I came to Maiden during the Blaze era funnily enough. I was at University and a metal fan but it was a time when metal was super uncool and I had begun to lapse in my appreciation of that stuff and start thinking it was embarrassing. Maiden were on Top Of The Pops (a U.K. chart based tv show back in the day) and I watched them ready to scoff at how tragic and cringeworthy they were and they came on and played Man On The Edge. I did chuckle at first seeing them so ridiculously old school, guitar players with their foot on the monitors etc. Despite myself though, I kind of liked it and enjoyed how unashamedly trad metal they were. Anyway, in those days, HMV stores had listening posts for some of the latest cds so I kept going back and listening to the X Factor until I eventually bought it and really liked it. I then bought Best Of The Beast, when that came out, to sample their earlier stuff. I knew a couple of songs, namely Bring Your Daughter To The Slaughter, Holy Smoke and Can I Play With Madness but that was it. I loved it and then worked my way back (I’ve never gone back pre-Bruce though). I even really liked Virtual XI when it came out but now find that to be terrible.
Basically then I came in at the crossroads between classic 80’s Maiden and Reunion era. My feeling is that those old songs feel more immediate, catchy legendary songs. Not all of them but the shorter “hits” like 2 Minutes To Midnight, Run To The Hills, Aces High work better than their modern contemporaries. I think The Wicker Man comes close but not quite.
That being said I also think their newer albums have incredible epic more mature songs like Paschendale and the recent Empire Of The Clouds is right up there as one of their greatest ever achievements in my opinion, if not their greatest.
So, yes, they don’t quite have the absolute killer riffs and catchy songs of the 80’s and yes, maybe if you flipped their catalogue, these reunion albums coming first may not have made them as legendary as they are. However these reunion albums have been so good in a different heavier more thoughtful way that has kept Maiden relevant and right at the top of the tree all these years on when pretty much every other trad metal band have fallen by the wayside. People forget as well that Maiden were not in great shape when Bruce and Adrian came back, they were not in the big arenas and stadiums anymore. The Brave New World album catapulted them back into that and that has continued with an unbroken run of excellent quality albums in the years that followed. I think they have been remarkably consistent in both eras and the fact we can have a discussion as to which is better tells you just how good they still are.
Topic: The Iron Maiden Thread v. The Merge of Souls (Read 573126 times)
