It’s back to the Iron Maiden album rankings and time to cap off the top 8. If you missed the first part of my ranking you can find that here.

8 – Brave New World

This was the other one that caused me a lot of deliberation and was pitted against No Prayer For The Dying. In the end I gave BNW the nod. While NPFTD has a more classic Eddie and this is more abstract, this is still a very nice piece of art. Cityscape and landscape stuff is art I like a lot so that is probably why this got pushed up the list. I also like storms, ports and Eddie so this one really has it all. It’s only missing beer.

Brave New World was an Album of the Week pick last year.

7 – Seventh Son Of A Seventh Son

No, I didn’t rank this here because of the number coincidence, this is really where I rank this cover. It’s a very striking image of a disembodied Eddie holding his own heart while hanging out over a frozen body of water. I have no clue what greater meaning this art possesses, if any, but it’s a pretty cool if not whacked out album cover. And just to prove I’m not ranking these based on my musical preferences, this is my favorite Maiden album.

6 – Killers

The second album is still “simple” in a way but features a more clever, purpose-filled and clearly malevolent Eddie holding an implement he most likely used on an unsuspecting victim. Maybe it was Margaret Thatcher. This is a very well done version of Eddie and is leagues above the debut album’s cover art.

Killers has been a past Album of the Week feature.

5 – Piece Of Mind

The classic fourth album features a very striking image of Eddie in a straightjacket, locked up and looking like he wants to take a piece out of someone’s mind. Poor Eddie has been lobotomized, I wonder how he’ll go on without his gray matter. This image was one of several from the classic run of albums that got millions of crazy kids into the band.

4 – A Matter Of Life And Death

It’s the highest-ranking reunion-era album cover and it’s WAY up there on my list. I absolutely love this album art with the band of brothers, skeleton edition heading into war. Eddie is not the highlight of the art and that did rankle some fans but I just totally love the art and didn’t place any importance on Eddie being more in the background. I have this back patch on my jean jacket and I’ll be gutted on the day the patch and/or jacket bites the dust.

A Matter Of Life And Death has been an Album of the Week.

3 – The Number Of The Beast

A magnificent cover featuring Eddie and every metalhead’s favorite pal, the Devil. Here Eddie is the one playing puppet master with the Beast. This duel between Eddie and the Beast plays out in many other art pieces and videos through Maiden’s history.

The really funny part about this cover was that Derek Riggs originally did it as the art for the single release of Purgatory. The band and management wisely held off on the art, correctly judging that it was too good for a single. And also this came out during the rise of the Satanic Panic in the US and the band caught a bunch of flak for it. LOL.

Coincidentally, Purgatory is next week’s pick as I run through my collection of Iron Maiden singles.

2 – Powerslave

Of all the covers and versions of Eddie, few hold a candle to this iconic art of Pharaoh Eddie as an ancient Egyptian monument. While the specifics of Eddie’s reign are lost to history, we have this spectacular image to educate us. It’s no wonder that Iron Maiden was a driving force behind 80’s kids at least pretending to care about history.

Powerslave has been an Album of the Week.

1 – Somewhere In Time

The top spot on my list goes to the 1986 album with the rad sci-fi cover. Eddie is a cyberpunk here in world definitely inspired by Blade Runner. Both the front and back cover art are chock full of easter eggs and references, head to the wiki page to collect them all.

This was the art I saw that got me into Iron Maiden, I knew I had to have this album when I saw the cover. And that’s the same tale with many fans of the group, no matter which specific album cover they first saw. These are some of the most striking and fascinating album covers in music history, and a big part of being an Iron Maiden fan.