Rank the Albums

[beastmaster]

In term of musical i think Seventh Son is a masterpiece, but yes Powerslave has to be the best album in term of concept and songs melodic.

And i agree, No Prayer for the dying is in the lowest level among all maiden album (its even worse than virtual album)...its like diz album losing the magical touch of Steve Harris, nothin special.

Wonderin could it be another instrumental song from Maiden since Ides of March, Genghis Khan or Losfer Words...??? .... its been a long long time not seeing their instrumental works...

-beastmaster-

[mikmar]

My rank :

01. Piece of Mind
02. Powerslave
03. Somewhere In Time
04. The Number Of The Beast
05. Killers
06. Iron Maiden
07. Seventh Son Of A Seventh Son
08. Fear Of The Dark
09. Dance Of Death
10. The Book Of Souls
11. A Matter Of Life And Death
12. No Prayer For The Dying
13. The X Factor
14. Brave New World
15. The Final Frontier
16. Virtual XI

Piece Of Mind also has the best sound and the best production for me. Martin Birch was the best !!! Powerslave and Somewhere In Time also have an excellent sound !!!!
Iron Maiden the worst sound but contains the best Iron Maiden song for me:

PHANTOM OF THE OPERA !!!!

and ... the second best song for me is ....

DUNE (TO TAME A LAND) !!!!

[vpachev]

Cool topic. I am gonna cheat a bit and rank the albums in eras and the eras themselves. This way some ablums will drop undeservingly too low, while others be up, but what can you. Here it is:

I era 1980-1999
1. Seventh son of the seventh son
2. Powerslave
3. Somewhere in time
4. Killers
5. Iron Maiden
6. The number of the beast
7. Piece of mind

II 2000-today
8. A matter of life and death
9. Brave new world
10. Book of souls
11. Dance of the death
12. Final Frontier

III 1990-1999
13. X factor (love it)
14. Fear of the dark
15. No prayer for the dying
16. Virtual XI

[Muzzleloader]

How about ranking the live albums, I'll have to give that a thought about their rankings. You can also try ranking the producer of the live videos, I will put Steve Harris last. He needs to let us see more than a few seconds of a shot.

[vpachev]

Never gave more than a few listenings to the live albums. I am bored of the trooper, fotd and few others. Books of souls from the Live Chapter on the other hand is one hell of a performance.

PS: Actually I lied, I grew up watching Live After Death and Maiden England, but then it was most about Eddie and the stage show. Maiden England holds a special place to this day in my heart.

[Muzzleloader]

I grew up on Live After Death, so it will always be my favorite. I think that Beast Over Hammersmith is a better album, they just played their butt off before they hit the big time. Maiden Japan showed their potential of what was to bebome. All the following live albums are just to polished. The videos show the stage show, but Steve just does to many cuts to make it enjoyable to watch. The 4 or 5 same songs get old, but they do play there new material which can be a change of pace from other older groups.

[The Educated fool]

How about ranking the live albums, I'll have to give that a thought about their rankings. You can also try ranking the producer of the live videos, I will put Steve Harris last. He needs to let us see more than a few seconds of a shot.

No problemo, amigo... I gotcha covered there too.

CLICK THE BUMP

[grigorow]

This will be my first post here. Being a Maiden fan for the last +30 years, I could not resist the opportunity to rank their albums. I think I haven't done it in a long time. Anyways, my favorite album will be forever Somewhere in Time. That was my first IM album. I remember hearing the first few notes from Caught Somewhere in Time, and was hooked for life. It's amazing what a few notes can do to your life... haha. Anyways, here is my list:

1. Somewhere in Time
2. The Number of the Beast
3. Powerslave
4. Brave New World
5. Piece of mind
6. Killers
7. 7th Son of a 7th Son
8. Dance of the Death
9. Iron Maiden
10. Virtual XI
11. Fear of the Dark
12. A Matter of Life and Death
13. Final Frontier
14. Book of souls
15. X factor
16. No prayer for the dying

1 to 9 are all incredible albums. Very difficult to rank. I can listen any of those albums non stop for a week without being bored. But after that it gets a bit difficult. :

Virtual XI, in my opinion it's not a bad album. Some songs are repetitive and overlong. But the guitar work is top notch in my opinion. The twin guitars in the second half of the song Don't look to the eyes of stranger are amazing!.

Fear of the Dark, is not bad neither, but Bruce singing with a raspier voice did not do it for me. Also, have a lot of fillers. On the good side, the song fear of the dark is a classic, songs like Afraid to shoot Strangers, Be quick or be dead and the under rated and never sung live Judas be my Guide are great. Otherwise, a lot of bland filler songs.

