Iron Maiden - Essential Iron Maiden
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Music CD Cover
Artist: Iron MaidenEdition: Music CD
Format: Original recording remastered
CD Release Date: 2005-07-12
Music Label: Sony
Soundtracks:
Music CD 1
- Paschendale
- Rainmaker
- The Wicker Man
- Brave New World
- Futureal
- The Clansman
- Sign of the Cross
- Man on the Edge
- Be Quick or Be Dead
- Fear of the Dark [Live]
- Holy Smoke
- Bring Your Daughter...to the Slaughter
- The Clairvoyant
- The Evil That Men Do
- Wasted Years
- Heaven Can Wait
- 2 Minutes to Midnight
- Aces High
- Flight of Icarus
- The Trooper
- The Number of the Beast
- Run to the Hills
- Wrathchild
- Killers
- Phantom of the Opera
- Running Free [Live]
- Iron Maiden [Live][#]
Free Music Notes for Essential Iron Maiden
Free Music Review: Paints A Great Picture of a Metal Institution
Hit: 5 Stars
Seeing so many yobs with Maiden shirts might make you question whether the band is all hype or whether something real underlies its appeal. This compilation does a swell job at demonstrating the evolution of this veritable heavy metal instituion.
Rather that going in chronological order, this set opts to go for the reverse order method. Other compilations that do this usually do it to prevent a band from looking like it's backsliding. With this set, the effect that it creates is that the first disc appears to be a scattershot compendium of a band whose best days have passed, while it makes disc 2 look like a vastly superior treasure trove.
Disc 1 begins with Bruce Dickinson back on vocals. Those tracks present a band that can rock out, but the solos aren't particularly memorable and are frequently hidden among calmer sections and extended vocal sections. After that, we go back to the mid-90s Blaze era. Two overlong tracks from that era present us with the utterly vacous soundscapes and vocals that lack any real range. However, we are compensated for this by the inclusion of two fast-paced rockers ("Man on the Edge" and "Futureal"). The immediacy of these tracks stands in stark constrast with the overbearing nature of the epics. Afterwards, we go back to when Dickinson was still the vocalist. Early 90s Maiden has a rather homogenous sound that pushes the glass-shattering guitar and vocals into 11 in order to hide unimaginative lyrics and melodies. The last track on the disc, 1988's "The Clairvoyant," is the light at the end of the first rather mediocre tunel.
Disc 2 begins with a bang and it doesn't let up. "The Evil That Men Do" boasts a fine chorus, and the third track ("Heaven Can Wait") melds fast tempos with semi-goofy chanting and an overly reptitive chorus. Great stuff. Then we go from 1984 to 1982; that stuff is all gold. Afterwards, we say goodbye to Dickinson and meet the band's first vocalist, Paul DiAnno. His songs are substantially more punkish and bass-centered, and can be brief and punchy ("Wrathchild") or epic but fast and hard ("Phantom of the Opera). And then, at the end, Dickinson comes back yet again in order to do some songs in a live context. Given that Maiden has a few hundred live albums, this makes sense. But why is Dickinson singing DiAnno-era tracks? Oh well.
And thus the journey is complete. We went from the patchy 90s and 00s and plunged headfirst into the cream of the crop of the band's 80s days only to finish with some solid live tracks. The listener gets a fine idea of the directions that Maiden took over the years. The early days were more frantic, the late 80s were a bit proggy and after that, quality could vary vastly. The reverse chronological order isn't too effective, but at least it prevents you from seeing a steep decline over the years.
All in all, however, this collection does its job at painting a picture of a band that has received much fanfare from metal fans. If you want to see what they're all about, this is a great place to start.
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