10 Best Rock Music Album Closers Of The 2010s
7. Empire Of The Clouds - Iron Maiden (The Book Of Souls)
Iron Maiden broke several of their own records with their 2015 release The Book of Souls.
The five years between its release and the release of previous album, The Final Frontier, was the longest gap between Maiden records at the time. It was also their first double album, cramming over 90 minutes of music onto two discs.
It also gave the world the band's longest ever song, the 18 minute closing behemoth, Empire of the Clouds.
Because of course it is, the song is about a British airship that crashed on its maiden voyage in 1930. Bruce Dickinson wrote the song all by himself, originally intending for it to be about World War I fighter planes.
But come on, there are loads of songs about those!
As it would be impossible to keep an audience's attention for 18 minutes otherwise, the song switches pace and structure several times , effectively making it a classical suite. Maiden have always been great at songs that change midway through, and this one is no exception.
A massive track in every sense of the word, Empire of the Clouds was a brave choice by the band, but it paid off big time.