Iron Maiden albums ranked
The second of two albums featuring Blaze Bayley as the band's singer. Virtual XI is just not a good album, plain and simple. Even its two singles "The Angel and the Gambler" and "Futureal" I never cared for. But it does have one salvageable song: "The Clansmen". It sounds better live with Bruce Dickinson singing it, but it's still pretty good! Even at their worst, Iron Maiden could deliver at least one solid track. Thankfully, this was the last poor album Iron Maiden have released to date, as after this, they'd bounce back as a sextet and have been releasing nothing but quality music since.
Highlight: "The Clansmen"
The first album with Janick Gers who replaced Adrian Smith following his departure. No Prayer for The Dyіng sees the band go back to basics, dropping the complexity from Seventh Son of a Seventh Son in favor of a more simplistic style akin to their earlier music. Maybe that was a mistake because it doesn't come anywhere close to their early albums. Apart from a few decent songs, it's rather mediocre. The two singles are okay, but my favorite is "Fates Warning" which I feel comes closest to recapturing the essence of Maiden's glory years. This band has few bad records, especially with Bruce Dickinson, but this is definitely one of them.
Highlights: "Fates Warning", "Holy Smoke", "Bring Your Dаughter...To the Slаughter"
The first album featuring Blaze Bayley who replaced Bruce Dickinson after his departure. Now, I don't want to be too hard on Bayley. He's not a bad singer, he just wasn't a good fit for Iron Maiden. He lacked Dickinson's operatic soar or Paul Di'Anno's guttural edge. But on The X Factor, they do make it work for him as much as they possibly could, for whatever that's worth. It's not that bad. It actually gets off to a pretty strong start with the first three songs. "Man on the Edge" and "Sign of the Cross" I really enjoy and consider the best Blaze Maiden songs. The rest of the album is okay. It's not their worst, but it's also far from their best.
Highlights: "Man on the Edge", "Sign of the Cross", "Lord of the Flies"
The last album to feature Bruce Dickinson before he would depart to focus on his solo career. Fear of the Dark is a mixed bag of good songs and bland ones. It stands as the best of their '90s albums, which I consider their low period, but even with the handful of decent material it has, it's still one of their lesser efforts. What really set it apart from the others, though, is its title track. The song "Fear of the Dark" is excellent and an Iron Maiden essential that still gets performed live by the band to this day. Rightly so! The overall record may be inconsistent, but that title track is its true saving grace that served as a perfect swan song for Dickinson before his departure. Luckily, he'd be back by the end of the decade! And this is the last sub-par album in this ranking.
Highlights: "Fear of the Dark", "Be Quick or Be Deаd", "Wasting Love", "From Here to Eternity"
One of the band's lengthier records at over 75 minutes and arguably their most progressive-oriented. The Final Frontier was widely speculated to be the band's last since Steve Harris was once quoted saying the band would only do fifteen albums, but we all know now that that wasn't the case. This album isn't bad in any sense, but it's not their strongest either. It relies a bit too much on the progressive rock influence so prominent in their newer material to where it almost becomes the forefront. The first half of the album with the shorter songs is far better than the later half where the songs get a bit overlong, like they're long for the sake of being so. The only time I feel the lengths are justified are with the first and last songs, the spacy and surreal sorta title track and the haunting, emotional closer "When The Wild Wind Blows". A good album, but the weakest of their later ones.
Highlights: "Satellite 15... The Final Frontier", "El Dorado", "Coming Home", "When The Wild Wind Blows"
This is a case of "don't judge a book by its cover" if you've ever seen it. Dance of Deаth's album artwork is absolutely atrocious. But the album itself is pretty good! It features even more progressive and melodic elements from Brave New World, which the band flourish with excellently, making it clear that this is their new sound. It does have a few songs that are a bit meh, but it also has some great ones that are easily some of the best of the band's later years. "Rainmaker" and "No More Lies" are among them, but the best is the war-themed "Paschendale", which foreshadows this album's follow-up. It concludes with Maiden's so far only entirely acoustic track "Journeyman", where the band demonstrate they don't need electric instruments to produce a brilliantly epic song.
