Album of the Day — September 24
Iron Maiden — The Number of the Beast
Iron Maiden — The Number of the Beast
24.September.2020
Iron Maiden
The Number of the Beast
1982
Having sold over 100 million albums worldwide over their career, Iron Maiden isn’t just one of the most successful metal bands in history; they’re one of the most successful bands period and one of the most influential.
As one of the pioneering bands of The New Wave of British Heavy Metal, Iron Maiden was an instant success in their home country. Their self-titled debut album, released in 1980, debuted at #4 on the UK Albums Chart.
The following year, they released Killers, another successful album that saw the band get more attention from outside their native Britain. It led to Maiden’s first world tour and the band’s (ahem) maiden tour of the United States.
In the summer of 1981, a love affair blossomed between Iron Maiden and disenfranchised teenage boys across America.
By the end of the Killers tour, lead singer Paul Di’Anno’s behavior was increasingly erratic, mostly due to the pressure and excessive cocaine use. He was subsequently fired.
Filling his shoes would be Bruce Dickinson. While all of the members of Iron Maiden are interesting and talented, it is only Bruce Dickinson who has been labeled a polymath:
Dickinson is an accomplished fencing enthusiast, competing internationally — placing 7th in the UK.
A successful entrepreneur — creating the fencing equipment company Duelist.
Along with Iron Maiden, partnered with Robinsons Brewery to create “Trooper,” becoming the brewery’s most successful export.
He has written two successful books of satire, The Adventures of Lord Iffy Boatrace and The Missionary Position.
He wrote the screenplay for the film Chemical Wedding.
Most interestingly is that Dickinson is a pilot. In addition to being the lead singer of Iron Maiden, he was a captain for the now-defunct UK charter airline Astraeus.
His piloting interest led to his founding of Cardiff Aviation Ltd.
Dickinson has piloted several high-profile trips, but none more critical than navigating his bandmates and crew around on their 2008–09 world tour, documented in the film Iron Maiden” Flight 666. He has continued this practice, including getting a new license to fly the band and crew when they upgraded their plane to a 747–400.
Lead singers are notoriously egotistical, but it’s kind of hard to picture any other lead singer, ever, having the testicular fortitude — and desire — to fly their band members and crew around the world.
Dickinson is also a radio and television personality.
Bruce Dickinson joined Iron Maiden just before recording The Number of the Beast in 1982. Almost immediately, Dickinson’s vocal style and range allowed Maiden’s primary songwriter, bassist Steve Harris, to expand his lyrical and musical canvas because of Dickinson’s expansive ability as a singer.
When the band stepped into Battery Studios with producer Martin Birch, the religious climate in America was beginning to lean a little to the right.
The 1980s were ripe with religious fundamentalists (believe it or not, it was worse, and weirder then …no internet to reach a national audience, these people had to be savvy …and more than a bit nutty). And these whack-a-dos loved to toss the label of “satanist” on any band (Prince was a satanist, bet you didn’t know that.) But boy, how they loved to target heavy metal bands.
As such, The Number of the Beast, and its title track, were considered by many religious groups in the United States as evidence that Iron Maiden was a satanic band. Not surprisingly, the reality is WILDLY different.
Steve Harris’ inspiration came from watching the film Damien: Omen II late at night.
The first single off the album “Run to the Hills” may not have helped Iron Maiden gain favor with the fundamentalists. The song addresses the white colonization of the Americas. Done first by the Europeans and then by Americans as the country expanded west.
The first verse is told from the perspective of a Cree Indian:
White man came across the sea
He brought us pain and misery
He killed our tribes killed our creed
He took our game for his own need
The second verse is from the perspective of a US cavalry soldier:
Riding through dust clouds and barren wastes
Galloping hard on the plains
Chasing the redskins back to their holes
Fighting them at their own game
Ultimately, it’s clear where songwriter Steve Harris was taking the song:
Soldier blue in the barren wastes
Hunting and killing their game
Raping the women and wasting the men
The only good Indians are tame
Selling them whiskey and taking their gold
Enslaving the young and destroying the old
Run to the hills, run for your lives
If it’s one thing American’s don’t like, it’s to be reminded of just how shitty we were, are, and can be to people of a different color. In particular by long-haired heavy metal bands.
There is a fair amount of folklore around the making of The Number of the Beast. The band had five weeks to record the album, but in those five weeks, the stories included lights that would turn on and off on their own and gear mysteriously breaking down.
The stories climaxed with producer Martin Birch getting into a car accident with a mini-bus full of nuns …which resulted in a repair bill of £666.
While the album did have two singles, the title track and “Run to the Hills,” Iron Maiden was never a singles band. While the singles performed well in Ireland and the UK, they failed to resonate elsewhere. As of 2010, The New York Times reported that The Number of the Beast had sold 14 million copies worldwide.
CRITICS:
Guitar World magazine ranked it at #17 on their “100 Greatest Guitar Albums of All Time.”
Sean McCarthy of The Daily Vault gave it an A- rating, writing: “It’s hard to analyze The Number Of The Beast without sounding as corny as Kansas in August. The album is a landmark album, but for reasons, I have yet to grasp. It’s not revolutionary, it isn’t a dramatic departure from earlier Iron Maiden releases, it’s just a really kick-ass album.”
J.D. Considine at Rolling Stone did not care for the album and regrettably played up the satanism, saying: “Despite an occasional flash of inspiration, like the driving riff that fuels “Run to the Hills,” The Number of the Beast blusters along aimlessly, proving again that bad music is hell.”
Steve Huey at AllMusic: “Though some moments on The Number of the Beast are clearly stronger than others, the album as a whole represented a high-water mark for heavy metal, striking a balance between accessible melodicism and challenging technique and intensity. Everything fell into place for Iron Maiden here at exactly the right time, and the result certainly ranks among the top five most essential heavy metal albums ever recorded. A cornerstone of the genre.”
It is safe to say that as long as teenage boys are alive, there will always be an audience for The Number of the Beast.