Flies...that said, the Bruce versions of each of those songs slay the originals.

can't recall those except for 'man on the edge'. 'virus' is another track i remember, though not with a great deal of fondness. for some reason i can't help but lump blaze in with the likes of danzig or lee ving. his delivery has a certain cock-rock stigma to it that's out of sync with the maiden mentality.

Yeah, Blaze was strong with Wolfsbane, but just a weird fit in Maiden. Held his own on the new songs, but he butchered the oldies.

"Virus" is a weird, ugly song...if I recall correctly it was a response to the critical drubbing the band took in those first few Blaze years. A career low point for a band that usually took the high road.

Ha-ha. The lyrics for that song read like a Minor Threat song or something like that. Funny that a non-Bruce song includes the "rapier lies" line. Is that a reference to something Dickinson said?

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

get those votes in!

Absolutely everything up through Powerslaveis fucking priceless, but if I had to pick one, it'd be the first one I ever picked up, that being Killers. Second choice: Piece of Mind

The Bruce version of "The Clansman" on Rock in Rio is positively transcendental. Amazing performance.

I voted for Seventh Son. It has everything I love about Iron Maiden in one epic, catchy package.

Although my pick was Powerslave, it's impossible to argue with any of the other first seven albums.

Seriously. Somewhere in Time has a lot of filler, but also some of their very best moments ("Wasted Years," "Caught Somewhere in Time," "Heaven Can Wait"), and even the filler is pretty fun. Well, not fun, per se, since the album is a bit of a downer, but songs like "Sea of Madness" are still catchy.

Adrian Smith was a huge reason for the success of Somewhere in Time and Seventh Son...he really came into his own as a songwriter. The band really missed him when he left, and us fans were stuck with rote Harris compositions for years afterwards.

And Smith was the guy who came up with that classic groove riff on "2 Minutes to Midnight".

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

After all the talk about Killers it only finished 3rd. Thought Number Of The Beast would have finished higher as well.

i stand alone in my brave new world love

Wow I didn't say anyone picking the first album in the comments.

Do you think Armored Saint got any of their ideas from Iron Maiden?

the first one! wtf?!

Yeah, who the hell snuck in here and voted for the debut without posting about it?

The debut's got some key songs ("Phantom of the Opera" especially), but aside from being an important NWOBHM record, it's probably the most flawed album of the band's 80s run. "Charlotte the Harlot" always struck me as being too goofy.

'remember tomorrow' was on the first one wasn't it? that's a great song. i also like opeth's cover of it.

charlotte's revisiting on number of the beast, '22 acacia avenue' makes up for the prequel's goofiness. laughable on a lyrical level, but about as rockin as maiden gets.

Acacia slays, alright...that one was a Smith leftover from Urchin. Great song.

The debut is great and all, but it sounds like a work in progress, like they're feeling their way around. Perhaps it's partially due to the production, which sounds stiff compared to Martin Birch's work. Killers was so much more confident.

agreed

may those who voted for the debut step forward for discussion :)

The debut is great and all, but it sounds like a work in progress, like they're feeling their way around.

That's what I like about it! I guess Killers is more consistent, but the songs I really remember are on the debut (Phantom, Running Free, Iron Maiden).

Killers but only slightily nudging Iron Maiden. The guitar sequences on both the first two albums were far more elctrifying than later Maiden albums and once Bruce Bruce took over vocals it pretty much became his show. He's a great vocalist but I think his voice overshadowed the rest of the band.

Somehwere in Time tied Piece of Mind???!! I think a pig just flew by my window.

Debut kicks ass Sanctuary and title song kicking the most.

Sanctury's a bonus track on the cd isn't it? Not originally on the album.

Sanctuary is the second song on the album

Best Iron Maiden Studio Album 1990-2010

once again 'brave new world' gets robbed

http://www.stereogum.com/1667509/iron-maiden-albums-from-worst-to-best/list/

Nah, I stand by it. It's a really good album, but A Matter of Life and Death and Final Frontier benefit a great deal from their ambition and warranted placing a little higher.

I'd put Piece of Mind at number one myself. "Sun and Steel" is a solid song, "To Tame A Land" is classic, and the first half is a phenomenal stretch.

the hooks are so huge on 'brave new world' though. "dream of mirrors" is one of their best epics, a total trip. my favorite maiden album after 'powerslave' for sure

Good list. i can definitely live with that.

dear God. so far I feel like this new Maiden album is finally the album I've been wanting them to make since Bruce rejoined the band. I've been iffy on most of the post-Bruce reunion material other than BNW and Final Frontier (and don't consider either to be A-work). the epics aren't wearing out their welcome either!

I would have settled for good, but this shit's hitting me in all the right places. nervous tho as I still have yet to the closer which I've been told is ridiculous.

there's riffs all over this thing too, which post-2000 Maiden has often been light on.

I'm only up to the title track and I want to cry this thing is so fucking face melting

goddamn

just bloody blistering so far, i love it

tempo changes! hooks! solos! yaaaaaaaah

do we need a new thread for this album? is there a new thread?

mebbe. finally getting my second listen in - "If Eternity Should FAil" is such a great opener.

why not start a new thread? It might help other ilxors check it out and get it into ilx eoy polls

THINK OF THE POLLS

:)

Piece of Mind (1983) 3

madness

been re-spinning Number lately and while I've always loved it I always considered it overrated. but starting to believe that was due to overexposure to "Number of the Beast" and "Run to the Hills", etc, cos listening to it fresh after years of not hearing it, and I've enjoyed it a lot more.

btw they played "Children of the Damned" when I saw them the other night. I'm still shaking from that.....

Piece of Mind got so fucking jobbed in this thing.

Live After Death is so far and away the best thing they did, but I think I would have gone Killers or Seventh Son.

Really surprised POWERSLAVE is ranked so highly here. I mean, it's a fine record, but....

it's one of my favs, but it was also the first I heard

Powerslave always sounds thin and laboured to me - especially next to the beefy wallop of Live After Death.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ECbJdeh1VvA

lmao i love the results to this poll, i was just listening to the s/t and thinking about how awesome it is, kinda posed between their own embryonic style and extreme thin lizzy worship, it smokes. clive burr is a monster

First 5 albums are unimpeachable, would still vote Powerslave

Powerslave is awesome

love "Flash of the Blade"

Bruce Dickinson up there w/Andy McCluskey in terms of possessing a voice that remains undimmed by time

They should tour together.

we just saw them last week & they are still awesome. I never cease to be amazed by Bruce’s energy...well, all of them really. I still can’t stand Janick and his stupid “heavy metal jazzercise” antics but it’s nice they gave him a home I guess.