It is actually insane how much better Iron Maiden is than Black Sabbath and Judas Priest. I like all three, but no band in metal period has a discography as consistently strong over multiple decades as Maiden does. Sabbath and Priest peaks are better than Maiden's peaks (though Powerslave is a very tough nut to crack) but each of them have plenty of albums I could go without listening to for the rest of my life.

Priest has been creatively bankrupt since the mid 80s. Nostradamus is the only interesting and replayable Priest album since Defenders of the Faith. They keep making Painkiller sequels and it is just tiring and boring.

Black Sabbath has been even more inconsistent. The Tony Martin albums are so boring. How tf did we go from the likes of Master of Reality, SBS to this?

Black Sab and JP have bad albums. Iron Maiden has no bad albums. No other band will top Iron Maiden in quality to longevity ratio.