Iron Maiden - Fear of the Dark

So it had been a few years since I last listened to Fear of the Dark and today I decided to finally give it another spin. I'm glad I did too, because this album smokes! Aside from tracks 9 - 11 (they are still good songs), the rest of the album is easily as good as their 80's output. Possibly even better, IMO. I honestly can't understand why people think it sucks.

Does anyone else think Fear of the Dark is underrated?

I too, haven't heard it in a while, but the songs that stand out are really good.

Judas Be My Guide


Afraid to Shoot Strangers


Fear of the Dark


Fear is the Key


All of these songs are just as good as the 80's material, IMO. But Wasting Love, The Apparition, and a few other tracks don't hold up as well.

FEAR of the DARK is definitely a lot better than any of those Prog-era Maiden albums IMO, with more than half of the songs I can consider as memorable and only a couple of bad apples

Here's my list if I were to Rank them accordingly (with Bruce on Vocals Only minus the Prog albums)

Piece Of Mind
Powerslave
TNOTB
Seventh Son
Fear Of The Dark
Brave New World
Somewhere in Time
No Prayer For The Dying

I consider the album artwork to be the best in their catalog. The title song and Afraid to Shoot Strangers are awesome songs. I like Wasting Love, From Here to Eternity, Judas Be My Guide, The Fugitive, Fear is the Key, Childhood's End and Be Quick or Be Dead.

Well, good album which I have always liked a lot.

EmoElmo wrote:

FEAR of the DARK is definitely a lot better than any of those Prog-era Maiden albums IMO

SOOOOOOOOOO RIIIIIGHT!

Hugely underrated. Unfortunately it came on the heels of No Prayer, and still retained some stylistic changes from that period. For my money, it's a decent album with some truly great tracks (Be Quick or Be Dead, Fear of the Dark, From Here to Eternity, Afraid to Shoot Strangers) but overall it tends to fall flat as a complete album. Part of that is due to the fact that it was the first Maiden album to be released on CD and was their longest to date, running over 60 minutes and included 12 tracks, so some mediocre filler songs made it onto the album unfortunately.

meh, it's decent. i prefer No Prayer for the Dying though. i'm in the minority of course.

EmoElmo wrote:

Here's my list if I were to Rank them accordingly (with Bruce on Vocals Only minus the Prog albums)

Piece Of Mind
Powerslave
TNOTB
Seventh Son
Fear Of The Dark
Brave New World
Somewhere in Time
No Prayer For The Dying

Yeah, No Prayer is near the bottom of the list for me too when it comes to the Bruce-era albums. Aside from Holy Smoke and Mother Russia, it's not a strong effort. I still like it though.

My ranking:

1. A Matter of Life and Death
2. The Final Frontier
3. Dance of Death
4. Brave New World
5. Fear of the Dark
6. Seventh Son of a Seventh Son
7. Powerslave
8. The Number of the Beast
9. Piece of Mind
10. No Prayer for the Dying
11. Somewhere in Time
12. Iron Maiden
13. Killers
...
48. Virtual XI
...
735. The X Factor

sh*t... Somewhere in Time is my fave Maiden album. is it really that hated?

It's an "okay" album, some really good songs (Childhood's End, Afraid To Shoot Strangers) mixed in with some predictable "let's try and stay current" tracks (Be Quick or Be Dead, From Here To Eternity).

It has always sounded to me like an album recorded by a group that was having some identity issues entering the new decade. Not a bad album, but a tad schizophrenic.

mc666 wrote:

sh*t... Somewhere in Time is my fave Maiden album. is it really that hated?

Only by people who aren't listening, at least that's my theory. It's one of my very favorite Maiden albums as well.

mc666 wrote:

sh*t... Somewhere in Time is my fave Maiden album. is it really that hated?

I don't hate it, I just think it's missing something special that the other albums have. I remember the production sounding rather dated. It's been a while since I listened to it though, so I could be wrong.

I love fear of the dark, think its an excellent album.

It will always be amongst my favourites due in part to the fact it helped me actually become a maiden fan! I was around 14/15 years old when I got into metal. Started off with guns n roses and was a massive fan until a mate at school gave me an old c90 cassette and said to take that home and listen to it. It was a copy of seventh son of a seventh son. I was blown away when I heard it, yet I had no idea who it was lol. Next day at school I'm like "who was that band I loved them". When he said it was iron maiden I was bowled over. Never thought I'd ever really enjoy heavy metal and all I remembered of them was a crappy video that was played on top of the pops for bring your daughter to the slaughter.

