Maiden Voyage

Latest Episodes:

Episode 24 - Brave New World (Side B) Feb 14, 2025

Show notes

We continue with the second side of Brave New World and discuss the album's mostly very positive reviews, the band's return to chart success around the world and the widely anticipated tour that followed the album's release!

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If you are enjoying the show, join us on the Maiden Voyage Patreon to support what we're doing! Patrons are our best friends! Like, Rate, Subscribe and Review the Maiden Voyage Podcast. We're desperate for your approval! Send questions, comments and praise to MaidenVoyagePodcast@gmail.com Follow Stu and Ed on Bluesky. Visit the Vintage RPG website to check out Stu's other podcast, Vintage RPG, and sign up for the newsletter for an in-depth dive into the art & history of tabletop roleplaying games, and check out unwinnable.com for the best cultural commentary around. Check out Stu's book, Monsters, Aliens and Holes in the Ground, from MIT Press. Pick up a copy directly from MIT Press, from your local bookstore, or from an online book seller that doesn't suck, like Bookshop.org. The Maiden Voyage illustration is by Shafer Brown. Follow him on Bluesky and Instagram. Maiden Voyage is recorded, edited, mixed and mastered by Ed Coleman. The show is produced by Ed Coleman and Stu Horvath. Theme music composed by Sam Retzer, under license from SmartSound. This podcast is a labor of love based on decades of devoted fandom. We strongly encourage listeners to buy Iron Maiden's albums or listen to them using your favorite streaming music service to support these heavy metal legends. To check out the cover art for the band's albums and singles, visit the band's excellent website.

Episode 23 - Brave New World (Side A) Feb 07, 2025

Show notes

The Blaze era has come to an end and Bruce Dickinson rejoins the band with the release of Iron Maiden's twelfth studio album, Brave New World. After a no longer applicable welcome to the new season (remember what we said in the Season 2 Intro about ignoring references to the Blaze albums being behind a paywall?), Stu and Ed enjoy the band's return to form!

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BONUS - Blaze Bayley (Part 3) Feb 04, 2025

Show notes

BONUS ALERT! THIS IS GETTING TO BE A HABIT! We've reached the end of our bloviating Blaze-based bonus content. After focusing our first two Blaze bonus eps on songs by Wolfsbane, the final in our series moves to listening to a few of his most recent releases. Ed listens to a single released in September 2024, "Ghost in The Bottle," and the title track from Blaze's most recent studio album, "Circle of Stone." But wait there's more! As a bonus to the bonus, Ed sneaks in some belated holiday cheer when he realizes Blaze released a Christmas song in 2016, "Crazy Christmas." --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- If you are enjoying the show, join us on the Maiden Voyage Patreon to support what we're doing! Patrons are our best friends! Like, Rate, Subscribe and Review the Maiden Voyage Podcast. We're desperate for your approval! Send questions, comments and praise to MaidenVoyagePodcast@gmail.com Follow Stu and Ed on Bluesky. Visit the Vintage RPG website to check out Stu's other podcast, Vintage RPG, and sign up for the newsletter for an in-depth dive into the art & history of tabletop roleplaying games, and check out unwinnable.com for the best cultural commentary around. Check out Stu's book, Monsters, Aliens and Holes in the Ground, from MIT Press. Pick up a copy directly from MIT Press, from your local bookstore, or from an online book seller that doesn't suck, like Bookshop.org. The Maiden Voyage illustration is by Shafer Brown. Follow him on Bluesky and Instagram. Maiden Voyage is recorded, edited, mixed and mastered by Ed Coleman. The show is produced by Ed Coleman and Stu Horvath. Theme music composed by Sam Retzer, under license from SmartSound. This podcast is a labor of love based on decades of devoted fandom. We strongly encourage listeners to buy Iron Maiden's albums or listen to them using your favorite streaming music service to support these heavy metal legends. To check out the cover art for the band's albums and singles, visit the band's excellent website.

Episode 22 - Virtual XI (Side B) Jan 31, 2025

Show notes

We've reached the end of Blaze Bayley's time as singer of Iron Maiden, as the show covers the second side of Virtual XI. Ed and Stu talk about Bruce Dickinson's solo work overshadowing Iron Maiden's output, but still not selling as strongly as the band's mediocre work with Blaze.

