The Eighties end,the Nineties arrive and Iron Maiden has to DEAL WITH IT!

The Eigties.A time when heavy metal music prospered,evolved and even got watered down.However in the eigties there stood one band that always dilvered a quality product:Iron Maiden.Iron Maiden,like every other band that has ever existed had a gimick,and operatic vocals and theatrical live shows were a large part of this gimick and had Maiden on the favorites list of many a teenager in the eigties.Bruce Dickinson was their vocalist,Steve Harris played his bass almost as loud as the guitar players and the Dave Murray/Adrian Smith twin guitar duo played guitar solos back and forth as well as that kid in Deliverance played his banjo,if not better.Record companys loved Maiden,fans of heavy metal loved Maiden.The members of Iron Maiden wore spandex tights on stage.All was right with the world.

Along the way many things happenned in the eigties.One thing was a new breed of heavy metal band led by some band called Metallica.Metallica had gimick no metal band before them had ever employed before:The Non-Gimick.Quickly more bands like Metallica popped up meanwhile,alternative bands were gaining ground underground and soon Nirvana,another band whos gimick was the Non-Gimick would rise forth and deliver the death knell to all but a select few metal bands,but the nineties were coming and Nirvana had not yet arrived on the scene,for now Iron Maiden had to contend with Metallica and this new "thrash" metal.

Maiden had to change with the times,but even though are very much an eighties band they were not a glam rock band,even though,they were notorious for wearing spandex.The Maiden image change would be more in line with the "thrash scene" and Iron Maiden's first ninties album was released."No Prayer For The Dying" was released in 1990 and the new look for Maiden was revealed,no longer would they wear spandex,now they wore jeans and black leather motorcycle jackets!

I must admit I enjoyed this new look for Iron Maiden,my favorite band,but something was wrong and that thing was the quality of the album "No Prayer For The Dying."Most Maiden fans agree this is one of their weaker releases,and even though,for some reason I loved this album when it came out I can barely stand to listen to it now.Bad songwriting is on the album,yes,but often Maiden could write a song with terrible lyrics and questionable music and somehow it was still cool,but not here,here something was wrong and fans could sense it.

Bruce Dickinson states to this day that album sounds terrible becuase it was recorded in Steve Harris own studio and so was their next album,"Fear Of The Dark".Many fans also think the guitar solos of the guitarist Janick Gers were way too choppy sounding and nowhere near as soulful as the recently departed Adrian Smith.

Released in 1992,this one was released at about the same time the grunge bands hit but was not written competing with them.Much better than "No Prayer" this one had some good tunes,but it also had some bad tunes and the ones that were bad were really,really bad."Weekend Warrior" and "From Here To Eternity" just didnt seem to go along with what was happenning before musically with the band.Also on these last projects Bruce Dickinson has taken on a more aggressive singing style and his operatic vocals has taken a back seat to the new grittier vocals causing many fans to think "Bruce has lost his voice!"

And then Nirvana came,and if the grunge scene was not enough of a blow to once great heavy metal bands then what happenned next certainly was,Bruce Dickinson left the band to pursue a solo career.After his departure Maiden released two new live albums("A Real Live One"/"A Real Dead One") from their last tour with Bruce,and the sound quality on these was awful and if those last two studio albums did not convince you Bruce was losing his voice THESE albums did.

Nonetheless Iron Maiden did NOT call it quits!They instead got a new vocalist Blaze Bayley,and released their next album "The X-Factor".Some fans could accept this new vocalist but the majority could not and Iron Maiden was fast becoming a shadow of their former selves.I think Blaze was a good vocalist but no where near as good as Bruce,but had Steve Harris not produced the last few albums himself I think the Blaze Bayley albums would have sounded a lot better and I think Bruce Dickinson agrees with me as he often stated one of his conditions to rejoin Maiden would have to be a new producer.

Maiden did a second album with Blaze Bayley called "Virtual 11" which is about the lamest name for an album I've ever heard and on this album Maiden thought repeating a chorus line on two of the songs 30 times plus would be a good idea.Again bad production and not-as-good-as-Bruce vocals was there,but there was hope for fans as Bruce Dickinsons solo career had finally turned out some quality metal records."Accident of Birth" and "The Chemical Wedding" provided many metal fans with thier dose of the classic Maiden sound with then modern production,but I'll write more about Bruce Dickinsons solo career in a future article.

Finally in the year 2000 Dickinson and Smith rejoined Maiden and they made "Brave New World" to the satisfaction of many fans,but remember when you're looking for quality Iron Maiden records,make sure you pick up something from the eigties or beyond the nineties!Some fans quite like those ninties projects of thiers so you too,might want to check them out and see if they are to your liking,but the chances are not good,but lets not dwell on the bad,lets remember Maidens classic eigties material and see what they come out with next!

-PezHeadEdd