My favourite Maiden is actually the two albums with Paul DiAnno on vocals-Killers in particular is textbook NWOBHM and awesome. "Number of the beast" is great too of course but it's the last Maiden-album I really like; after that, they got a bit too overblown and bombastic for my tastes, the almost punk-rock/Motörhead-inspired stuff disappeared completely and Steve Harris lived out his prog-rock fantasies.

That being said, they were definitely the definitive *pure*/true traditional (as opposed to thrash) metal band of the 80's-they never sold out or compromised and yes, Harris is a killer bassist (one who use the same descending chordprogressions in like every song but still)...

I always felt that Judas Priest was the gods of true traditional metal but unfortunately, their music became SO watered-down in the 80's. However, when Priest decided to play straight up metal (usually on 2-3 songs on every 80's album), they crushed Maiden... Maiden made better *albums* though, no doubt.


BTW, my favourite trad-metal of the 80's is actually Mercyful Fate/King Diamond but Diamonds falsetto-vocals and the satanic imagery means that it's a "you had to be there"-type of music; I cant imagine a regular young kid hearing that stuff without going "This is CHEESE"!