Iron Maiden Survivor 2016 - Seventh Son of a Seventh Son - Round 1

[425]

Seventh Son of a Seventh Son (1988)
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.


Seventh Son of a Seventh Son was the final album released by the classic lineup that had produced the last three albums. Adrian Smith would depart after this album, and I think it's fair to say that his presence would be sorely missed, just judging from the stellar work that he did on this record. Seventh Son saw Maiden introduce keyboards into their musical palette, which I suppose alienated some of the metal purists, some of whom still do not hold this album in high regard compared to their 1980-1985 output. At the same time, however, many fans have embraced Seventh Son as one of Maiden's finest albums of all time (I am inclined to agree with this segment of the fanbase). This is also the only concept album produced by the band, though the meaning of the concept is not always entirely clear at any given time—it certainly has to do with a child who is endowed with awe-inspiring psychic powers who is tempted by evil and eventually driven to death, possibly by insanity.

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Haven't done my relisten yet, but I don't need to for the first round. This is a really good album with a lot of near-equal songs, but there's one that stands out to me as the weakest.

Can I Play With Madness

[Outcrier]

I was torn between The Prophecy and Can i Play with Madness, ended up going with the latter.

Can i Play with Madness

[Train of Naught]

Can I Play With Madness

Oh yeah, no doubt.

[ToT-147]

Doubtfully , but voted CIPWM too..

[CharlesPL]

Can I Play With Madness

[IDontNotDoThings]

The Prophecy, CIPWM is actually a top-four song IMO.

[Kwyjibo]

The Prophecy

[Logain Ablar]

This is gonna be difficult, as this whole album is very consistent, quality-wise. No stand out stinkers IMO. But, I went for..

The Prophecy

[Zydar]

Easy choice, The Prophecy.

This is my favourite Maiden album, but that song is the only thing stopping this from being an otherwise brilliant album (just as Long Distance Runner is for Somewhere In Time).

[Scorpion]

God dammit, I mis-clicked and accidentally voted for The Prophecy instead of CIPWM. 425, can you take that into account? I don't want to be even partly responsible for taking out one of the best songs on the album.

[jjrock88]

Can I Play With Madness

[Mladen]

Only the Good Die Young

It's a 9.5 song, and all of the other are 10 out of 10. You can tell I love this album. 

[Eldomm]

Only the good die young

[Zantera]

Can I Play With Madness

[MirrorMask]

I thought the two unplayed songs would be easily dispatched, yet Can I Play with Madness is losing.

You progsters and your hate for easy songs 

Anyway, kinda a waste of typing to point this out but this album is absolutely fantastic and while my personal preference goes to Piece of Mind, this is the hardest album at all to pick songs from, I'll take part in this as a game 'cause there's no song on this album that I'd want to be eliminated.

[namgalsipsclar]

Maiden's best album I reckon.

Only the Good Die Young is the weakest by quite a stretch for me, from here it gets tough though

[cramx3]

Easy choice, The Prophecy.

[Evermind]

Can I Play With Madness

[Outcrier]

You progsters and your hate for easy songs 

I feel you (Run to the Hills and Wasted Years leaved a bad taste in the mouth) but can't say the same for Can I Play with Madness.

[cramx3]

I think if IM didn't play the song live so much, it wouldn't be so disliked.  It's really not a bad song, just overplayed IMO.  It is my second least liked song on the album, but it came on the other day and I really enjoyed it mostly because I haven't listened to it in so long.  It's fun, but not great, and certainly not worth the amount of times IM have played it live IMO.

[425]

God dammit, I mis-clicked and accidentally voted for The Prophecy instead of CIPWM. 425, can you take that into account? I don't want to be even partly responsible for taking out one of the best songs on the album.

Yeah. Whatever the vote total is above, consider that to be CIPWM +1 and The Prophecy -1. I may ask you to prove that you misvoted (just via a screenshot that shows your vote) in the event that your vote becomes the decider. Just so that things stay verified.

You progsters and your hate for easy songs 

I feel you (Run to the Hills and Wasted Years leaved a bad taste in the mouth) but can't say the same for Can I Play with Madness.

Just out of curiosity (since there have been a lot of statements that the results here are being affected by this being a prog forum), I checked out the results of the last survivor that they ran over on the MaidenFans forum

Run to the Hills finished 7th on the album over there; it finished 5th here.

The Trooper finished 4th on the album over there; it finished 1st here.

Wasted Years did win the album over there, while finishing 4th here.

Can I Play With Madness finished last on the album over there.

No grand point here except that it's not as simple as "we're prog fans so we hate poppy songs." The die-hard Iron Maiden fans at that forum (I used to post over there, and I know DTF's Mosh, who ran their survivor, is still a regular on both forums, so I can vouch that they have a good, intelligent community) ranked two of Maiden's most popular songs lower than we did. But they liked Wasted Years better than us. So it varies.

[Outcrier]

Both forums are minorities anyway, with very few people voting.

[Train of Naught]

I thought the two unplayed songs would be easily dispatched, yet Can I Play with Madness is losing.

You progsters and your hate for easy songs

That has nothing to do with it at all. I, and many others here, love some easy songs, this one is just very weird coming from Iron Maiden. The chorus annoys me to an extent I'd rather not express on a forum with other IM fans.

[wolfking]

Can I Play With Madness

Oh yeah, no doubt.

[sneakyblueberry]

Only the Good Die Young is the weakest by quite a stretch for me, from here it gets tough though

yep

EDIT: really guys, CIPWM?  over OTGDY and The Prophecy? getouttahere man shet.

[Scorpion]

OTGDY and The Prophecy are two of my favourite songs on the album. The acoustic outro to The Prophecy in particular is stunning.

[Outcrier]

OTGDY and The Prophecy are two of my favourite songs on the album. The acoustic outro to The Prophecy in particular is stunning.

My condolences then 

[425]

Both forums are minorities anyway, with very few people voting.

True. I think it's fair to say that there's a wide margin of error. But the data certainly does suggest that a set of Iron Maiden fans who are likely less prog-oriented than the people voting here did not rate the poppier songs significantly higher than DTF has done so far. I think that should at least make people pause before drawing the conclusion that something like Run to the Hills didn't do great on DTF just because DTF is a prog-oriented forum.

OTGDY and The Prophecy are two of my favourite songs on the album. The acoustic outro to The Prophecy in particular is stunning.

The outro to The Prophecy is fantastic. Only the Good Die Young is a really good song, too. However, neither one is among my favorite songs on this album, because it is this album.

[Outcrier]

The ones i'm not a fan are Can i Play and The Prophecy.

Only the Good Die Young i like, but i will be forced to vote for it because there are better songs here.

[Dream Team]

OTGDY and The Prophecy are two of my favourite songs on the album. The acoustic outro to The Prophecy in particular is stunning.

Love Bruce's vocals on TP's chorus also.

[ToT-147]

I'm glad to see so much respect for this album.. 

A fabulous masterpiece..

[Tomislav95]

The Prophecy