The Iron Maiden Thread ("Maiden England?")

[chip]

Up The Irons!!!

Iron Maiden is easily at the top of the list of the NWOBHM (New Wave Of British Heavy Metal) Invasion of the US during the late 70s and early 80s along with other greats like Motorhead, Saxon, Judas Priest etc...

Treat yourself to any of the Classic Maiden discs with "Live After Death" being a good sampler. Paul Di'Anno was the singer on the first couple of releases and he has a great voice. If you want to hear Bruce sing those early songs you have to go for the live recordings generally. Live at Hammersmith (Beast Over Hammersmith, I think it is actually) is a good one from back then. I think the video footage of that gig may even be available as an extra on one of the newer live sets. Bruce did do new vocals (replacing Paul's) for the studio version of Wrathchild as an extra bonus track on an EP and that is worth seeking out.

The album "Somewhere In Time" has keyboards and synth on it and the album and stage show for that tour is heavily influenced by the movie "Blade Runner". "Seventh Son of a Seventh Son" is good and is the backdrop/tour for the "Maiden England" home video. Not a bad album but is probably the furthest from the classic Maiden sound, it still features heavy synth usage.

Adrian Smith leaving was a bummer but honestly it didn't alter the sound much as Steve Harris is the main song writing engine of the band. Bruce's departure however was one of the darker days in metal history. Yeah his solo stuff is great, but Maiden with Blaze Bayley singing was just f'n awful.

Bruce came back to the band and so did Adrian. With three guitars the harmonies are intact live, with the chords backing them like on the studio recordings. Few bands can claim that feat without ghost musicians backstage or backing tracks.

Honestly as long as you stick with anything that has Bruce singing (vintage or new) you can't go wrong. The re-issues and remasters all have a bunch of bonus tracks and covers on them and are worth having over the original studio releases IMHO. Youtube is your friend too. There is enough Maiden stuff on there to keep even a diehard fan happy for a long time.

--

[Oh hi Mark!]

I've listened to a podcast where one of the hosts hates Iron Maiden, but is a general rock and metal fan. That always baffled me, given those tastes in music, how can you not like Iron Maiden? They are just so synonymous with metal, I'd argue that if you don't like Maiden, you don't like metal. They aren't my favorite band actually, but they're so up there, it's just weird to see a dissenting view of them in total. Not going along with their recent output, I can get, I love their 21st century albums by the way. One can be that old school fan, nothing after the 80s for them. But this person doesn't like them at all, not during their formative years with Paul Di'anno, and not with Dickinson. The podcast covered one Maiden album, Seventh Son of a Seventh Son, the guy didn't listen to it, at all. It's just bizarre for me.

They're gateway metal, I'd argue similar things for Judas Priest, Black Sabbath, and Motorhead. Aside from Sabbath because of their many iterations, how can someone who claims to be a metalhead, a rock fan, not like Priest and Motorhead?

Next month actually marks 10 years since I first got into metal, and pretty early in that time, I exposed myself to Iron Maiden. Got a Youtube link of a song, it led to the recommended section, there Maiden pops up, and it just grows from there. At first it's appreciating their greatest hits, such as Hallowed Be Thy Name, Aces High, The Number of the Beast, way too many classics to count. Then it's opening up and trying to listen to all their albums, including the Blayze Bayley ones and being...disappointed with those. To be honest their 21st century output are acquired tastes, but I got on with a couple tracks from A Matter of Life And Death fairly quickly. The Legacy was something I played a lot back in 2009. Since then, rather then stick to songs, it's been listening to their albums multiple times, trying to figure out what stands above them all. It's really difficult, but I'd go with the album they will never bother playing in its entirety, Somewhere In Time. I'd say that's Classic Maiden mixed in with a unique-for-them sound, the synths going all over the place, it was really like them in a Blade Runner world. For just Classic Maiden, the best in that would be Powerslave or The Number of the Beast.

To be fair, can't leave out Di'Anno, the first two albums are awesome, with highlights such as Phanton of the Opera, Wratchild, and Remember Tomorrow. Also, their 21st century albums, Brave New World is lovely, A Matter of Life and Death is fantastic, Book of Souls is epic. They're a band that can live off just their greatest hits, but have a crap ton other output that you could lose days just playing nothing but Maiden over and over again without getting tired. So because of that, Iron Maiden's up there for me, they're sacred cow, I can't hate on them, but I do exercise in ignoring their non-canon stuff, so to speak. That would be the 90s, but you know, Fear of the Dark is fantastic, that gets a pass. Funny, being a 90s kid, the music genre I love the most, was in the pits during that period, Maiden was just one of many.

