So I guess it’s not too hard to come across information about the new Iron Maiden ‘best of’ called From Fear To Eternity, so I’ll post a couple of links to the news, and add comments below that.

http://www.ironmaiden.com/index.php?categoryid=8&p2_articleid=1331

http://www.ironmaiden.com/index.php?categoryid=8&p2_articleid=1332

It seems reasonable that it would be impossible to keep this to one disc, without just picking the singles & other short tracks. Maiden are known for their epics so this way they get to include the likes of Paschendale and several others.

Maybe I’ll take this album by album…

No Prayer For The Dying – 3 predictable selections. I think this stuff will sound out of place against the rest of the material. Short tracks with Bruce doing his quasi-growly thing. None of the actually good tracks from this album are represented – e.g. Public Enema #1, Run Silent Run Deep, and No Prayer For The Dying are nowhere to be seen.

Fear Of The Dark – 3 predictable selections but it’s hard to argue against them because while I like most of this album, nothing else surpases these tracks.  Thank goodness they didn’t include the awful From Here To Eternity, so credit for that.

X Factor and Virtual XI – Ignored and perhaps rightfully so, with only 2 tracks and 1 track respectively. These are all live versions – and it seems that like the Somewhere Back In Time compilation, and the single disc version of Best Of The Beast, Dickinson is the only vocalist on show.  However I’m not sure where the live version of Man On The Edge is lifted from if it is with Bruce on vocals.

Brave New World – Sadly only 3 selections from what is still their best since Dickinson’s return. All on the first disc for some reason. The most obvious missing track is Ghost Of The Navigator.

Dance Of Death – 4 selections from an overrated album. I can’t justify the inclusion of the pedestrian and latter-day-Maiden-by-numbers track No More Lies especially at the expense of something else from Brave New World as mentioned above.  Credit that they didn’t include Wildest Dreams though, that’s not one of their best singles.

A Matter Of Life And Death – 4 selections from a great album. Can’t really go too far wrong with anything from this album. Interesting that Brighter Than A Thousand Suns is not included as it was originally hyped as the Paschendale of this album. I wonder how they settled with For The Greater God Of God as the epic length selection, not that I’m complaining.

Final Frontier – With Maiden being less about singles thesedays I guess it’s hard to choose what to include. The most surprising thing is not including Final Frontier itself – seemed an obvious inclusion minus the long intro. El Dorado was always going to be chosen I guess. But Coming Home and Where The Wild Wind Blows making it onto the compilation ahead of the likes of Isle Of Avalon and The Alchemist, hmm I dunno about that.

I guess I’ll get the 3 disc picture vinyl version right away as I collect Maiden stuff, and in due course I’ll probably pick up a cheap version of the CD version just for completeness purposes.