Iron Maiden Song Ranking Thread (Currently Ranking: Mister Gold)

[wolfking]

I'll aim to do an update probably every second day.

I know I'm behind on this statement already but will update tonight.

[wolfking]

I thought I'd do something fun with this.  Since I'm a guitarist as some of you know, Maiden were the one band I idolized when it came to playing guitar.  A lot of these songs are highlights because of when I was learning them when I was a teen.  I thought along with my description also breakdown who plays which solo incase any of you give a fuck.


55. Afraid to Shoot Strangers

A highlight from FOTD.  Great lyrics and I love the structure of this one.  The Afraid to Shoot Strangers line I thought was a bit corny at first but love the visions it brings to mind now regarding the subject matter.  First thing I find interesting with this track is the ever changing key changes in the intro and even in the verses, really interesting.  The lead guitar melody is very catchy and interesting that it's not harmonized at all, both guitars playing in unison.  Explodes into classic E and the harmony after that section is easily the highlight of the song.  One of Maiden's top harmonies.  Great song.

Solo 1: Janick
Solo 2: Dave


54. These Colours Don't Run

Pretty run of the mill song here for Maiden with being as simple as they come.  Both verse and chorus has the same chord progression in E/C/G/D which is interesting since the contrast between verse and chorus.  Not much to say but I love the pre chorus and the chorus is catchy as hell.  The groove of the main riff is tasty too.  The middle section fits the lyrical theme nicely giving off a real war like vibe.  Dave's solo I find a little awkward.  There's some weird passing notes in there which gives off a lot of tension so it works.  He uses the blues note of the E scale but also adds the Dorian note of C#.  Seems to be some Tipton like runs using those notes in an even F# phrygian dominant sequence?!  Anyway, Adrian's solo is melodic as hell, in A minor too.  Classic Adrian.  The melody after that solo is excellent.

Solo1: Dave
Solo2: Adrian


53. Justice of the Peace

Here's an unexpected one.  A b-side rocker from TXF.  Classic rocker this one.  Blaze sounds great.  The verses rock but the chorus gives great tension.  The intervals in the E major chord gives the impression it's changed from E minor to E major but then the chorus resolves to C# minor.  Obviously, the two keys are relative so it makes sense.  Next section then moves to F# with a nice F chord in there two giving some tension.

Daves takes the solo which now is in F major!  Dave plays more in line with the relative key of D major but has some nice brightness in there.  I love the harmoney section after that.  This is a really cool, underrated song and always thought it was very different and underrated.

Solo: Dave


52. The Fallen Angel

One of Maiden's heaviest riffs, and Steve's bass here is just absolutely massive.  Short underrated rocker this one. Classic E minor in this one and the chorus rips.  Love the classic Wasted Years riff in the chorus too.  Solos are interesting. Goes from E down one and a half steps to C# for H's solo.  Dave's solo goes to an unusual key for him in G# which is a cool.  Janick is the real winner here.  chords are B/C/D so he's in in B phrygian dominant and rips this solo I might add.  He throws the D note in there too which gives it a straight minor flavour at times too and the band lands on D in the chord progression so a few different things can be played here.  Great tune and situation nicely in the album too.

Solo1: Adrian
Solo2: Dave
Solo3: Janick


51. Still Life

One of Dave's finest moments.  You know it's Dave from the lead intro too which he's made a trademark of numerous times.  I mentioned before when the band did Reveltions or 2 Minutes in A.  I said it's rare but looking through now, not as rare as I though.  This one is in A too.  Great dark tone here and loved it on Maiden England too just quietly.  Musically it's pretty basic but the harmony before the solos is interesting.  I haven't worked out if there's anything going on there different.  Adrian takes the solo in A then Dave in E.  Great tune.

Solo1: Adrian
Solo2: Dave

[wolfking]

For the first 5 songs;

2 Minutes;

Solo1: Dave
Solo2: Adrian


Shadows of the Valley;

Solo1: Janick
Solo2: Adrian
Solo3: Dave


The Prisoner;

Arpeggios and solo 1: Adrian
Solo2: Dave


Revelations;

Solo1: Dave
Solo2: Adrian


The Edge of Darkness;

Solo1: Janick
Solo2: Dave

[Mladen]

Justice of the peace is a great pick. I love the way Blaze sounds on it, right from the first two lines he grabs the listener's attention. The remainings songs are all fine choices as well, except for maybe These colours don't run. I love the album, but I think they went too far with E C G D on that song. 