Highlights: "Paschendale", "Rainmaker", "No More Lies", "Journeyman", "Dance of Deаth"
The band's self-titled debut, the first of two with Paul Di'Anno and the only one with guitarist Dennis Stranton. This album immediately put Iron Maiden on the map as one of the top acts of the New Wave of British Heavy Metal movement and one of metal's most influential pioneers. It played an integral role in setting a new standard for heavy metal music by adding speedy, aggressive elements from punk rock (even if Steve Harris vehemently denies it to this day.) There isn't a whole lot of the band's signature melody they'd become famous for, but they still managed to demonstrate the technical marvels they are, especially with its best song "Phantom of the Opera". Despite its position on this list, it's still a strong start for the group I recommend listening to. They'd just go on to surpass it many times over with the records that came after it.
Highlights: "Phantom of the Opera", "Iron Maiden", "Running Free", "Transylvania"
After releasing three consecutive albums that were huge critical and commercial successes, Iron Maiden were finally feeling the pressure to follow-up with yet another! But the band were left burnt out from touring and at a loss on what to do next. Their ultimate solution? To change up their sound. The end result of that was Somewhere in Time, which gave us a more musically diverse Iron Maiden and saw them experiment with guitar synthesizers for the first time. In all fairness, the band ultimately succeeded in delivering yet another solid record, but it's generally considered the weakest of Maiden's '80s records. Indeed, it is a slight step-down in quality, but it's better than their debut and still a very worthwhile album. Plus, it's not without it's career highlights for the band, such as "Wasted Years" and "Stranger in a Strange Land".
Highlights: "Wasted Years", "Stranger in a Strange Land", "Sea of Madness", "The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner", "Caught Somewhere in Time"
The second double album by Iron Maiden and their most recent one. Could it really be so good that it makes their top ten? Of course it can, it's Iron freaking Maiden! Just when you think they can't surpass themselves anymore, they release "The Writing On The Wall" and "Stratego" as the albums singles, which leaves everyone wanting to hear more. Sure enough, Senjutsu turned out to be a greater album than one made by a group of men in their 60's should have any right being! It features yet another abundance of ambitions and creativity that raises the question if the band will ever run out of ideas. That, if they were immortal, could they just go on forever releasing music without ever losing their consistency... It's not as a great a flex as The Book of Souls, but the band manage to demonstrate that they still very much have it. Even if Senjutsu really does become their final album this time, it'll be them going proving they still had a lot more to offer. After hearing how great it is, here's hoping that they do again!
Highlights: "The Time Machine", "The Writing On The Wall", "Senjutsu", "Hell On Earth", "Stratego", "Deаth of the Celts"
Iron Maiden's first album as a six-piece band, which saw the triumphant return of Bruce Dickinson and Adrian Smith. After a whole decade of the group on a downward slump, they reunited with two members from the band's glory years and immediately emerged back on top with Brave New World. The album almost feels like the band picking up where they left off with Seventh Son of Seventh Son, as it sees the band utilizing even more progressive rock influences and melodies, a formula they would go on to use on every album since. With it they provided us with the best album they've released since their heyday which holds up as one of their best today. Brave New World was just the career restart Iron Maiden needed, which saw them reinvigorated with a fresh new sound they've been flourishing with since. Iron Maiden were back!
Highlights: "Brave New World", "The Wicker Man", "The Mercenary", "Dream of Mirrors", "Out of the Silent Planet"
The first double album by the band, making it their longest one at a whopping 92 minutes! Whereas the length of some of the tracks on its predecessor The Final Frontier felt a bit forced, like they were long only for the sake of being long, the longer tracks on The Book of Souls feel much more natural, in a way that keeps the songs engaging from start to finish without ever feeling drawn out. Hell, some of my favorite songs from it happen to be the longest! The first half of is better than the second, but the whole album is excellent with some of the best material of the band's later years. Like The Final Frontier, this album was speculated to be Iron Maiden's last after Bruce Dickinson was diagnosed with cancerous tumors on his tongue, but we all know now that only served to delay the album's release and subsequent tour, with the band still going strong and even dishing out another album.
Highlights: "The Red and The Black", "Empire of the Clouds", "If Eternity Should Fail", "The Books of Souls", "Deаth or Glory", "Speed of Light"
Iron Maiden's closer to the '80s and the last to feature Adrian Smith until his return at the end of the following decade. Seventh Son of Seventh Son serves as a foretelling into the band's future sound by being the earliest album to feature them incorporating progressive rock elements into their music. They take the synthesizer sound first heard on Somewhere in Time and develop it even further, making for another shift in their sound, but one that works much better this time around. It has some of the most epic and complex songs the band had made at that point. It's hard to believe the band would suffer such a drastic creative downturn after this album and start releasing their worst records through the '90s, because Seventh Son of a Seventh Son was such a huge turning point in Iron Maiden's musical direction, that wouldn't get followed up on until over a decade later.
