Deleting BEST OF THE BEAST was a big mistake.

[DREAMASTER]

Today many bands that are active for a long time and with many albums and have never released a Best Of or a Greatest Hits, always release a double compilation.
Well, Maiden did the right thing when in 1996 they released Best Of The Best as a double compilation, coz many songs that were hits in the charts or were hits as live songs are as other cool stuff.
Let me tell for the ppl that have never saw the 2CD version(normal version, coz the lim.ed. one is really fucking great), what it has good about it:

1º A fucking great artwork in the cover. Derek Riggs has done here a great job, showing some Eddies of IM periods.

2º A great full colour booklet with the lyrics of all the songs included in the compilation and many pictures (some of them never seen before).

3º Both cd's are picture discs with a melting Eddies on them.

4º In the CD1 you have:
- A new song released just for this compilation called "Virus" which I think is really good.
- Then a previously unreleased live version of " Afraid To Shoot Strangers" sang by Blaze.
- The best live version of "Fear Of The Dark".

In the CD2 you have:
- A great live version of the "Rime Of The Ancient Mariner".
- For the first time on cd for a worldwide release the song "Sanctuary"on this compilation.
- The best part, the never released version of "Strange World" from the Soudhouse Tapes recordings and for the first time on cd the Soundhouse Tapes version of the song "Iron Maiden", both only available in this compilation.

- Eddie Stern?

I think this was the best compilation that Maiden have released so far and a very good one to introduce new fans into the Iron Maiden world. i know this so well, coz some friends of mine got to like Maiden tanx to this great Best Of.
So, it's a shame they have deleted this great compilation from the catalog.
The new Best Of won't do nothing to bring news fans to Iron Maiden. Just analize it in every aspects like I did with the Best Of The Beast.

 

[Mr Toast]

The Eddie DJ pic makes me chuckle...

 

[Somewhere In Time]

I suppose they are deleting it so they can't get as much criticism over the new CD.

 

[Board]

I've never been a fan of those greatest hits thing, as it usually doesn't give the hardcore fans anything new. I have 11 cd's and 3 LP's by Type O Negative and one of the cd's is "The least worst of" (a greatest hits). It has three songs that hadn't been released before, but besides that it sucks! It has some single edits and stuff that I didn't expect anything of, but then a song like "My girlfriend's girlfriend" in a cheese organ mix is the exact same as the original, except they have removed the bass drum for the first 3 seconds!
I don't know how interesting live version are, as they're usually not that different from the studio versions. "Live after death" is a great album, but I really don't "need" "A real live one", "A real dead one" & "Live at Donnington", not to mention all the other live bootlegs out there, as there's not that much a difference from the live and the studio versions. A great live record though is the P-Funk All-Stars "Live at the Beverly Theater in Hollywood", as the songs are very different from the studio versions. A song like "Give up the funk (tear the roof off the sucker)" is among the best funk shit I've heard and much better than the studio version. The tempo is quiker, Dennis Chambers is a monster on the drums, they incorporate "Night of the thumpasorus peopl" and Bootsy's "Bootzilla" and the song lasts 12:47, whereas the studio version only lasts 5:45. Maiden's live songs are played just like they are on the album. I know most bands do it this way - maybe I've listened to that P-Funk live record too much and expecting too much!