I have yet to see them live, so that'd be a bucket list thing for me. Seeing recordings of their live shows, they are really amazing and energetic in their performances, cool sets as well. They epitomize metal music, opinion? No, fact.

[Mr 1980s]

I don't class myself as a metalhead, I can listen to a variety of things but I would class myself as a general rock and metal fan.
As far as Maiden goes, I love their 80's work and some tracks from the early 90's, mostly Fear of the dark and Bring you daughter to the slaughter but a lot of the 90's output was weak, especially when compared to their 80's material.

I do remember buying the Brave New World album when it came out and that was a good solid album, The Wickerman and Out of the silent planet just scream classic Maiden for me.

And just to touch on something Mark said, how anyone who calls themselves a metal or even rock fan can shit on Maiden is beyond me. They are IMO one of the pinnacle bands of the classic metal era, still going strong today and with such an extensive catalogue of songs that every rocker/metalhead should be able to find something they like.

That's enough out of me for now, cheers all and up the Irons!! \m/

[buttsie]

I like iron Maiden for 1 reason

666 the number of the beast - that song is just - blows away almost every other HM song i can remmeber - none of which are forgettable

Number of the Beast is easily up there with the best songs ever written imho
what ever genre

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WxnN05vOuSM

I dont call myself a fan as i'm a child of 60/70s but they were talented and very smart in how they positioned themselves

deep purple , led zep , montrose , amboy dukes , motorhead , the scorpions etc
wish they'd written a song like that which screams heavy metal like 666

[AmateurEmale]

@Everyone: Thank you for your comments above. I read and thanked every post.

"Gateway metal" LOL. I think that the Z ROCK radio network was that for me: I discovered most of my current favorite bands in hard rock and hair / glam metal listening to Z ROCK, graduated to thrash and death metal acts ranging from Armored Saint and Megadeth to Slayer and Sepultura listening to Z ROCK later at night. Then grind / industrial / black metal bands ranging from Bolt Thrower and Entombed to GWAR and Venom. I even recall that Ministry switched from synth pop in the 1980s to industrial by the time of Psalm 69 (1992?), the year I traveled to their hometown of Chicago.

As to Iron Maiden, chip is right: Somewhere In Time has cover artwork that looks a lot like Blade Runner, maybe influencing the look of Coruscant in the Star Wars prequels?

[philll_77]

"We all love a bit of Iron Maiden" - Paula Radcliffe

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M2NVhllGnDo

[superpike]

I am pleased to discover that here there is also a thread of metal music.
Iron maiden marked my youth: Fly of Icarus, The trooper and Aces high are unforgettable songs for me.
In the 1990s I enjoyed Norwegian black metal (Dimmu Borgir, Satyricon and more).
Now at the age of 50 I'm still a metal fan, but I listen mainly Finnish epic/folk metal (Ensiferum, Korpiklaani, Wintersun and more): undoubtedly this is a melodic and relaxing genre.

Below are some examples of Finnish epic/folk metal:

Ensiferum: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sP1asrawlhI

Korpiklaani: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2JeBF5oosNI

[seivad]

My younger brother got me into the Irons and I was lucky enough to see both the Powerslave and Somewhere in Time tours and both were top notch.

I saw the Slavery tour 5 days after seeing Kiss' Animalize show, both were fantastic, but the Maiden show actually out kissed Kiss.

Somewhere on tour was even better and why they never filmed it properly defies logic. Although I've got later albums and concerts, Maiden pretty my ended for me with Somewhere in Time.

And just in case anyone in the band reads this, please play "Back in the Village" live, just once, please!

[WURZ]

Southampton gaumont (before it was the mayflower) played host to Ron maiden in 1984 piece of mind tour and 1985 Power slave tour. Both of which I was lucky enough to attend. First album I ever bought was Number of the beast from the chain shop 'Our Price' (anyone remember Our Price?), hence my favourite track 'Run to the hills'

[seivad]

Yer I remember Our Price. Run to the Hills is a great track to strum along to as is Number of the Beast itself.