Iron Maiden fans are some of the most dedicated, yet outspoken, fans in the world. Put two Iron Maiden fans in a room over a few beers and you can dispute and agree over the sheer awesomeness of the band. You can also dispute and agree over some of the absolutely ridiculous things that they have done over the years. Whether it’s picking a sub par replacement for the greatest metal singer in the world or releasing the same single umpteen million times, Iron Maiden is not a perfect band. I recently took some time to chat with my best buddy and Heavy Metal Lunch co-conspirator Jammin’ Jaymz about some of the things that show just why Iron Maiden isn’t perfect. They aren’t perfect and that’s ok. It doesn’t make us love them any less. Here are our top 11 Reasons Iron Maiden Isn’t Perfect.
11. Dropping the Ball on the 1998 Remasters
Fans quibble about sound issues on the 1998 remasters, but for me it’s the quality control and overall execution that gets my blood boiling. In every single one of the booklets for these albums, there are mistakes including pictures that were not from that album/tour or even lineup! On the Powerslave remaster, the spooky heartbeat/laughter intro was tacked on to the end of Back in the Village. Both of these are major quality control issues and the band should’ve never let them out with the numerous mistakes.
Additionally, the ’98 remasters were the perfect opportunity to have all of the B-sides and rare tracks out there and available. We did get Total Eclipse as a bonus track on Number of the Beast, but that was all. They could have and should have put every single B-side and rarity on these albums. The albums are all 40-50 minutes long, so there was plenty of time. Worst case, you make it a double CD (the debut, Seventh Son, Fear of the Dark, X Factor). Even though the band released the “best of the B-sides” disc in 2002, there are still a lot of tracks that haven’t seen the light of day since their original release. It would’ve been great to have the Live +1 tracks on the debut and the full Maiden Japan EP tacked on to Killers, for example.
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10. Releasing Multiple Versions of the Same Single
Speaking of the band’s singles, I really hate that there are nearly always multiple formats per single. When the band releases a new single, they like to say that it’s in “true Maiden style”, which is code for ripping off the fans. It’s insulting for them to have multiple versions of the single, each with a different B-side. Guys, you are not doing something special for your most dedicated fans, you’re ripping them off. The only people that buy Maiden singles are hard core fans. Casual Maiden fans don’t buy singles! If the band wanted to show that they really do care for their fans, they’d have all of the songs available for download from their website. People will happily pay $.99 for a rare track directly from the source.
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9. Lack of Archival Releases
Maiden could make an absolute killing by releasing archival live shows. Maiden boots are some of the most popular out there so there’s definitely an audience for this stuff. My idea? Release a show from every single tour, including the Paul and Blaze years. Have the shows be download only with minimal artwork. Charge $5 or maybe $10 and let the fans download them. Many other bands do this and it works beautifully. Fans get what they want (more live shows) and the money doesn’t go to bootleggers. Hell, release some video too since I know that Steve has nearly every single show recorded on both formats for his personal archive.
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8. Not properly mastering A Matter of Life and Death
So when you’ve pretty much made a masterpiece of an album after a few bouts with inconsistency, wouldn’t you think that you would want it to absolutely blow people’s minds and sound absolutely amazing? Well, not good ol’ ‘arry. He was totally content in the final mix of the album and tells Kevin Shirley, “Let’s not even master it. Just release it as it is.” The end result is an album that sounds like you are listening to it under water, with ear plugs in. This was pretty much Iron Maiden’s redemption album and instead of coming in with a bang it was more like a dull thud. The album is actually really an amazing record but in my opinion (and of many others I may add) it’s pretty much unlistenable. There’s a great bootleg floating around of Iron Maiden performing AMOLAD in its entirety live and it actually sounds far better than the album itself. The few AMOLAD tracks that ended up on the From Fear to Eternity compilation were mastered and they sound much better thus proving our point.
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7. Letting Derek Riggs Get Away and Giving Eddie That Awful Facelift
The man who gave the world some of the most iconic, badass album artwork of all time is working for your band and you let him get away. By heavy handing him and pulling him in a million different directions and stifling his vision Riggs pretty much was done and washing his hands of you guys. I mean, don’t get me wrong. Riggs is a prima donna as is ‘arry and the 7th Maiden member Rod Smallwood. I’m sure the three of them in a room together is enough to make you want to jump off a cliff but all in all, Riggs never did you wrong until he submitted a cover art idea for Fear of the Dark. The band (ie. ‘arry and Smallwood) didn’t like it and instead of working with Riggs to make sure there was a unified vision, they chose to go with another artist leading to one of the absolute worst album covers of their career next to Dance of Death. Not since Seventh Son has there been an “Eddie” that truly made an impact in the cover art. It’s almost as if Eddie retired in ’88 and has since been replaced by a bunch of lookalike cousins. Either way, it was a piece of Maiden history that went away sadly.
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6. Iron Maiden Hates The US?
The last full on US tour that Maiden did was the ever so sad X-Factour with Blaze “The Clown” Bayley. My guess is that Maiden was bummed at the lack of support and their dwindling success here in the states that they pretty much said to hell with us. When Bruce returned in 1999, the band would tour the states again doing a handful of major markets. This was a real bummer because there were so many Iron Maiden fans who couldn’t wait to see them again. For years, the closest Southeast shows were in DC/Virginia. I felt that this really alienated a lot of their US fans and while seeing them tour the states in full in 2012 was worth the wait, I would’ve really like to have seen some of those other great tours that they never gave a majority of the US an opportunity to see. Better late than never I guess you could say.
