35 years ago this poll would be much closer ( and done with pencil and paper , lol ). Couple tokes of good stuff and " To Tame A Land " through a decent stereo settled this discussion on a few occasions for me ( regarding who is " better " ). Priest was the more popular band in my area by far however.
Year Iron Maiden Album UK US Year Judas Priest Album UK US
1974 --------------------- --- --- 1974 Rocka Rolla --- ---
1976 --------------------- --- --- 1976 Sad Wings of Destiny 48 ---
1977 --------------------- --- --- 1977 Sin After Sin 23 ---
1978 --------------------- --- --- 1978 Stained Class 27 173
1978 --------------------- --- --- 1978 Hell Bent For Leather 32 128
1979 --------------------- --- --- 1979 Unleashed in the East 10 70
JP released five studio albums in the 70’s and finished the decade off with the live album, Unleashed in the East. Unleashed was their highest charting album to date and its chart position reflects the culmination of their efforts and the success that they were able to achieve.
Year Iron Maiden Album UK US Year Judas Priest Album UK US
1980 Iron Maiden 4 -- 1980 British Steel 4 34
1981 Killers 12 78 1981 Point of Entry 14 39
1982 The Number Of The Beast 1 33 1982 Screaming For Vengeance 11 17
1983 Piece Of Mind 3 14 1983 --------------------- -- --
1984 Powerslave 2 21 1984 Defenders Of The Faith 19 18
1985 Live After Death 2 19 1985 --------------------- -- --
1986 Somewhere In Time 3 11 1986 Turbo 33 17
1987 ------------------------ -- -- 1987 Priest...Live! 47 38
1988 Seventh Son Of A Seventh Son 1 12 1988 Ram It Down 24 31
1989 --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I think the closest these bands were to each other in terms of popularity occurred in the 80’s.
Iron Maiden dominated the UK, only Killers didn’t reach into the top 5. Priest did better in the UK during this period than they did in the 70’s but they never came close to what Iron Maiden did.
Both bands achieved some level of success in the US market during this time. The success of Priest’s trifecta of Screaming For Vengeance, Defenders Of The Faith and Turbo allowed them to continue to fill large venues and remain popular. (They regularly played the 20K seat sports arena near where I lived)
Iron Maiden laid the foundation with The Number Of The Beast and then followed up with Piece Of Mind and then Powerslave. By the time Powerslave came out they were on equal footing with Priest in terms of popularity. From Piece Of Mind on Iron Maiden would headline the same 20K seat venue that Priest were playing here in my town.
Somewhere In Time charted better than Turbo and 1988’s effort by each band was really no contest - Seventh Son Of A Seventh Son is a top 5 IM album for me.
(I’m in the minority here but feel that Turbo is a really good album. It showed that a band that had already incorporated progressive and metal elements into their music could also create a highly polished hard rock album. This time being the height of the MTV era in the US – I believe the change in their look might have hurt them more than the music.)