The guys also discuss how Virtual XI may be the most Steve Harris dominated album Iron Maiden has ever released. Half the songs are by Harris alone and he contributed heavily to three songs by Dave Murray. The album was also recorded in Harris' barnyard home-studio and Harris mixed the album and co-produced it. So we know who to blame!

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BONUS - Blaze Bayley (Part 2) Jan 28, 2025

Show notes

BONUS ALERT! AGAIN! We're back with the second in a series of Blaze-based bonus content. Here, Ed listens to two tracks off Wolfsbane's second studio album, Down Fall The Good Guys, released in 1991. The two singles from the album, "Ezy" and "After Midnight," sound better (production-wise) than the songs from the first album, but did the songs wind up too polished? ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- If you are enjoying the show, join us on the Maiden Voyage Patreon to support what we're doing! Patrons are our best friends! Like, Rate, Subscribe and Review the Maiden Voyage Podcast. We're desperate for your approval! Send questions, comments and praise to MaidenVoyagePodcast@gmail.com Follow Stu and Ed on Bluesky. Visit the Vintage RPG website to check out Stu's other podcast, Vintage RPG, and sign up for the newsletter for an in-depth dive into the art & history of tabletop roleplaying games, and check out unwinnable.com for the best cultural commentary around. Check out Stu's book, Monsters, Aliens and Holes in the Ground, from MIT Press. Pick up a copy directly from MIT Press, from your local bookstore, or from an online book seller that doesn't suck, like Bookshop.org. The Maiden Voyage illustration is by Shafer Brown. Follow him on Bluesky and Instagram. Maiden Voyage is recorded, edited, mixed and mastered by Ed Coleman. The show is produced by Ed Coleman and Stu Horvath. Theme music composed by Sam Retzer, under license from SmartSound. This podcast is a labor of love based on decades of devoted fandom. We strongly encourage listeners to buy Iron Maiden's albums or listen to them using your favorite streaming music service to support these heavy metal legends. To check out the cover art for the band's albums and singles, visit the band's excellent website.

Episode 21 - Virtual XI (Side A) Jan 24, 2025

Show notes

Ed and Stu dive headfirst into the second, and final, album of the Blaze Bayley era, Virtual XI. They discuss how Iron Maiden's 11th studio album feels like the ebb of this whole podcast process!

Released in March 1998, the album was apparently titled Virtual XI to tie-in to both Iron Maiden's computer game, "Ed Hunter," and, naturally, the fact that the FIFA World Cup was happening that year. Makes total sense!

BONUS - Blaze Bayley (Part 1) Jan 21, 2025

Show notes

BONUS ALERT! Ed is bringing you the first of a series of bonus episodes listening to some of Blaze's non-Maiden related music. In this first installment, Ed listens to two tracks off Live Fast, Die Fast: Wicked Tales of Booze, Birds and Bad Language, the 1989 debut album from Wolfsbane, the band Blaze left to join Maiden.

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Episode 20 - The X-Factor (Side B) Jan 17, 2025

Show notes

We're only two episodes in to the second season and Ed and Stu are already not enjoying themselves. They discuss how this album took the longest to produce of any Iron Maiden album to date, with 18 months of writing, rehearsing, recording and mixing. Blaze reportedly did not enjoy the lengthy process, which aptly describes how Ed and Stu feel about listening to this album!

If you are enjoying the show, join us on the Maiden Voyage Patreon to support what we're doing! Patrons are our best friends!

Like, Rate, Subscribe and Review the Maiden Voyage Podcast. We're desperate for your approval! Send questions, comments and praise to MaidenVoyagePodcast@gmail.com Follow Stu and Ed on Bluesky. Visit the Vintage RPG website to check out Stu's other podcast, Vintage RPG, and sign up for the newsletter for an in-depth dive into the art & history of tabletop roleplaying games, and check out unwinnable.com for the best cultural commentary around. Check out Stu's book, Monsters, Aliens and Holes in the Ground, from MIT Press. Pick up a copy directly from MIT Press, from your local bookstore, or from an online book seller that doesn't suck, like Bookshop.org. The Maiden Voyage illustration is by Shafer Brown. Follow him on Bluesky and Instagram. Maiden Voyage is recorded, edited, mixed and mastered by Ed Coleman. The show is produced by Ed Coleman and Stu Horvath. Theme music composed by Sam Retzer, under license from SmartSound. This podcast is a labor of love based on decades of devoted fandom. We strongly encourage listeners to buy Iron Maiden's albums or listen to them using your favorite streaming music service to support these heavy metal legends. To check out the cover art for the band's albums and singles, visit the band's excellent website.