Anyway I got some recommendations off my mate and immediately rushed into town on the Saturday and used all my paper round money to buy some Maiden albums. Picked up piece of mind and number of the beast. My mate sold me a cassette of no prayer for the dying which was their current album. From that minute I was hooked and sought all their albums out and couldn't wait for fear of the dark as it was their first brand new release I picked up. Bought all the singles off that album too. Still own them and have a nice rate vinyl picture disc of fear of the dark (live) which is very limited as it had an error and of the extra tracks on the single is not what it should have been. Can't remember what song is on the vinyl but I know it was quickly corrected and only a couple hundred were released before they fixed the error.

Up the irons

S.D. wrote:

It has always sounded to me like an album recorded by a group that was having some identity issues entering the new decade. Not a bad album, but a tad schizophrenic.

It was recorded/released during the Grunge Explosion where 95 percent of them kids were into STP, Nivarna and AiC, had they chose the Old Maiden Sound they would've gotten Slaughtered quite badly

Ask KREATOR

mc666 wrote:

sh*t... Somewhere in Time is my fave Maiden album. is it really that hated?

My favorite as well.

The best MAIDEN album IMO

Somewhere in Time is what got me into Maiden.

Somewhere In Time is my favorite, and its the one without filler. IMO, every classic Maiden has a couple of meh tracks.
FOTD contains even more . Can't say it is great, but there is Judas Be My Guide, so the album is tolerable.

The title track is a great song, and be quick or be dead is one hell of a speed metal song.

Not my favorite Maiden by a long shot, but it has a few classics and a few very good songs. I agree with the observation that it sounds like the band was going through an identity issue at the time, they were obviously experimenting a bit and some of the results work less well than others. "Be Quick or Be Dead," "Afraid to Shoot Strangers" and "Fear of the Dark" are all solid tracks, and I really like "Wasting Love" nowadays (I used to hate it, go figure) and "Judas Be My Guide" is pretty good. Not a classic but it has its moments.

And Somewhere in Time is second only to Powerslave as my favorite Maiden album ever.

EmoElmo wrote:

S.D. wrote:

It has always sounded to me like an album recorded by a group that was having some identity issues entering the new decade. Not a bad album, but a tad schizophrenic.

It was recorded/released during the Grunge Explosion where 95 percent of them kids were into STP, Nivarna and AiC, had they chose the Old Maiden Sound they would've gotten Slaughtered quite badly

Ask KREATOR

To be fair, they didn't even remotely sound like those bands.I hear more of an AC/DC-ish hard rock influence mixed with some prog, but the classic sound is still quite present IMHO.

It's not as strong as their 80s work of course, but I still think's great. Judas Be My Guide is a great song. I think some were just disappointed as Fear of the Dark was in a more hard rock vein than their previous albums. It's certainly better than the two albums that followed and I like it more than the last three they've done. I think Brave New World is a great album, but they've bored me since with overly long songs.

I never got warm with Fear of the Dark. I really love the titelsong, though I prefer the live versions, and Judas be my Guide. The whole rest never convinced me.

@Somewhere in Time: It's amongst my all time favorites. But it's only second to the Seventh Son, imo, which is the best record Maiden ever did. The only record I would rank in front of the Seventh Son is Back in Black, which represents pure perfection.

Leatherface wrote:

Somewhere in Time is what got me into Maiden.

I got into Maiden with Powerslave, but Somewhere in Time cemented me as a big fan. I love Somewhere in Time.

S.D. wrote:

It's an "okay" album, some really good songs (Childhood's End, Afraid To Shoot Strangers) mixed in with some predictable "let's try and stay current" tracks (Be Quick or Be Dead, From Here To Eternity).

It has always sounded to me like an album recorded by a group that was having some identity issues entering the new decade. Not a bad album, but a tad schizophrenic.

I have to agree with this, also does not help that Bruce Dickinson was already eyeing the exit door during the making of this album, but it was an improvement over 'No Prayer for the Dying' and better then the two Blaze albums. I like the album now but when I first purchased it I was very disappointed, but I think they made a nice recovery with 'Brave New World' and love their prog metal direction their music has taken.