Somewhere in Time and Seventh Son are indeed the top 2 for me and in constant fight with each other. for the top title. Gave both albums a listen the past week and here's a very rough comparison:
Opener: Caught Somewhere in Time is perhaps my all time favorite Maiden track, and so it has to win, even though Moonchild is one hell of a song.
The "Smith songs": Okay so we got Wasted Years & Stranger in a Strange Land versus Moonchild & The Evil that Men Do. I know Smith co-wrote the ones on Seventh Son but I'm just trying to compare these somehow
. Anyway, here I would say that the 7th Son songs win by a small margin. But the margin is insanely small. Wasted Years is a fun song but at the same time it's a sign of things to come: Adrian Smith is growing tired of heavy metal and wants to pursue a more radio-friendly approach, and that is clearly audible here. Stranger in a Strange Land is kind of cool. The Evil That Men Do also perhaps has that semi-commercial approach but is in my mind a bit stronger than Wasted Years.
The weak songs: Here, in my opinion, the weakest songs of each album are Heaven Can Wait and Can I Play With Madness. Heaven Can Wait has it's moments (..."take my hand") but I've always disliked that chorus and so Can I Play With Madness is the winner here. I mean it's not the greatest track of all times, but surprisingly entertaining.
The "Murray songs": Okay so we got Deja Vu vs. The Prophecy. The Prophecy has GREAT and beautiful intros and outros, especially the acoustic guitar outro, oh my god. But here I would say that Deja vu is the better song, it has lots of interesting guitar work and nice harmonies. Prophecy on the other hand has a somewhat dull core, even though the beginning and ending kind of rescue it from being a bad song.
The "semi-epics": Infinite Dreams versus The Loneliness of a Long Distance Runner. Didn't think of anything good here so named them "semi-epics" due to length, any other suggestions?
It's hard, because both are awesome, but I think Long Distance Runner has always spoken to me more, so I pick that one.
The epics: Seventh Son of a Seventh son versus Alexander the Great. This is not hard, because in my mind the 7th son title track is among the finest moments in music history. So there you go. Alexander is cool but hardly as epic, and that story telling approach with the lyrics doesn't really work for me.
What's left? Sea of Madness and The Clairvoyant I guess. Well, not really comparable, one is a Smith kind of rocker while the other one could be labeled as a semi-epic (Harris, of course). The Clairvoyant wins, but I've always liked Sea of Madness and find it a really underrated song by the band. Especially the chorus is beautiful.
Oh yeah, almost forgot. Only The Good Die Young. Kind of a rarity with it's Dickinson/Harris credit, I guess? Not that many songs by only the two of them? I always liked it, it's straight forward but catchy.
Hahaha, confusing post.
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