Episode 19 - The X-Factor (Side A) Jan 10, 2025

Show notes

It's official! We're back or the start of Season 2 of Maiden Voyage, where Ed and Stu cover the first side of Iron Maiden's 10th studio album, The X-Factor!

Released in October 1995, this marks the first album with the band's third singer, Blaze Bayley. Ed and Stu jump right into the thick of it, discussing the wonderfully absurd lyrics of the album's opening track, "Man on the Edge" about the Joel Schumacher movie, Falling Down.

How will Blaze fit in with the band? Will singing bland, overly-long songs prove detrimental to Blaze's chances to succeed as Maiden's new singer? Will Ed ever stop pronouncing a hard "J" when saying Janick Gers' name? All this and more on this episode of Maiden Voyage.

If you are enjoying the show, join us on the Maiden Voyage Patreon to support what we're doing! Patrons are our best friends!

Like, Rate, Subscribe and Review the Maiden Voyage Podcast. We're desperate for your approval!

Send questions, comments and praise to MaidenVoyagePodcast@gmail.com Follow Stu and Ed on Bluesky. Visit the Vintage RPG website to check out Stu's other podcast, Vintage RPG, and sign up for the newsletter for an in-depth dive into the art & history of tabletop roleplaying games, and check out unwinnable.com for the best cultural commentary around. Check out Stu's book, Monsters, Aliens and Holes in the Ground, from MIT Press. Pick up a copy directly from MIT Press, from your local bookstore, or from an online book seller that doesn't suck, like Bookshop.org. The Maiden Voyage illustration is by Shafer Brown. Follow him on Bluesky and Instagram. Maiden Voyage is recorded, edited, mixed and mastered by Ed Coleman. The show is produced by Ed Coleman and Stu Horvath. Theme music composed by Sam Retzer, under license from SmartSound. This podcast is a labor of love based on decades of devoted fandom. We strongly encourage listeners to buy Iron Maiden's albums or listen to them using your favorite streaming music service to support these heavy metal legends. To check out the cover art for the band's albums and singles, visit the band's excellent website.

Season 2 is coming... Jan 06, 2025

Show notes

That's right, friends! After a lengthy hiatus, Maiden Voyage is returning to continue the chronological journey through Iron Maiden's studio albums. Stu and Ed will pick up where they left off, beginning with the band's 10th studio album, The X-Factor.

In this brief Season 2 intro, Ed offers "reasons" for the lengthy delay in releasing new episodes, looks back at the album rankings from Season 1, sets the stage for where things stood for the band after Fear of the Dark, and explains that all episodes will be released for free!

New episodes will start releasing Friday, January 10! What a time to be alive!

If you enjoy the show, join us on the Maiden Voyage Patreon to support what we're doing! Patrons are our best friends! Like, Rate, Subscribe and Review the Maiden Voyage Podcast. We're desperate for your approval! Send questions, comments and praise to MaidenVoyagePodcast@gmail.com Follow Stu and Ed on Bluesky. Visit the Vintage RPG website to check out Stu's other podcast, Vintage RPG, and sign up for the newsletter for an in-depth dive into the art & history of tabletop roleplaying games, and check out unwinnable.com for the best cultural commentary around. Check out Stu's book, Monsters, Aliens and Holes in the Ground, from MIT Press. Pick up a copy directly from MIT Press, from your local bookstore, or from an online book seller that doesn't suck, like Bookshop.org. The Maiden Voyage illustration is by Shafer Brown. Follow him on Bluesky and Instagram. Maiden Voyage is recorded, edited, mixed and mastered by Ed Coleman. The show is produced by Ed Coleman and Stu Horvath. Theme music composed by Sam Retzer, under license from SmartSound. This podcast is a labor of love based on decades of devoted fandom. We strongly encourage listeners to buy Iron Maiden's albums or listen to them using your favorite streaming music service to support these heavy metal legends. To check out the cover art for the band's albums and singles, visit the band's excellent website.

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