Also, I usually "pride" myself with recognizing who plays which solo right away, but sometimes it does get tricky to tell them apart, I admit. So thanks for that contribution. 

[wolfking]

Justice of the peace is a great pick. I love the way Blaze sounds on it, right from the first two lines he grabs the listener's attention. The remainings songs are all fine choices as well, except for maybe These colours don't run. I love the album, but I think they went too far with E C G D on that song. 

Also, I usually "pride" myself with recognizing who plays which solo right away, but sometimes it does get tricky to tell them apart, I admit. So thanks for that contribution. 

I think there's 3 or 4 songs from the album that use that chord progression actually.    Love the album but laughed at how much they used it.  I'll have a listen to that and post which songs some other time.  Yeah, I love analysing the solo and such so I'll keep going with it.

Yeah, Justice is a very cool song.  Forgot to mention, for some reason I love Blaze's little 'woah' during the harmonies after the solo, just think it sounds cool.

[Dream Team]

Props to recognizing TCDR and FA.

[DTA]

Not a huge fan of TXF but Justice of The Peace is actually a song I like quite a bit that I always forget exists. Excellent choice. All great picks here though I'm not as fond of ATSS as everyone else is. I'd rank about half of the FoTD album above it.

[TAC]

I think the only song I'd rate in my Top 50 would be Still Life. I do like Fallen Angel too.

[wolfking]

Gonna be a lot more surprising picks to come.

[Stadler]

Cool that you are focusing on the guitar (don't stop!) but we'd be remiss if we didn't note Bruce's vocal on Still Life.  I love the way he sings that tune, and it would be a fair amount higher on my list. 

[425]

Still Life was another "almost" inclusion for me. Definitely a classic Dave song.

I must admit to not having much familiarity with the X Factor b-sides. I've listened to them before, but not actually owning copies of them myself, I haven't spent much time with them.

The Fallen Angel is not really a favorite of mine, but it has its moments.

Of course, I had These Colours Don't Run a bit higher, and Afraid to Shoot Strangers a lot higher. Adrian's solo is a real highlight of TCDR for me, too!

[wolfking]

425, get your hands on best of the b-sides if you can.

[Indiscipline]

I think the only song I'd rate in my Top 50 would be Still Life. I do like Fallen Angel too.

Still Life is my n.1 Maiden song.

[TAC]

I think the only song I'd rate in my Top 50 would be Still Life. I do like Fallen Angel too.

Still Life is my n.1 Maiden song.

Thank you for getting right to it.

Speaking of getting right to it, in your Scenes Thread, can you just skip every other album and just get to The Astonishing. Pretty sure at least one of us will not live long enough to see it.

[Indiscipline]

I think the only song I'd rate in my Top 50 would be Still Life. I do like Fallen Angel too.

Still Life is my n.1 Maiden song.

Thank you for getting right to it.

Speaking of getting right to it, in your Scenes Thread, can you just skip every other album and just get to The Astonishing. Pretty sure at least one of us will not live long enough to see it.

 

I'll make a point to pick up the pace.

[jingle.boy]

I wouldn't have been able to pick Still Life out of a police lineup, it just never stood out to me as a WOW track from PoM.  But song-for-song, that's probably Maiden's best - or at least, most consistent - album.

I hadn't heard any of the Blaze B-sides either (I don't have either Blaze album... they just don't appeal to me).  But JoP was a nice listen.

[TAC]

I think the only song I'd rate in my Top 50 would be Still Life. I do like Fallen Angel too.

Still Life is my n.1 Maiden song.

Thank you for getting right to it.

Speaking of getting right to it, in your Scenes Thread, can you just skip every other album and just get to The Astonishing. Pretty sure at least one of us will not live long enough to see it.

 

I'll make a point to pick up the pace.

No, my special request is The Astonishing. It needs its own thread. Picking up the pace is simply not going to get you there in time.