Highlights: "The Clairvoyant", "The Evil That Men Do", "Seventh Son of a Seventh Son", "The Prophecy", "Can I Play With Madness"
This was an album that was so good, they had to perform the whole damn thing in its entirety during its supporting tour! A Matter of Life and Death is one of Iron Maiden's darker and more mature releases, exploring themes of war, religion, mortality and the overall cruel state of the world we live in. It has some of the heaviest and most epic songs in the band's entire catalogue and is arguably one of their more consistently great records as well. It was this album where the band truly proved they're not just another bunch of has-beens comfortably sticking to their classics like many of their contemporaries from the '80s. That they can still make music that holds up just as well as their older music, if not even better! It was proof Iron Maiden have still got it, which they still do today!
Highlights: "For The Greater Good of God", "The Reincarnation of Benjamin Breeg", "Brighter Than a Thousand Suns", "Different World", "The Longest Day", "These Colours Don't Run"
The first album to feature the band's most prominent drummer Niko McBrain, who wastes no time in making his presence known with his machinegun-like drumming in the first few seconds of the opening track. Released right after the band's major breakthrough, Piece of Mind is another peak Iron Maiden classic. It may be best-known for the signature track "The Trooper", but it has other solid tracks that deserve plenty of attention as well like "Flight of Icarus" and the criminally overlooked "Where Eagles Dare". It somewhat loses momentum with the last three songs and consequently, doesn't hold up as well as most of the other albums released during their glory years, but it is still an Iron Maiden essential worthy of being in any fan's top ten.
Highlights: "The Trooper", "Where Eagles Dare", "Flight of Icarus", "Still Life"
The first album with Adrian Smith replacing Dennis Stranton and their last with singer Paul Di'Anno. The band's self-titled debut displayed a lot of potential for Iron Maiden and with their second album, it shows the band living up to that potential. Killers sees a significant development in Iron Maiden's sound by being much more melodic than their debut - an element that would carry over into their future albums and become a distinct part of the band's music. Di'Anno displays some versatility in his singing as well by showing he can do harmonic singing and have a high vocal range. It's almost a shame he would ultimately be fired from the band, but then there was nothing he does here that wasn't picked up on by Bruce Dickinson. At least Di'Anno left his mark in the band not only as their first singer on their albums, but one who made one of Iron Maiden's greatest.
Highlights: "Purgatory", "Wrathchild", "Killers", "The Ides of March", "Innocent Exile", "Genghis Khan"
The last with drummer Clive Burr and the first with Bruce Dickinson, who replaced Paul Di'Anno and would go on to become the band's most prominent singer. As unfortunate as Di'Anno's release from Iron Maiden was, let's be honest: when Dickinson showed up, he completely blew him out of the water with his soaring opera-esque voice! Not only that, but the band would go on to immortalize themselves as legendary with their third album The Number of the Beast. They were already soaring to the top with their first two records, but this was when Iron Maiden reached their peak with their first masterpiece. It easily has many of their greatest signature tracks like "Hallowed By Thy Name", the title track and my personal favorite Maiden song "Run to the Hills". The overall album is consistently brilliant from start to finish, rivaled only by Powerslave.
Highlights: "Run to the Hills", "The Number of the Beast", "Hallowed Be Thy Name", "Children of the Damned", "22 Acacia Avenue"
In the first album where Iron Maiden had a consistent personnel lineup from their previous album, they also produced the most consistent record they've ever done, which is the only reason I put it over The Number of the Beast. Iron Maiden have a few albums that can be considered among the best metal albums ever made, but if I personally had to pick only one of their albums, then my pick would Powerslave. It is an unrelenting onslaught of powerful melodies, energetic songs and Maiden at their finest! It starts off seething with the back-to-back classics "Aces High" and "2 Minutes to Midnight" and it never lets up from there! All the way to the nearly 14 minute epic "Rime of the Ancient Mariner" Fans are divided on which Iron Maiden album is the best above all others. I can hardly blame them since they've had a long career with many great album and very few bad ones.
Highlights: "2 Minutes to Midnight", "Rime of the Ancient Mariner", "Aces High", "Losfer Words", "Flash of the Blade", "Powerslave"
