EMI has announced the release of Iron Maiden's From Fear To Eternity: The Best Of 1990-2010. A double-CD set spanning twenty years, this follows the huge success of 2010's studio album, The Final Frontier, which hit the number one spot in 28 countries around the world. It also became the band's highest-charting album in the USA where Iron Maiden have just been awarded their first Grammy for Best Metal Performance, for the song 'El Dorado', taken from The Final Frontier album, and which is included in this selection.
Iron Maiden's current phenomenal global success has seen the band not only scale new-found heights aided by their unique method of touring, using a customized Boeing 757 - named Ed Force One by their fans - to transport band, crew and all their equipment round the world to many new places, but has meant their ever-expanding fanbase now encompasses a brand new generation of metal lovers. From Fear To Eternity is a chance for these new fans of the band to explore Iron Maiden's rich history, with the highlights of their last eight studio albums distilled into this handy collection, which follows 2009's compilation of their earlier work, the 1980-1990 Somewhere Back In Time album.
Perennial favourites to be found on this album include songs also featured in Maiden's current The Final Frontier World Tour set list; tracks such as 'Fear Of The Dark', 'The Wicker Man', 'Blood Brothers' and 'Dance Of Death' sit alongside recent classics 'El Dorado' and the hauntingly evocative 'When The Wild Wind Blows'. It also include singles like 'Holy Smoke' and 'Be Quick Or Be Dead' together with more progressive thought-provoking album tracks like 'Afraid To Shoot Strangers' and 'For The Greater Good Of God'. This new collection charts the musical development of Britain's most successful metal band as they have evolved their sound, producing longer, more complex songs, gaining huge critical acclaim in the process. Featuring many of the epics for which the band has become renowned, it is accordingly released as a double-CD, but will retail for the price of a single album.
The full tracklisting for the CD album* is as follows:
Disc 1:
'The Wicker Man'
'Holy Smoke'
'El Dorado'
'Paschendale'
'Different World'
'Man On The Edge' (Live)
'The Reincarnation Of Benjamin Breeg'
'Blood Brothers'
'Rainmaker'
'Sign Of The Cross' (Live)
'Brave New World'
'Fear Of The Dark' (Live)
Disc 2:
'Be Quick Or Be Dead'
'Tailgunner'
'No More Lies'
'Coming Home'
'The Clansman' (Live)
'For The Greater Good of God'
'These Colours Don't Run)'
'Bring Your Daughter... To The Slaughter'
'Afraid To Shoot Strangers'
'Dance Of Death'
'When The Wild Wind Blows'
*It will also be made available as a Digital Download Album and as a Limited Edition Triple Vinyl Picture Disc.
Iron Maiden Manager, Rod Smallwood, comments:
"As you will have read from our press release, this latest Best Of CD selection is aimed primarily at Maiden's ever-growing army of new fans. As we travel round the World touring we find ourselves continually and pleasantly surprised at the number of new young fans who are coming to the shows . So, as with Somewhere Back In Time, this compilation is an introduction to these guys and others, of Maiden's recording history. SBIT was a single album with 15 tracks covering the first 10 years, 1980-1990, and seven studio albums. This compilation covers a similar number of albums (8 in fact), but as many of the tracks from this era are of a much longer duration, we felt we needed more space. So we have made it a double album set, however we'll be keeping the price the same as a single album would be. In this later period many songs were getting generally longer and more complex so this gave us room to include epics like 'When the Wild Wind Blows', 'Paschendale', 'For The Greater Good Of God' and 'Sign of the Cross' to name but a few.
As before, we are conscious of giving value for money so we have crammed a total of 23 songs onto the compilation, with a total playing time of just over 2 ½ hours, which is all we can get onto 2 discs! We also know that many of you enjoy collecting all the various Eddie artworks, so we will, as with previous compilations of this nature, ensure that the front and back CD artwork is made available free to you to print, closer to the album's release date. Keep checking the website for full details of when the art will be available to download.
The Final Frontier World Tour 2011 is well underway now, and, as you all know, sadly the 2 shows in Tokyo were cancelled due to the tragic and catastrophic current circumstances in Japan, with Ed Force One being diverted to Nagoya just prior to its landing in Tokyo. Now we're on our way to Mexico and South America, where we'll be filming the shows in Argentina and Chile for a DVD release later this year. More details to follow about that soon.
We finish this leg with a show in Puerto Rico and two shows in Florida after which the band will have a well-earned rest for a few weeks before we resume the tour a lot closer to home in Europe, rounding off with the UK Arena tour. This tour has been a very special one for the band, not least because of the opportunity to play to fans in countries we'd never visited before: Singapore, Indonesia and Korea.
As Steve remarked, "The tour has been amazing so far and we've been overwhelmed by the reaction from our fans everywhere. We are now on our way to Mexico and South America which the whole band is very excited about! We really enjoy playing there as the fans are so passionate and we always feel a huge responsibility to put on the best show we possibly can for them. For this tour we have a great set list, a brand new stage show, and of course Eddie!. This leg of the tour ends with two shows in Florida in April, , then we'll be taking a short break before a series of Summer headline Festival and Stadium shows in Europe, finishing up with our first UK Arena tour in many years. It's a great way to round off what has been an incredible time for Maiden these last few years. We are really looking forward to seeing all our loyal fans again and welcoming all the new ones!"
And on behalf of myself and the rest of the band too, we very much look forward to seeing you when we land in a city.