[wolfking]

The Astonishing?  Please don't talk about that album during my Maiden countdown.  That's a paddling.

[The Realm]

Love Still Life and it would be much higher for me. Enjoying the dive into the guitar playing too. Dave and Adrian especially have produced some of my all time favourite guitar solos so I'm sure we will be hearing more about some of these as the list continues.

[TAC]

The Astonishing?  Please don't talk about that album during my Maiden countdown.  That's a paddling.

[wolfking]

Love Still Life and it would be much higher for me. Enjoying the dive into the guitar playing too. Dave and Adrian especially have produced some of my all time favourite guitar solos so I'm sure we will be hearing more about some of these as the list continues.

Glad people are digging the thoughts on the solos.

[TAC]

Yeah Kade, I think that's a cool feature of your list. Iron Maiden is probably the only band where I can figure it out pretty much.

The guys have such distinct styles.

[The Realm]

Totally agree that once you get a good feel for the Maiden guitarists and their individual styles it is actually fairly easy to work out who is playing what when it comes to solos. It used to drive me crazy in the mid-eighties though when I was young and just learning guitar etc...until Live After Death came out. Then once I had that VHS (which I probably didn't actually get until 88 maybe) and watched it (hmmm minimum of 200 times?) I started to get a bit of a feel for it and by the time I had matured as a musician and Brave New World came out, on my first listen it was obvious.

[TAC]

It also helped that Adrian was always mixed in the right ear and Dave in the left. Now Jannick is in the right ear and Adrian is now in the mid channel.

[wolfking]

I love the old live albums as they are mixed so strict with Dave on the left and H/Janick on the right.  I'd spend hours playing along with the cd's with the speakers panned and playing either as Dave or Adrian. Still do it now time to time with live albums mixed this way, it's so much fun.

[Stadler]

425, get your hands on best of the b-sides if you can.

This.   

There's actually a few decent "unreleased" songs - Total Eclipse is a top five, maybe even top three Maiden song for me - and some of the other stuff is (to me) very entertaining ("... some c*** is recording this!"). 

[425]

425, get your hands on best of the b-sides if you can.

This.   

There's actually a few decent "unreleased" songs - Total Eclipse is a top five, maybe even top three Maiden song for me - and some of the other stuff is (to me) very entertaining ("... some c*** is recording this!").

I do hope to get it at some point. It's just a little harder to obtain since the release was so limited. And you can practically forget about Beast Over Hammersmith, which interests me at least as much.

Total Eclipse I know very well because I have the remastered version of The Number of the Beast that inserts it into the main album between Gangland and Hallowed. Same with Killers and Twilight Zone.

[wolfking]

425, get your hands on best of the b-sides if you can.

This.   

There's actually a few decent "unreleased" songs - Total Eclipse is a top five, maybe even top three Maiden song for me - and some of the other stuff is (to me) very entertaining ("... some c*** is recording this!").

Mission from 'Arry   

[Lowdz]

425, get your hands on best of the b-sides if you can.

This.   

There's actually a few decent "unreleased" songs - Total Eclipse is a top five, maybe even top three Maiden song for me - and some of the other stuff is (to me) very entertaining ("... some c*** is recording this!").

I do hope to get it at some point. It's just a little harder to obtain since the release was so limited. And you can practically forget about Beast Over Hammersmith, which interests me at least as much.

Total Eclipse I know very well because I have the remastered version of The Number of the Beast that inserts it into the main album between Gangland and Hallowed. Same with Killers and Twilight Zone.

Twilight Zone and Total Eclipse are awesome. Killers is weird without Twilight Zone.

[TAC]

Twilight Zone has always been on Killers.

[wolfking]

Twilight Zone has always been on Killers.

That was just the American version wasn't it?  I know there was an original version without it.

[The Realm]

Yeah, original version of Killers doesn't have Twilight Zone.

[TAC]

Huh? I literally never knew that.

My version has a song called Wratchild!

[wolfking]

Lol.  I don't think Wratchild will make it in my list 

[The Realm]

Some good songs on the back of that album cover - hoping a few get a mention soon at some stage.