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5. The Setlists and the Lack of Elements of Surprise
Iron Maiden’s live set lists have always been somewhat of a thorn in the side of Maiden fans. I know that we are a hard bunch to please but c’mon guys. We’ve heard “Run to the Hills”, “The Trooper” and “Can I Play with Madness” more times than I can imagine and in all honesty, I wouldn’t hate them if they dropped those. The set lists never really contain any “deep” cuts or surprises. The order of the songs is about the only thing that is unpredictable about their set lists. They’ve done some cool things like the retro tours, the Early Days tour, etc and those were really awesome. Why not do a deep cuts tour. Play really obscure album cuts like, “Judas Be My Guide”, “Back in the Village”, and a bunch of B-Sides. Scale it down and make just a music based tour. These are the kinds of things that I, as a diehard fan of Maiden, would love to see and would pay top dollar to see. Regardless, I will always go see an Iron Maiden show and love it for all that it is but I also know that I will never really have that element of absolute shock when they play a song that I wasn’t expecting. Ok, I take that back. It happened on this last Maiden England tour when they pulled out “Afraid To Shoot Strangers” which blew my mind. See? They totally are capable of doing this and I think they should do it way more often and on a much grander scale.
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4. Letting Adrian Smith Get Away
Immediately following the completion of the Seventh Son tour in 1989, Adrian Smith hooked up with some of his friends and recorded his solo album, Silver and Gold. On the heels of that, the band was scheduled to go back in the studio and record their next album, what turned out to be No Prayer for the Dying. Adrian was clearly burnt out and told the band this. Instead of helping out their longtime friend and bandmate, they decided that they had to push on through and stay on schedule, no matter what. I’m sorry, the band was recording No Prayer at Steve Harris’ barn! They could’ve easily waited a few more months for Adrian to sort himself out. In the end, Adrian couldn’t make the decision to quit the band, so the rest of them made his decision for him and let him go.
Again, I don’t care about business decisions and timelines and that stuff, this is your friend. Work through it, give him time. I think it’s a poor move to get rid of the 2nd most prolific songwriter in the band. His absence left a huge void and it’s obvious how much his songs were missed on the 4 albums the band did while he was out. Thankfully, Bruce demanded that Adrian be brought back in with him.
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3. Raising Hell. Going out with a dull thud.
Probably one of the saddest moments in Iron Maiden history was seeing Bruce Dickinson leave Iron Maiden. What was even more sad was seeing him on this horrendous final performance. There are so many ways this could have worked. Maybe stage a huge show at Hammersmith or Earl’s Court? Rehearse hard, play hard, and go out with a bang? Nah, not Iron Maiden. Instead, ‘arry and company hold the final performance on a soundstage. Yeah, I know right? And to top it all off, they have little magic performances from “legendary” illusionist Simon Drake and by legendary they mean lame as hell. Between the shitty “magic” and the lackluster performance of the band, I literally remember thinking at the time, “Wow, I’m glad THAT’S over.” It was a terrible idea and a terrible performance and something that I’m glad they’ve been able to redeem themselves for over the years.
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2. Janick Gers. I love the guy but is he really necessary?
I have to be honest. I love Janick. I think he’s a really cool guy and he was there for the band when Adrian Smith bowed out. I’m not crazy about his sloppy playing over the years but again, he was necessary to keep the band going when they needed him. When Bruce Dickinson and Adrian Smith returned to the fold in 1999, it was decided that Gers would stay and the band would be a three guitar monster. But why? I mean, even now watching this line up on stage, Gers is the odd man out. He is the least capable of playing the parts with any kind of class or style. The man has a style of his own and I actually like. I like his work with Bruce and I like his stuff with Gillan. I don’t even mind some of the Murray/Gers work but this three guitar line up just doesn’t seem necessary. Maybe they can start using Gers in the giant Eddie suit and keep him employed that way.
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1. Replacing Bruce Dickinson with Blaze Bayley
When you look at Maiden’s career, there’s one thing that sticks out above others as a “WTF?!?!” moment and that’s the hiring of Blaze Bayley as lead singer. I understand that they had to replace Bruce with *somebody*, but they really messed up. Blaze’s former band, Wolfsbane, had toured with Maiden a few years prior so they knew him. You’d think that seeing that doofus play every night they’d have an idea of what he could and couldn’t do. There are 3 major strikes against Blaze – he can’t sing very well and has an extremely limited range, he can’t write a good song and his stage presence is no better than somebody from a club band. This, funnily enough, is what Maiden became when they hired him.
The replacement for Bruce Dickinson didn’t have to be a clone and I had no problem with someone coming in who had a completely different voice and singing style. My issue with Blaze’s voice in Maiden is that he doesn’t have a big vocal range and he sounded bad singing those songs. He simply was unable to properly sing the songs. The band did him no favors by keeping the songs in the same key. Those songs and vocal melodies were written with Bruce Dickinson’s voice in mind, so anyone coming into the band had to at least be able to hit those notes. Blaze couldn’t.
Look at all of the songs Blaze helped write and you see a huge drop-off in quality from the other writers in the band. You want examples; check out Man on the Edge and 2am. Blaze wrote those lyrics and they’re god awful. “Now he can’t even give birthday presents!!” Also, Virus is a truly awful song and should’ve never seen the light of day. The video is even worse.
Finally, his stage presence was laughable. He frequently played air guitar while the other guys were doing their thing. This was supposed to be a professional band, not some high school band. Here’s a big sticking point for me in this whole mess – Maiden went through a LENGTHY audition process and Blaze was the best one they could come up with!
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