An Iron Maiden Collection

This page is a collection of what I have to say about Iron Maiden together with some related pictures and sounds that I've collected.

There's another enterprising fellow who has also put together an Iron Maiden Web page. That page has a lot of other stuff that you'll probably be interested in if you're looking at this. So, if you haven't already, check out The Iron Maiden Information Network .

Most of the images on this page were downloaded by anonymous ftp from ftp.cs.uwp.edu. However, I just got access to a nicer color scanner than the one used for these, so I'm going to gradually rescan most of these images. At that time I also plan to make them available for downloading from this page.

First off, I've been a Maiden fan for about 7 years now. I first started listening to them in high school pretty close to the time when Seventh Son Of A Seventh Son came out. This isn't to say that Seventh Son is the first album I listened to. I first got into Maiden listening to Number Of The Beast.

How about the earlier stuff? Well, Killers is a great album. The first, self-titled album, was excellent, too. But Killers was a big step in the direction that Iron Maiden was heading in the albums after that.

Piece Of Mind is another Iron Maiden classic. The second through fifth tracks on this album have gone on to become the songs that Iron Maiden almost has to play at their concerts.

What do I think is the best Iron Maiden album ever recorded? It seems that every Maiden fan I've talked to has asked me this. I'd have to say that hands down, Live After Death is their best album. I'd also say it's the best live metal album I've ever heard.

Okay, so that's their best Live album, but what's the best studio album they put out? Well, that's a tougher one. Like I said, The Number Of The Beast was the first one I got into, and I still think it's among their greatest albums.

Musically, I'd say that Somewhere In Time might be the best. But, Powerslave is right up there, too, and Powerslave has more energy than Somewhere In Time. I think the band peaked between those two albums at any rate.

Now, Seventh Son is a different story altogether. I consider it to still be within the time that Iron Maiden was riding high and producing some great music. I found the whole idea of a "theme" album pretty cool, and I think the music was still great.

The next two studio albums, though, weren't quite the same caliber. Once they lost Adrian Smith, they started moving in a different direction. In concert during the No Prayer tour, Bruce Dickinson said that for a while Iron Maiden was using lots of flashy stuff. They had all of these themes for their albums and concerts. There were pyrotechnics and big statues, robots, etc.. He said that now they were getting back to their roots as a band. And that's somewhat true. The music on the last two studio albums is more like the older stuff. It's still great stuff, but it was difficult for a lot of Maiden fans to see the music as being as good as the older stuff.

How about Maiden's future? Well, as far as I know the new album is almost done. The new lead singer is a guy named Blaze Bailey. He's the former lead singer from a band called Wolfsbane. I haven't heard any of their stuff yet, so I don't have an opinion about him. Hopefully, we'll all see soon, though the new album seems to be getting continually delayed.

Here's Blaze.

Bruce Dickinson is most likely prepping for his "Balls To Picasso" tour. Next time I write I think I'm going to branch this page into two different directions. I like what Bruce has done with his second solo attempt, so I think it might be time to create some more pages dedicated to him. It's also long past time to put in some stuff about the last two live albums. I don't have "Live At Donnington", but I do have "A Real Live One" and "A Real Dead One", so I'll say a thing or two about those when I get a chance.

Well, I've been doing a little work, and my Bruce dickinson stuff is on-line now. This is just the beginning, though, no pictures, sound clips or other goodies, and the "Tattoed Millionaire" page isn't up yet. If you can't wait, though, click here to get a preview of what the Bruce pages will be like.

Oh, yeah, here are the boys in the band, by the way. Or at least the band as it used to be during the prime years of Iron Maiden. Left to right this is Adrian Smith, Dave Murray, Bruce Dickinson, Steve Harris, and Nicko McBrain.

Up The Irons!

Or, alternatively, to metaverse.com ( Adam Curry's Home Pages )

Perhaps to the Tufts Computer Science Home Page?