The last 3 albums (AMOLAD, FF, BOS) are the same album for me. LOTS of over long songs, with lots overlong slow intros and slow outros. It's like hearing the same song over and over again. When I hear a song from those albums I can't even say from which album it is. That being said, If you look at the songs individually, there are great songs there: Benji Bregg, The Legacy, The Man who would be King, Empire of the clouds, etc. But in the end, in my opinion, they are boring albums. Maybe if you pick the best 8 songs from the 3 albums you can make 1 great album and call it A Matter of a Final Book of Souls, or something like that.

The last 2 albums in my list, are, in my opinion, bad albums. The early 90s in general were horrible for fans of 80s heavy metal (some horrible Metallica albums still give me nightmares) From X factor I like the song The Edge of Darkness (Apocalypse Now is one of my favorite movies) and from No Prayer I like Tailgunner. The rest I think rank from forgettable to bad (Hooks in you???)

Looking forward to seeing them live for a 6th time (1991, 2007, 2008, 2010, 2012) in a few months!!!

[Patrice-1201]

1. 7th Son of a 7th Son
2. The Number of the Beast
3. Somewhere in Time
4. Powerslave
5. Piece of Mind
6. Brave New World
7. Killers
8. A Matter of Life and Death
9. Dance of the Death
10. Iron Maiden
11. Fear of the Dark
12. Final Frontier
13. Book of souls
14. X factor
15. No prayer for the dying
16. Virtual XI

And here is mine, although the top varies with my mood ;-)

[Ironstyle]

In term of musical i think Seventh Son is a masterpiece, but yes Powerslave has to be the best album in term of concept and songs melodic.

And i agree, No Prayer for the dying is in the lowest level among all maiden album (its even worse than virtual album)...its like diz album losing the magical touch of Steve Harris, nothin special.

Wonderin could it be another instrumental song from Maiden since Ides of March, Genghis Khan or Losfer Words...??? .... its been a long long time not seeing their instrumental works...

-beastmaster-

In term of musical i think Seventh Son is a masterpiece, but yes Powerslave has to be the best album in term of concept and songs melodic.

And i agree, No Prayer for the dying is in the lowest level among all maiden album (its even worse than virtual album)...its like diz album losing the magical touch of Steve Harris, nothin special.

Wonderin could it be another instrumental song from Maiden since Ides of March, Genghis Khan or Losfer Words...??? .... its been a long long time not seeing their instrumental works...

-beastmaster-

I gotta say that I disagree on the No Prayer statement. Though I completely respect your opinion (and everyone else's that feels the same; I know there's a lot. I'm the minority here), I must come to the albums defense.

Possibly only because it was my first Maiden album, but hey, I got a lot of love for it. I understand why people tend to not like it; it's not as epic as the famed SSoSS that came before it. It's probably their second shittiest sounding album sonically, next to The X Factor (freakin love that album, too), and Bruce sounds like he stuffed sand paper down his throat right before recording his vocals. But the guitar riffs are awesome, the dual harmonies just kill it and the songs are pretty catchy. It's an all around fun album to listen to. Not their best, but not a bad album either. All this is my opinion only, of course.

I'd love to see Maiden play Tailgunner live. That was the first tune I heard by them.

Some of you may ask "how they hell was NPFTD your first album?!" Well, I was born in 1985, so I didn't exactly grow up with Maiden. I discovered them right around the time BNW came out. I was playing video games and my older brother walked in to my room, handed me NPFTD and said I might enjoy it. It was unlike anything I had heard before. At that time I was listening to Green Day, the Offspring and AC/DC. Say what you will, I still love those bands!

But Maiden was on a whole different level. Since then I've been a hard core metal head. NPFTD changed my life, no exaggeration.

On to my rank. This is gonna be really hard because there's not enough number 1 spots...

01. Brave New World - I can listen to this album front to back all day. But then...I can with most their albums.
02. Seventh Son of a Seventh Son
03. Powerslave
04. Dance of Death
05. Killers
06. The Final Frontier
07. Number of the Beast
08. Piece of Mind
09. Somewhere in Time
10. Book of Souls
11. A Matter of Life And Death
12. Iron Maiden
13. No Prayer for the Dying
14. The X Factor
15. Fear of the Dark
16. Virtual XI

This order changes a lot. Virtual XI is at the bottom, but I didn't really wanna put it there. It's a great album, and for all the people that say Blaze sucks, listen to his solo stuff. It's incredible. Also, 'Don't you think I'm a savior, Don't you think I could save you, Don't you think I could save your life". I get it, he says it way too much. But don't forget good ol' Bruce: "Out of the darkness, Brighter than a thousand suns!" He says that a crap ton too and no one gives him shit, haha. Great song though. One of my favorites on that album.

Now I'm off to listen to Maiden all day. Cheers!