Before I start, I want to make it clear that Murray is one of my favourite guitarists and songwriters of all time and this post is not meant to be insulting or critical of him. If you put a gun to my head and made me choose my favourite Maiden guitarist, Murray would be my choice.
Murray is one of only two members to appear on every Maiden album, the other obviously being Steve Harris. He was even one of the first guitarists Harris hired, but during the 70's era of the band left and rejoined a couple of times. Interestingly he played in Adrian's band Urchin for a bit before returning to Maiden and this time staying on board.
In the almost 50 years he's been in the band, there are only 4 albums he has no credits on. Number, Powerslave, X Factor and Senjutsu. That's 4 out of 17. By comparison, of all the albums Janick's been in the band for, No Prayer is the only one where he doesn't have a single credit and that's only because he joined after the songs had already been written. And Adrian? Of all the albums with him in the band, Killers is the only one he doesn't have a single credit on. And he's the only member to have a credit on an album he doesn't appear on. He apparently wrote enough of Hooks In You to warrant a co-credit. And his first credit came on Number, which is also the first album to not have any contributions from Dave.
You see, Dave Murray's first credit was a sole writing credit for Charlotte The Harlot, the song that started the quadrilogy. Then on Killers he co-wrote Drifter with Steve and Paul Di'anno. But he doesn't have a single credit on the album that served as Maiden's breakthrough.
Steve obviously wrote the majority of the album, Adrian had his first credits for the band with Prisoner and 22 Acacia Avenue, Bruce claimed to have written part of Run To The Hills but couldn't be credited due to being contracted to his former band Samson at the time. Clive Burr wrote his only two songs for the band in Gangland and Total Eclipse, the former making the album because the band chose Eclipse to be Run's B-side. The album was a massive success and is still one of their most popular, but it's one of only two 80's era albums to lack any songs written or co-written by Murray.
Does it make a difference? Would the album have been better or weaker with a song by Dave? No to the first question, but I don't know to the second. Dave's songs have never been the most popular on their respective albums, with one or two exceptions.
According to this sub: Dave's songs are usually amongst the weakest on their respective albums. Even Deja freaking Vu is considered the weakest on it's album! Then again, Somewhere is one of their most worshipped albums and is usually considered a masterpiece. I don't get all the love for it, but opinions are like arseholes. Rainmaker is the exception with the most recent survivor series (the search function is good for research) indicating that the sub thinks it's the third best song on Dance. Aside from that, I can't think of any other really popular Murray-penned songs.
So I can only imagine that if Murray did get a song on the album, it would've followed the same trend and been one of the least popular. Would it have made the album any worse? We can only speculate.
The next album he doesn't have any credits on is the one widely regarded as Maiden's best, Powerslave. While he did write Still Life, that was his only credit on Piece and only his third in total. PS was an album again made up of mostly Harris and Smith songs, with a couple songs written by Dickinson (and curiously both right next to each other and both about sword-related things). Considering the middle 4 songs are usually considered lesser than the big 4, a Murray song definietly wouldn't be well-regarded if one made the album, but I don't think it would've made too much of a difference quality wise.
After Powerslave and the iconic but grueling for the band World Slavery Tour, Murray had at least one credit on each of the next four albums. Then Blaze joined the band and work started on X Factor which would become the third album to lack a Murray song and in contrast to Powerslave, is (unfairly) considered one of Maiden's worst. I love X Factor to pieces and can't imagine it with a Murray song, but I can tell you without a doubt that it wouldn't have made a difference. The album would've been hated no matter what happened. It was easily their darkest album at the time and possibly still is, if not at least still up there. And Dave can write dark songs, Man of Sorrows is an amazing example of that. So is Man Who Would Be King. But even Blaze has credits on this album.
Fun fact: The Unbeliever is Maiden's least played song on Spotify and is to date their only song with under a million plays.
Relevant fun fact: Brave New World is the album with the most songs written by Dave. Nomad, Dream of Mirrors, and Thin Line are all written or co-written by him. He even plays all five solos in Thin Line. Those songs (and Mercenary) were all originally written for Blaze. Steve has said that he started writing Blood Brothers during the Virtual XI sessions, but didn't finish it at that time.
After X Factor, Dave had at least one credit on every album up to and including Book of Souls. Senjutsu is the first album in 16 years to not have any songs written or co-written by Dave and is the only reunion era album to date to lack any writing contributions from him. For me, the album's perfect as it is and doesn't really need a Dave song, but it would've been nice to have one as I do like his songs. I'm not complaining, however. Senjutsu has quickly become one of my favourite albums of all time. I don't think a Dave song would've made a difference quality-wise, as his reunion era efforts have mostly been regarded as amongst the weakest, if not the weakest on their respective albums. Rainmaker being the sole exception and that was a co-credit. Sentimentally, though, it would've been nice to have one last song by him if the speculation about Senjutsu being Maiden's final album is to be believed. Which I don't, to be clear. I think they've got at least one more album left in them. So hopefully we do get at least one more Dave Murray song.
So there you have it: Number, Powerslave, X Factor and Senjutsu are the only albums without any contributions from Dave. I'm not the biggest fan of the former two, but adore the latter two. I don't know if any Dave-penned songs making those albums would've made a difference, but at the end of the day those 4 are merely the odd ones out and their quality is not the main subject of this post. They're also all very different albums.
