2. Iron MaidenSomewhere In Time
Maybe Maiden was never underappreciated! You know what though, I bet in 1979, way back when they first started, there were probably a lot of people who thought they were shit and then at some point claimed they’d loved Iron Maiden since day one. Every band goes through that. I was a massive Maiden fan. All the way through the ’80s, the whole decade, I could safely say Maiden was my favourite band. They had never ever let me down. Every time they put out a record, I was fucking all over it, and I saw every tour. You could pick any year from the ’80s and I would somehow fit a Maiden record into the list because they were my gods.

If you look at the transition they made from Piece Of Mind to Powerslave, where the songwriting really started to change a little bit, the longer songs started to come in, and then they get to Somewhere In Time. This is the transition record where they went from the Maiden of the ’80s to the Maiden that would go into the ’90s and the 2000s, with much more epic, longer songs. Granted, ‘Rime Of The Ancient Mariner’ was before this, but I still always looked at Somewhere In Time as a transitional record, going into Seventh Son Of A Seventh Son and all the records that came after that, even all the way up to now. The new Maiden record, I think, exists because of Somewhere In Time. I think the underrated track is ‘The Loneliness Of The Long Distance Runner’. It’s one of my favourite Maiden songs. I don’t know if they ever play it live. I love that song.
