The Iron Maiden Thread v. The Merge of Souls

[TAC]

Had my music player, my private paradise on shuffle today and Prodigal Son came on. Perfect example of why I love the deep early cuts.

Not just with Iron Maiden, but with any band, I love that stage where they are still figuring out what they are going to be. I can’t imagine them doing anything like Prodigal Son today, but it’s just so perfect for that period of Iron Maiden.

I agree.

[faizoff]

Had my music player, my private paradise on shuffle today and Prodigal Son came on. Perfect example of why I love the deep early cuts.

Not just with Iron Maiden, but with any band, I love that stage where they are still figuring out what they are going to be. I can’t imagine them doing anything like Prodigal Son today, but it’s just so perfect for that period of Iron Maiden.

I agree.

Isn't Journey man something along those lines? I know it's not recent ..oh shit Dance of Death will be 20 years next year! Damn does time fly.

[425]

Had my music player, my private paradise on shuffle today and Prodigal Son came on. Perfect example of why I love the deep early cuts.

Not just with Iron Maiden, but with any band, I love that stage where they are still figuring out what they are going to be. I can’t imagine them doing anything like Prodigal Son today, but it’s just so perfect for that period of Iron Maiden.

I agree.

[jammindude]

 

Who added that? Tim?

It’s true though. 

[425]

Looks like it was Tim, yeah.

[TAC]

[Dream Team]

Recently listened  again to Bruce's last 3 solo albums; where would these rank for you in the IM discography? Accident of Birth I think would be in the Top 5, Side 1 especially is all killer no filler. I actually like TOS better than TCW, both of those would probably be somewhere in the middle.

[cramx3]

Recently listened  again to Bruce's last 3 solo albums; where would these rank for you in the IM discography? Accident of Birth I think would be in the Top 5, Side 1 especially is all killer no filler. I actually like TOS better than TCW, both of those would probably be somewhere in the middle.

The Chemical Wedding is (especially if you include the bonus tracks) #1 over all IM albums IMO.  Accident of Birth would be pretty high too, but not entirely sure where.  Maybe around 4 or 5ish.  Tyranny of Souls would be much lower. 

[wolfking]

Many years ago CW was number 1 on my all time top 50, so there's that.

[425]

I have to admit, Accident of Birth is the only Bruce album I've ever heard. I think it's a good album, but it wouldn't rank high compared to my list of Maiden albums. Maybe around 11th-13th.

[wolfking]

I have to admit, Accident of Birth is the only Bruce album I've ever heard. I think it's a good album, but it wouldn't rank high compared to my list of Maiden albums. Maybe around 11th-13th.

Chemical Wedding.

[The Realm]

Absolutely love The Chemical Wedding, what an album. I couldn't rank it above my favourite Maiden albums but it is right up there. Accident at Birth is also great. Tyranny of Souls would be much lower in the rankings, not so much of a fan of that one.

[TAC]

I have to admit, Accident of Birth is the only Bruce album I've ever heard. I think it's a good album, but it wouldn't rank high compared to my list of Maiden albums. Maybe around 11th-13th.

Chemical Wedding.

Yeah, Chemical Wedding goes to the next level.

[nick_z]

I have to admit, Accident of Birth is the only Bruce album I've ever heard. I think it's a good album, but it wouldn't rank high compared to my list of Maiden albums. Maybe around 11th-13th.

Chemical Wedding.

Yeah, Chemical Wedding goes to the next level.

I'm going to add to the Chemical Wedding praise. Fantastic album that you (425, I mean  ) should definitely check out, if you haven't heard it yet.

[krands85]

For some reason, I think Tyranny of Souls is the only Bruce album I've ever listened to and not for a long, long time.

I need to rectify that soon, I always remember really like 'Abduction' from that album.

[nick_z]

Tyranny of Souls is pretty good, but both Accident of Birth and Chemical Wedding are way better, for me.

(I personally have a soft spot for Balls to Picasso and Skunkworks too...)

