Iron Maiden Song By Song Thread

Discussion in 'Music Corner' started by Zoot Marimba, Nov 8, 2017.

  1. bartels76

    bartels76 Forum Hall Of Fame

    Location:
    CT
    It would be really nice to have deluxe editions of these albums mastered properly. I have the Castle/EMI CD reissues but there is a lot more material they can do for a second disc like Soundhouse, live stuff, etc.
     
  2. Cheevyjames

    Cheevyjames Forum Resident

    Location:
    Graham, NC
    Popoff's view makes no sense. Steve's the primary songwriter and the leader of the band. He writes on the bass. Of course the music will be bass-centric! For me that's one of the qualities of Maiden's music that I love so much, that it comes from a different POV than most metal bands. 'Arry's my hero and why I am a musician, but I can get plenty critical of the guy. For me, he's really scaled back the complexity of his bass lines since Fear of the Dark and that's been disappointing, but I still think he's a phenomenal bassist. Maybe Popoff just has some beef with him or something?
     
  3. Mark Wilson

    Mark Wilson Forum Resident

    Pretty much my same story in high school!

    Mark
     
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  4. Cheevyjames

    Cheevyjames Forum Resident

    Location:
    Graham, NC
    Exactly! I hope that one day we get proper Deluxe Editions of the albums. I'd buy the albums again if they were done right.
     
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  5. How I got into Iron Maiden...

    Saw them open for Judas Priest on the UK's British Steel tour.
    Picked up their debut right away.
    Saw them on every UK tour up to No Prayer For The Dying.
    I love all their 80's stuff....think they peaked with Powerslave.
    Wasn't surprised when Bruce left as they sounded tired by Fear Of The Dark.
    The two Blaze albums....no thanks.
    Loved Brave New World, but they are very hit and miss since for me....and I just cannot get into their last 2 albums.....Zzzzz
    Life is too short....
     
  6. GodShifter

    GodShifter Forum Member

    Location:
    Dallas, TX, USA
    It’s very possible they’ve had problems. I have been critical of some of the songwriting and recording processes of the band in the past, but to bag on a key component of their trademark sound is kind of petty to my way of thinking.
     
  7. vs_jk

    vs_jk Forum Resident

    Location:
    USA
    I was 13 years old and my family lived in a rural farming town. Most of my friends were into country music, which I hate. I was into hard rock at the time and had a few cassettes as my music collection. My family would drive to the nearest city for grocery shopping and other things. On one of those trips, my mother wanted to go to a store in downtown of the city. While she was there, I decided to walk over to the record store just down the block. In the window was a life-size cutout of Eddie from the Somewhere in Time album. I was blown away by the artwork! Without having listened to the album, I decided to buy the t-shirt! I wore it to school and it raised a lot of eyebrows as being controversial (this is a small bible beating town out in the middle of nowhere). Being a bit of a rebel, this of course made me like it even more! Soon after, I bought the album Piece of Mind. Right away, I was hooked. From there on, I acquired all the Iron Maiden albums and listened to them regularly until Seventh Son. Then I got No Prayer for the Dying when it was released and I liked some of it. Next came Fear of the Dark and that ended up being the last Iron Maiden album for me. I’m still a big fan of the first seven albums and listen to them regularly. I’ve tried several times to get into the albums after that but they’ve never connected for me.
     
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  8. ian christopher

    ian christopher Argentina (in Spirit)

    Location:
    El Centro
    Steve's audible bass alost gives a dance-y effect to many Maiden songs, which (to these ears at least) puts them apart (and in many ways ahead of, rhythmically) most other Metal acts that aren't Voivod.
     
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  9. TheGreatSouthernBrainfart

    TheGreatSouthernBrainfart Forum Resident

    Location:
    Atlanta, GA
    Now THIS I am super excited about. I feel like recounting the first time I ever heard Maiden is up there with losing your virginity or having your very first beer and the first time you got puking drunk. For those that truly love this band, one knows that Iron Maiden is not just some mere band that you can "kinda dig." It just doesn't work that way. The band has so many facets and so many layers to them and their progression through the years (even the digression with Blaze) is one of the most fascinating things to take in and witness as a fan.

