LOL @ Brian catching the ommission of the word "other".
It was less the omission of "other" than the omission of emphasis on the word **ANY**. I think. Yeah. It makes more sense in conversation. Really. Or, maybe I just regard 'The X Factor' as the TRUE Iron Maiden, with all the rest just being an Angel Witch cover band not even worthy of the name "Iron Maiden".
Neil, have you actually given their mid 80's output enough of a chance (circa 1983 - 1987)? Given your uh...musical era leanings, are your irrational subjectivities precluding you from enjoying albums regarded as undeniable classics?
"Albums regarded as undeniable classics" can eat my ass. It's already been well-established that my tastes are fucked up relative to most of metal fandom, so we don't line up that much on the "undeniable classic" chart. Certainly the status of something as a UC will usually make me check it out when I might not otherwise, but it doesn't increase my chance of agreeing with the conventional wisdom. Also, I don't give any extra points to bands for being "the originators". Well, intellectually I probably give them more points, but not emotionally, and since I listen to music emotionally, those points are useless. So later bands who come along and do something similar have just as good a shot of reaching the top of my list as earlier bands.
So yeah, I'm pretty sure I'm well past the point where the "classic" Maiden will ever have a chance of completely winning me over. Really, I probably passed that point when I turned 16, when a few years of hearing Maiden non-stop through my older brother still wasn't enough to get me fully on board. If it doesn't happen at that point in your life, it's probably never gonna happen! Don't get me wrong, all those albums are really good, and I definitely respect them, and if a friend pops in 'Piece of Mind' while we're driving somewhere, I'll be headbanging down the road right along with him. But there are lots of albums that would produce that same effect.
There aren't any albums I know of that produce the same effect as 'The X Factor'. It's something that hits me emotionally quite unlike any other Iron Maiden album. And that's what elevates it above all the rest. It's really a completely different type of songwriting, that I first fell in love with when Steve Harris introduced it on 'Fear of the Dark' with "Afraid to Shoot Strangers" and "Fear of the Dark". 6-7 minute songs with long, slow buildups, and even heavily-repeated lyrics. Basically I liked the exact things that everyone else hates. Thankfully, Steve sided with me on this one, and for the next album, he released an entire album of songs like that (excepting "Lord of the Flies" and "Man on the Edge", which I can do without). The style brings it aesthetically closer to the "dark metal" or even some black metal that we like around here so much, and pulls it farther away from the "yeah, this rocks!!!" style of heavy metal that made them famous.
So maybe my "omission" from the start was actually correct....I don't see 'The X Factor' as an Iron Maiden album after all, at least not in the way that other people see Iron Maiden.
Neil