[ProfessorPeart]

Not sure how aware everyone is regarding Paul Di'Anno's situation, but a long health update has been posted and another crowd funding effort has been kicked off to raise the money to get him healthy again.

https://bravewords.com/news/paul-di-anno-issues-health-update-thrilled-and-very-optimistic

https://www.justgiving.com/crowdfunding/pauldianno?fbclid=IwAR2VQq5BdId03rituDv3RlpWdhtzTwm3aBELJg9h6Yest3u3REMyc78wnRg

[TAC]

Had my music player, my private paradise on shuffle today and Prodigal Son came on. Perfect example of why I love the deep early cuts.

Not just with Iron Maiden, but with any band, I love that stage where they are still figuring out what they are going to be. I can’t imagine them doing anything like Prodigal Son today, but it’s just so perfect for that period of Iron Maiden.

I agree.

Isn't Journey man something along those lines? I know it's not recent ..oh shit Dance of Death will be 20 years next year! Damn does time fly.

I meant to reply to this. That's a good call, Faizoff.

[The Curious Orange]

Di'Anno hasn't had the best run of luck, but a lot of it is self-inflicted. He's right about the teeth, though, someone I know went to Roumania to spend 10 grand on dental work that would have cost 50 grand over here. You really don't think about teeth until you lose them.

[MirrorMask]

I have to admit, Accident of Birth is the only Bruce album I've ever heard.

Which begs the question.... why?

 

[faizoff]

I think I posted a few months or maybe a year back, I was surprised to see Di'Anno performing in a wheel chair and that's when I learned he wasn't keeping good health.

[Dream Team]

I wonder what cool stuff we would get if Steve told Adrian, Dave, and Yanick “next album you 3 guys get together in a room and write some songs”.

[Podaar]

Recently listened  again to Bruce's last 3 solo albums; where would these rank for you in the IM discography? Accident of Birth I think would be in the Top 5, Side 1 especially is all killer no filler. I actually like TOS better than TCW, both of those would probably be somewhere in the middle.

The Chemical Wedding is (especially if you include the bonus tracks) #1 over all IM albums IMO.  Accident of Birth would be pretty high too, but not entirely sure where.  Maybe around 4 or 5ish.  Tyranny of Souls would be much lower.

Truth

[Stadler]

Tyranny of Souls is pretty good, but both Accident of Birth and Chemical Wedding are way better, for me.

(I personally have a soft spot for Balls to Picasso and Skunkworks too...)

I'm with you on all of that.  All of it.

[DoctorAction]

I wonder what cool stuff we would get if Steve told Adrian, Dave, and Yanick “next album you 3 guys get together in a room and write some songs”.

Love this idea.

[wolfking]

I wonder what cool stuff we would get if Steve told Adrian, Dave, and Yanick “next album you 3 guys get together in a room and write some songs”.

Did you spell his name wrong on purpose?

[425]

I have to admit, Accident of Birth is the only Bruce album I've ever heard. I think it's a good album, but it wouldn't rank high compared to my list of Maiden albums. Maybe around 11th-13th.

Chemical Wedding.

Yeah, Chemical Wedding goes to the next level.

I'm going to add to the Chemical Wedding praise. Fantastic album that you (425, I mean  ) should definitely check out, if you haven't heard it yet.

I will try to take this recommendation soon. I think I got AoB shortly before I lost interest in Maiden for several years, so I never made it back around to TCW.


Listened to Killers yesterday, and I'm willing to eat a bit of crow on this album—at least, on it being clearly below the debut. I held that opinion for many years, but this time, I sort of heard Killers fresh and several ways in which it is a significant upgrade over Iron Maiden (note: if my Apple metadata can be trusted, which is not always the case, I had not listened to this album in full since 2016):

(1) The production is way better; having Birch on board was a big deal.

(2) Having Adrian matters a lot. I have nothing particularly against Stratton, but his playing is pretty unremarkable. Adrian takes things to the next level.

(3) I think there's a lot more awesome bass playing from Steve on this album. At least, it's a lot more noticeable.

(4) While I stand by calling Remember Tomorrow and Phantom of the Opera far and away the best songs of the Di'Anno era, I think the average song on Killers is probably better than the average song on Iron Maiden. It's certainly a more consistent album.