    I first heard them in 1984 at a friend's house. His brother was playing loud music in the bedroom next to where we were playing with Transformers. I was intrigued by the loudness of the music and the odd smell coming from under his door (marijuana). I tapped on his door, he opened up the door and let me in. He immediately went into Professor mode and showed me the ways of Grim Reaper, Judas Priest, Motley Crue, and Iron Maiden. I was so blown away by the album cover for Number of the Beast. I fell in love instantly and from there bought Piece of Mind and a their newest album, Powerslave. From there, I worked my way backwards into the the DiAnno years and those albums blew me away on a whole other level. Since then, I have been a Maiden fan tried and true. I also consider myself a big enough fan to know that not everything they did/do is perfect. I'm totally open to calling them out on **** and I love it when I can discuss/dispute with Cheevyjames and other Maiden fans. So looking forward to this post!
     
  10. bartels76

    bartels76 Forum Hall Of Fame

    Location:
    CT
    That guy is overly opinionated. He wrote a Whitesnake book that was really informative but way too much of his opinions were in it.
     
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  11. Flashlight

    Flashlight Forum Resident

    I kind of remember Popoff's quotes and seem to recall agreeing with them; I always viewed his complaint as being along the lines of "Why can't this band write more songs like The Trooper, and less songs like Rime of The Ancient Mariner?", although I could be interpreting it that way since that's kind of been my complaint since most everything of theirs post-Powerslave *ducks the deluge of beer bottles and cans*


    To the OP, thank you for this thread.. will be lurking daily! :)
     
  12. superstar19

    superstar19 Authentic By Nature

    Location:
    Canton, MI, USA
    Got into them when I was about 13/14 when Somewhere In Time came out. Wasted Years was the lead “single” with a video getting MTV play, but I loved all the tracks on it. Wasn’t long after that I got the Live After Death cassette. I was ready for more, but not sure where to go. Even at that young age I loved live albums so it seemed like a good next step since it was like a greatest hits. I played the heck out of that cassette in my Walkman. Many a newspaper was delivered and lawn cut with that as the soundtrack. SCREAM FOR ME LONG BEACH!
     
  13. SizzleVonSizzleton

    SizzleVonSizzleton The Last Yeti

    I got into Iron Maiden in 1984. I had The Number of the Beast and Piece of Mind on cassette and I remember I knew I was getting the cassette of Powerslave for christmas in 1984 and I would go into my parents dresser everyday and look at it before they wrapped it. I was totally intrigued by that Egyptian album cover which is funny to me given how small those cassette covers were.

    Even then I listened to NOTB a ton but POM very little. I had Live After Death on vinyl with that fantastic (probably my favorite) album artwork. And those live versions were more of an introduction to the Piece of Mind songs than the studio album and to this day POM seems divided to me between the songs that were on LAD and those that weren't. Honestly I'm only just now getting into POM as a full studio album. I have no memory of how I got those first two tapes.

    And that was also my introduction to the first two albums. I'm caught between enjoying those first two albums and kinda preferring Bruce's interpretations of them.:shrug:

    I lived and breathed Live After Death (record and VHS) for a long time.

    I only ever saw them live once, on the Seventh Son tour at a very poorly attended arena show in Edmonton with Guns n' Roses opening.
     
  14. ArpMoog

    ArpMoog Forum Resident

    Location:
    Detroit
    One of the aspects of their tunes that endear to me is that they write epics.
    They have become unbalanced in that regard over the last couple decades.
    Not enough shorter to the point songs.
    One of the few bands I continue to go see live despite if I like the record or not.
    Up until Jeff passed Slayer was the same.
     
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  15. ArpMoog

    ArpMoog Forum Resident

    Location:
    Detroit
    I can't be the only person that prefers Paul, doesn't like Bruce doing Paul
    Thinks LAD is over rated and wishes Japan was a double ?
     
  16. GodShifter

    GodShifter Forum Member

    Location:
    Dallas, TX, USA
    It’s a bit amusing to me that so many are mentioning Live After Death as a gateway album whereas I didn’t like that much at all. I still don’t.
     
  17. GodShifter

    GodShifter Forum Member

    Location:
    Dallas, TX, USA
    You are not. I’m not sure I prefer Paul as his sample size is relatively small in comparison to Bruce, but I can definitely say I don’t like when Dickinson sings Di’Anno songs. As I said, the first album will always be my favorite. It’s a top ten record for me; not just metal record but top ten of anything; all time.
     
  18. Cheevyjames

    Cheevyjames Forum Resident

    Location:
    Graham, NC
    Do you like any of their live releases?
     
