Best Of The Beast, The - Iron Maiden

Since this format is out of print, you will most probably go out of your way to find it. And since you will, you should go after the limited 2cd box version, for it simply is amazing.

The cover is made by none other than Derek Riggs, who, being bored of drawing Eddie covers, wrote "Not Again!" on the tombstone on the cover, which EMI forced him to change to "Eddie 1976" It is a nice overview of a bunch of Eddies who are out to get you!

The tracklist is something intresting for the old and new fan alike. The old fan can find the great new track "Virus", Blaze's awsome live rendition of "Afraid To Shoot Strangers" (probably the only Bruce-era song where he does a better job than Bruce himself!) "Strange World (1979)" (it was the first time this saw the light of day since it was scrapped from the original Sounhouse Tapes" and "Iron Maiden (1979)" from the Soundhouse Tapes... A great treat for the old fans...

Also, the tracklist is balanced through all of Maiden's releases up and until The X Factor, containing tracks in live and studio form, from all periods, with a nice and fluent regressing succession order which is sure to intrigue the new fan into Maiden....

The packaging has only one flaw. Nobody wants to store these cds in a cartboard pocket! It WILL get scratched. Store cds seperately. The booklet is AWSOME (fat and harcover too!) and will leave you browsing it for hours, it has tons of visuals and photos. Check it out a couple of times and then shrink wrap it!

Track listing

CD 1 :
1. Virus
2. Sign Of The Cross
3. Man On The Edge
4. Afraid To Shoot Strangers (Live)
5. Be Quick Or Be Dead
6. Fear Of The Dark (Live)
7. Bring Your Daughter To The Slaughter
8. Holy Smoke
9. The Clairvoyant
10. Can I Play With Madness
11. The Evil That Men Do
12. Heaven Can Wait
13. Wasted Years

CD 2 :
1. Rime Of The Ancient Mariner (Live)
2. Running Free (Live)
3. 2 Minutes To Midnight
4. Aces High
5. Where Eagles Dare
6. The Trooper
7. The Number Of The Beast
8. Run To The Hills
9. Hallowed Be Thy Name
10. Wrathchild
11. Phantom Of The Opera
12. Sanctuary
13. Strange World
14. Iron Maiden