I now would have these two albums basically tied. If you asked me which one I would rather have if I could never listen to the other one (or any of its songs) again, then I would still pick the debut because of the top two songs. But if you asked me which one I enjoy more as an album listening experience, I think I would now say Killers. And I can now hear what I couldn't for a long time, which is a sense of progression and improvement across the first four albums, with each taking a step forward over the previous. It's still down near the end of my list, but my view of it has certainly improved.

I'm listening to The Number of the Beast right now, so I might post on that in a bit, or perhaps tomorrow. Next, I'm actually going to listen to Beast Over Hammersmith for the first time ever. When I first got into the band, it was basically not available at all, but I saw that they now have it for download on iTunes, so I'm going to try that one. Will probably continue including the live stuff on my discography run.

[TAC]

(4) While I stand by calling Remember Tomorrow and Phantom of the Opera far and away the best songs of the Di'Anno era, I think the average song on Killers is probably better than the average song on Iron Maiden. It's certainly a more consistent album.

This is true.

[425]

It's strange; I used to think of Killers as the "best of the rest" when it came to the initial batch of songs that were written from 1975 to 1980. And, again, they really did put the two best songs on the first album. But coming back to these albums afresh, Iron Maiden is the album that feels more like it has songs that are just thrown on there. Like, Charlotte the Harlot is just not a good song and does not really contribute to the flow of the album.

On the other hand, Killers flows and it even has something of a theme. That's one of the other things I'm coming to appreciate, too: I like the lyrics a lot better on Killers (again, two debut songs excepted). Not only is there none of the silly sexual stuff, but there's a sense of drama to a lot of the lyrics. It's a rather basic form of drama—the idea of a criminal on the run from the law—but I can see it as an early version of the sense of drama that Steve really developed as the years went on.

[The Realm]

I feel Killers is a much stronger album on the whole than Iron Maiden, but I love them both. It's great to see you appreciating it more 425 - I hope you do the same with The Number of the Beast 

Killers is just great all across the board and I totally agree about Adrian Smith elevating the album, and Steve's bass playing. The album is full of underrated classics.

I do though also agree that Remember Tomorrow and Phantom are the stand out songs across both albums.

[DoctorAction]

It would have been really interesting to see how Phantom sounded if recorded in the Killers sessions.

Killers is front to back awesome. The sound, songs, aggression, it's packed with those single note guitar riffs that only Maiden do. It's my desert island Maiden album.

The debut is great fun but feels soooo early. The title track and Charlotte are the worst songs in the catalogue, Running Free is pretty poor. Prowler, Tomorrow, Phantom, Transylvania, Strange are great.

In all, Killers repeatedly slaps the debut's fries out of its hands and repeatedly slaps it round the head - for NO reason other than it wants to.

[The Curious Orange]

Killers has the big production and the big sound, while the debut album sounds like it's a demo recorded in somebody's garage, and that's why I prefer it - it has a raw, unpolished attitude to it. Plus I genuinely think the songs are better, as are Di'Anno's vocals. I like the rough and ready sound of that first album, and always wonder where they would have gone if they'd continued down that path.

[Dream Team]

I wonder what cool stuff we would get if Steve told Adrian, Dave, and Yanick “next album you 3 guys get together in a room and write some songs”.

Did you spell his name wrong on purpose?

Whoops! It's Janick.

To 425: Beast Over Hammersmith is awesome, you'll enjoy it immensely. Best live versions of some of those songs, including of course Total Eclipse.

[RodrigoAltaf]

This just in: "Elon Musk buys Iron Maiden and forces Jannick Gers out of the band"

[wolfking]

I wonder what cool stuff we would get if Steve told Adrian, Dave, and Yanick “next album you 3 guys get together in a room and write some songs”.

Did you spell his name wrong on purpose?

Whoops! It's Janick.

To 425: Beast Over Hammersmith is awesome, you'll enjoy it immensely. Best live versions of some of those songs, including of course Total Eclipse.

Haha.

BOH is wonderful, I just really don't like how the guitars aren't mixed in stereo like the rest of their live stuff.