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  19. TexasBuck

    TexasBuck Forum Resident

    Location:
    Dallas, TX
    I had only heard "Flight of Icarus" on the radio. I saw the "Live After Death" vinyl and had to have it, based on the cover alone. Ended up loving the album. Still do. Likely my most listened to live album of my life. I bought all the previous studio albums but they were mildly disappointing because I like the live versions of nearly all the key songs better. Saw them on the "Somewhere in Time" tour. A couple years later, they released, in my opinion, their best album: 7th Son. Next couple albums tailed off and I lost interest. Got back into them for "Brave New World" and have been on board ever since. "The Final Frontier" was disappointing but I got to see them again on that tour. "A Matter of Life and Death" and "Book of Souls" are two of my favorite Maiden albums. I can't wait to hear what they do next.
     
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  20. GodShifter

    GodShifter Forum Member

    Location:
    Dallas, TX, USA
    I like the extended Maiden Japan very much. That’s it, though.
     
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  21. The Slug Man

    The Slug Man Forum Resident

    Location:
    North Carolina
    How I Got Into Iron Maiden

    In late '86, I was 14 and for several years I'd been listening to mainstream pop. As a little kid, I was obsessed with KISS, but once they started losing original members and taking makeup off, I kind of lost interest in them for a while. But a guy in my neighborhood who a year earlier had gotten me into comic books, was now in late '86 getting me into hard rock and metal. I started with AC/DC and Van Halen, then moved onto Motley Crue, and then took a heavy leap into Metallica and Megadeth. But at some point during this "education," I saw the video for the (then) brand-new Iron Maiden song "Wasted Years" and was instantly hooked. My friends, brother, and I all thought that the "Monsters" in the video were cool (at that time, we didn't realize that those "monsters" were actually pictures of the same monster, Eddie, just in different guises through the years). Soon afterwards, my brother got the cassette of Somewhere In Time, and both the music and the packaging were so futuristic. The cover was incredible, and the foldout was longer and more detailed than that of most bands. Plus, it was a clear transparent tape, which in '86 was just coming along! To this day, SIT is one of my favorite Maiden albums, even though most of the fans don't rate it as highly thanks to the synths, etc.

    The music, of course, is what matters most, and on what seemed like a weekly basis, we'd pick up another Maiden tape. We basically worked backwards, getting Live After Death, then Powerslave, then Piece of Mind, then Number of the Beast, then the Di'anno albums. We liked them so much, we took my Dad's old typewriter and typed out all the lyrics and put them in a huge notebook. For most of the albums, we just copied them from the liner notes, but the cassettes for the first 3 albums did not have the lyrics included, so we transcribed them from listening, leading to some hilarious misheard lyrics, but I'll touch on those once we get to the appropriate songs. When MTV aired Live After Death, we taped it on our Beta machine (we were the only family on the block who had Beta instead of VHS). I remember Dweezil Zappa was the VJ right before the concert started.

    After getting into Maiden, I started getting into the '70s bands like Black Sabbath, Deep Purple, and Led Zeppelin, and that's kind of where I stayed for a long time. At the time of its release, I wasn't crazy about Seventh Son (now it's one of my favorites), and I stopped buying new Maiden albums. In fact, the only post-Seventh Son album I have is Brave New World, so hearing the songs on the albums I don't have should be interesting (kind of like hearing all the non-makeup KISS albums in the KISS song-by-song thread).
     
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  22. Zoot Marimba

    Zoot Marimba And I’m The Critic Of The Group Thread Starter

    Location:
    Savannah, Georgia
    I'll go over the songs when we cove the s/t and Killers as Invasion is a B Side from that era.
    Overall, for a demo, this isn't half bad. Sure it's rough around the edges, and definitely Clive was a big upgrade drum wise, but these songs show a lot of promise.
     
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  23. The Slug Man

    The Slug Man Forum Resident

    Location:
    North Carolina
    Is the version of "Sanctuary" on this compilation the same one that appeared on The Soundhouse Tapes?

    Edit: Now I see that "Sanctuary" was apparently not part of the Soundhouse Tapes, but I think the version here is not the same as what appeared on the '80 debut.

    [​IMG]
     
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  24. Brenald79

    Brenald79 Forum Resident

    Location:
    Canada
    Where does Martin say this? I thought he had mostly positive reviews of their albums in his books.
     
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  25. GodShifter

    GodShifter Forum Member

    Location:
    Dallas, TX, USA
    Not in the one I read. I think it was one of the Guide To Heavy Metal deals. I know in one review he says, “(the bass) is not that interesting of an instrument, Steve”.

    I can find the quote if you wish.
     
    Last edited: Nov 8, 2017
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