Best studio album by Iron Maiden?

[M'Sharak]

I like Dickinson as a personality though, he is always very witty and listenable on hs radio show and he plays great music..

Yeah, I've heard quite a lot that he's a great guy; I just never liked his voice that much.

I think part of it may have been that I sort of burned out on the high-voiced metal singer thing, because everyone from Judas Priest and Scorpion on down was doing it by the time Dickinson joined Iron Maiden -- it came as a great relief to me when singers with lower voices became "cool" again.

 

[blueone]

My favourites are The Number of the Beast, Powerslave, Brave New World and A Matter of Life and Death.

 

[I am not Spock]

Bruce has a good voice, but also what Ronnie james Dio describes as heat. Some singers lose their heat he once said in an interview, ( perhaps in reference to Ian Gillan? Not sure, twas long ago). He can throw down great show, & sing with the best of em as well. Some guys are great singers, but statues on stage, & some the other way round, good performers, crap singers. Bruce is both.

Arguably Maiden's greatest weak point was also their strength. Particularly their sounding same-ish. But if they changed their sound & style, they would have been written off as sell outs & all that. The people that buy their records like what they do, so why change it?

Motorhead once tried a change with Another Perfect day with disastrous results, Some bands get away with it, Rainbow sort of with Joe Lynn Turner, Street of Dreams, & Stone Cold era. But they also got a lot of heat for that.

Zeppelin the one band that could do almost anything & it would go over like diamonds, Beatles too I suppose.

You're right. Maiden's greatest strength is also unfortunately their greatest weakness. They can never change their signature sound without being accused of being sell-outs. The fans love the sound and the image that they already have, so if it ain't broke, don't fix it. 'A Matter of Life and Death' was a good return to form, but it even so had a whiff of 'been there, done that' about it. I still love it, though.

Led Zep could, and did, get away with just about anything. They put reggae and funk songs on their records, for god's sake!

I must apologise, I'm a relative newcomer to Maiden (only got into them about a year ago). Did the band catch any flak in the press, at the time, for releasing heavily synth driven albums (Somewhere in Time and Seventh Son) and daring to experiment?