I'd say Iron Maiden is pretty close to power metal. Much closer than Priest and Saxon, anyway.

^no no no no no. Iron Maiden are metal/heavy metal. They are NOT power metal by any means.

Of course they're heavy metal, but calling them power metal isn't as big of a stretch as calling Judas Priest power metal.

Actually one of the reasons I stopped listening to metal was because everything became so fractured and boring.
I mean why would you take 2% of a band's sound and run that 2% into the ground as being the only thing that you do.

You can't listen to songs like Beyond The Realms Of Death and tell me that had no influence over power metal, but at the same time that was only one small part of what Judas Priest were doing. Iron Maiden came along and later expanded upon that and added their own things and then at the end of the 80s power metal totally exploited that sound.

Nobody is influenced by one band.

Iron Maiden are just Iron Maiden. If anything, their music has edged closer towards progressive metal since around "Brave new world" time, but there's no way you could call them power metal.

(This is why people laugh at Metalheads, with our multiple subgenres. I mean, we've had a page of discussion here on why Judas Priest are not power metal, and really, does it matter that much? Still, got some discussion going, so that can't be bad...)

Except for Coldplay.

I was going to bring up the prog influence into my posts but I figured someone with a bit more knowledge on this subject would do so, and you did. :)

Yeah I'm actually really aware of what power metal is, and like I said, I don't consider JP to be power metal... But I've heard a lot of people refer to them as such. So I think the real investigation should be, why does more than one person in my life, and apparently Vanilla's as well, call Judas Priest power metal when it really does most obviously seem to be straight up heavy metal? Aside from "they dumb."

I'll take this one and attempt to address your question.

The only thing that anyone could possibly associate Judas Priest with power metal by, would be Rob and his vocals. I just can't think of any other reason, not really. I've listened to a lot of Judas Priest, from their very early material, clear to their newest album. There is not a whole lot musically, aside from Rob and his vocals that can be associated with power metal.

Rob could very easily front a power metal band.

I think the more important question is, why do you (or why does anyone) care? As long as you enjoy the music, who cares what pigeonhole it falls into? Unless you're looking for more of the same, and might not, for instance, enjoy Strad or Manowar... it's all good, and nobody's dumb. Except me. I was tricked by two short planks and a brick only yesterday, gave away all my money. Relief effort for homeless housing material indeed! I looked it up! It don't exist!