Ranking the Opening + Closing Song on Every Iron Maiden Album

What are the best opening and closing songs from each Iron Maiden album and how do they rank? That's what we dig into here, pouring over the band's extensive album catalog and analyzing the songs that left their first and lasting impressions on us as we listened to their music.

The opening songs are so key to an album, and it's rare that Maiden really missed on the opportunity to set the tone properly for what was to come. In fact, you've got songs such as "Aces High," "Where Eagles Dare," "Moonchild" and more that have become beloved amongst Maiden's faithful, kicking off what would become iconic releases in the process.

But what about the closing songs - the coda, the lasting impression, the final notes that continue to ring out in your head once the needle drop reaches its end? This can be where a band goes epic in scale ("Rime of the Ancient Mariner" anyone?), leaves you with a powerful gut punch or pulls back to provide an eerily calm resolution. Maiden have been adept at doing each of those things with their album closers.

There's a storied history of stellar album openers and closers within Iron Maiden's legendary catalog, and here we get into the difficult task of ranking both the openers and closers from best to worst. Check out the rankings below.