(1996)
It's a best of album
2. Can I play With Madness (Smith/Dickinson/Harris)
3. Fear of the Dark (Live) (Harris)
4. Run to the Hills (Harris)
5. Bring Your Daughter... To the Slaughter (Dickinson)
6. The Evil That Men Do (Smith/Dickinson/Harris)
7. Aces High (Harris)
8. Be Quick or Be Dead (Dickinson/Gers)
9. 2 Minutes to Midnight (Smith/Dickinson)
10. Man on the Edge (Bayley/Gers)
11. Virus (Harris/Gers/Murray/Bayley)
12. Running Free (Live) (Harris/Di'Anno)
13. Wasted Years (Smith)
14. The Clairvoyant (Harris)
15. The Trooper (Harris)
16. Hallowed Be Thy Name (Harris)
So I'll talk about these songs. First of all, is the new song Virus. Unusually, it sports a songwriting credit from everyone except Nicko. It's a pretty good song (video is a pile of piss though), which I believe is aimed at the media and fans who turned their back on the band when Blaze took over vocal duties. The lyrics certainly seem to suggest something of that sort, at least; probably would have been interesting to see the atmosphere when this song was first released (it was released on its own as a single as well, in case you didn't know). Anyway, it's a nice enough song. Nothing spectacular.
Then there's a version of Afraid to Shoot Strangers recorded with Blaze which is fuckign excellent. Better than Bruce performs the song, Blaze puts loads of effort into this song, which goes some way to showing his politcal views (or ethical, as we're talking war here). Again, the song is excellent, especially as it's unlike most war songs in that it describes a soldier on his way to war.
There's a edited version of Running Free from Live After Death, without the crowd interaction cut. The song is actually from the video release of the concert in the Long Beach Arena, which is rather nice.
Then there's the original Maiden recordings from the Soundhouse Tapes, which is nice. as you'd expect, they're very raw. The highlight is a song called Invasion, which is an early version of Invaders. Prowler is also much slower than the recording on the debut album.
Lastly - and I'm just going by the single Cd version here - is that all the songs are the pre-remasters. So it's a taster for anyne (like me) who has only heard the '98 or '02 remasters. Wasted Years in particular is exceptional.
And that's about all I can say. A nice intro for someone who's never heard the album, but otherwise I recommend buying it off a mate for a fiver. Or eBay. Whatever,