Maiden: Somewhere In Your Wallet Album?

Okay - so I'm clearly a Maiden fan, have been for a long time (again, not as long as some of the folks out there, but long enough), and was really happy with the last studio album. But how many greatest hits packages do you need? They are coming out with ANOTHER "greatest" hits, this time from "1980 - 1989" and the only reason to even look at it in the store is to see how the new Derek Riggs picture looks close-up (it's likely a digital piece, so it doesn't have the crispness of his original paintings, but it's still a Derek Riggs).

I'm sure we can all complain about what's included and what's not, but do we really need "Iron Maiden," "The Trooper," etc? I think I'm going to have to pull together my own dream set list for a show, and/or even for a "greatest hits" package. They don't throw in a new song (at least Best of the Beast had "Virus" on it), they don't give you alternate versions, and there's no best of the b-sides disk (for those of us who couldn't buy the outrageously expensive treasure trove, Eddie's Archive).

The other thing that's funny about this release is that they have a funky download first option that they are rolling out (and trumpeting) that just seems: 1) bizarre; 2) lame; and 3) like the idea really is "somewhere back in time" - like 10 years ago, in the context of what other groups are doing. If Maiden were really on top of this stuff, they'd take a number from Trent Reznor's book, pull together some deluxe packages for fans with Derek Riggs artwork, picks, whatever, and they'd be able to totally make the headlines and fuck up the major labels. Can you imagine if they gave the greatest hits away for free as a download, for real? And if you "buy" it - you'd get a special disk of b-sides and/or a small poster? Hell - Maiden is so rich that they could do a special printing of a 7" picture disk for a reasonably prized deluxe edition. How many fans would jump at that? I know I would. And it could go directly to them, or hell, to the Clive Burr Foundation that's been set up.

But they are conventional, and their management can't think that far ahead. And while I still love the music, I'm getting really sick of seeing the high prices and redundant releases. Do you really need that much more money?