Battle of the bands
This is the last battle of the bands as I will not be doing one in December and I will replace it with a new feature in January. I saved a big one for last. For me the best band in heavy metal boils down to two choices. It's the bands I have ranked as one and two on my favorite band list. It's the creators against the band who ruled metal's biggest decade (the 80's). So it's:
Black Sabbath vs. Iron Maiden
A thought one indeed. I am probably going to be on the losing side, but I will choose Black Sabbath. I love Maiden and they had a stretch of seven great or near great albums in the 80's. Still it's Sabbath big heavy sludge and those first six albums that really do it for me. They do so much for the genre and they kept building on what they started. They also got into doing some odd songs that really worked just as well as the straight forward ones. I never tire of either band, but I prefer Sabbath.
So who do choose?
***Later this month I will search the archives and find the results of all of the Battle of the bands and list them in one post.
Black Sabbath vs. Iron Maiden
A thought one indeed. I am probably going to be on the losing side, but I will choose Black Sabbath. I love Maiden and they had a stretch of seven great or near great albums in the 80's. Still it's Sabbath big heavy sludge and those first six albums that really do it for me. They do so much for the genre and they kept building on what they started. They also got into doing some odd songs that really worked just as well as the straight forward ones. I never tire of either band, but I prefer Sabbath.
So who do choose?
***Later this month I will search the archives and find the results of all of the Battle of the bands and list them in one post.
posted by Metal Mark at
7:00 AM
13 Comments:
I'm with you Mark. Sabbath is my pick too.
Iron Maiden, no contest. I love old Sabbath but I rarely put them on compared to Maiden. I just listened to Dance of Death again this morning!
I have to go with Sabbath. I love Maiden, I saw them live on Piece of Mind, Powerslave, Somewhere in Time and 7th son tours and they are amazing live, but for impact on the world of Metal, you have to go with Sabbath. I admit, I love the DIO era Sabbath and even loved Born Again, although things got pretty fuzzy there after that. Still, for sheer impact and contribution to the whole genre of Metal, you have to go with Sabbath!
boy, that was a tough choice, but I'll go with Sabbath.
Maiden all the way, UP THE IRONS!!!
Black Sabbath (all eras)
Tough choice as Iron Maiden is one of my favorite bands. I grew up with them and they have had some awesome albums.
But Black Sabbath is the model by which all other bands follow, they invented the sound.
There's no question that Black Sabbath is one of the most important metal bands of all time. Without them, metal would likely be something altogether different. However, Maiden is the culmination of what Sabbath started. Sabbath may have given birth to Maiden, but Maiden gave meaning to Sabbath. I'm going with Iron Maiden.
This is one of those where I would refuse to choose if I dared offend you. But I don't.
Hands down, Sabbath. Maiden would not exist but for Sabbath, nor would most of the music we all know and love.
Sure, Technical Ecstacy blew. Yes, some of the schlock in the 80s was, IMO, closer to what Dokken put out than it was to classic Sabbath.
But choosing Maiden over Sabbath would be like choosing Rush over Led Zeppelin--the direction Maiden (and Rush) went is amazing and unique and mind-blowing, but the influence and pur metallic beauty of the originals is hard to ever vote against, for any reason.
-- david
You gotta go with IRON MAIDEN!!! Their an amazing group, but i kinda dont like this match up... i would like to c a Judas Priest Vs Iron Maiden one but whatever thats just me
duffman-I did a Judas Priest vs. Motorhead match-up a few months back.
I thought this one would have been closer.
I will never yield that Maiden is the greatest metal band of all-time. Sabbath put things into motion, but they were products of Blue Cheer, Iron Butterfly and Canned Heat, much as Maiden were products of Sabbath and Saxon, but Maiden are better musicians and songwriters, my opinion anyway. I won't ever downplay or disrespect Sabbath, but I think too much has been put on them, not when Link Wray invented the power chord and the vibrato chord in the 50s before Toni Iommi. This is definitely a toughie, but Iron Maiden will always to me define what true metal is all about.
I can't argue with Sabbath but I find it hard to vote against Iron Maiden.
You ask a tough question. I vote for Black Maiden ... cop out ? yes it is...
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