02. Iron Maiden The Number of the Beast 1982 (EMI)
Heavy Metal
The marked Mona Lisa hanging in the hallway.
Overview
For most people
The Number of the Beast is often their first port of call or exposure when getting into metal and for that reason alone it could easily be considered as being the most essential heavy metal album ever relased. In fact I actually remember when the album first came out, where the denizens of metal across the UK seemed to have finally found their true focal point as far as everything metal was concerned. As on
The Number of the Beast, Iron Maiden would put out an album that was just as grand and famous as anything being put out by any other top selling artist of the day and it would also be the album that launched the band into the stratosphere!
The Number of the Beast is also often seen as the Iron Maiden’s most famous album (if not their best) and it most notably sees Bruce Dickinson (ex-Samson) taking over the vocal helm with the likes of Dio and Rob Halford on how metal should be sung. Bruce Dickinson of course had come to the band to give Iron Maiden as far as band leader Steve Harris was concerned, a much wider reaching panoramic appeal in true stadium metal band tradition and in Bruce Dickinson they had an operatic vocalist whose vocal chords far exceeded the limited punk style of Paul Di’Anno.
The Number of the Beast would firmly set the stall out on what heavy metal’s middle ground should be for the rest of the decade, as this would be a decade which would see the flamboyant and commercially driven glam metal bands on one side, and the aggressive extreme metal acts on the other. Through all this anarchy and upheaval to affect the genre (which would soon lead to genre splicing) the genre needed centric sounding metal bands like Iron Maiden to steer the ship through stormy seas and provide heavy metal with a solid middle ground. Iron Maiden would largely keep the whole genre on an even keel which was vital for the genre’s long term commercial aspirations, as they were guaranteed to steer the ship safely to port everytime and provide metal with its solid backbone and reference point throughout the rest of the decade and beyond. Also Iron Maiden under the tutelage of both Bruce Dickinson and Steve Harris, would lay down a sound that sounded raw but polished, aggressive yet melodic, fantastic yet contemporary and all through this was a clarity of sound that would bring all the strengths of the band to the fore. The band’s trademark album covers are continued here to amazing effect by artist Derek Rigg and would continue to set the benchmark for what metal album covers should be about. As always the album name and cover would spark controversy with the conservative censors in the USA, who saw the whole thing as kind of promoting Satanism, something that was always being chucked at metal bands around this time. While here in the UK the album name and cover were just treated as another tongue-in-cheek approach by a metal band. Unsurprsingly the album makes just about every ‘must listen to metal album list’ out there and the amount of bands that have covered the songs on this album are just too numerous to mention and needless to say the album was a massive seller.
Verdict
Iron Maiden fronted by Paul Di’Anno may have sounded more exciting and spontaneous, but with Bruce Dickinson at the helm the band would reach new unparalleled heights of excellence. This was thanks to their aggressive tempos, the super fast technical twin guitar team of Dave Murray and Adrian Smith, which was all underpinned by both Steve Harris and Cliver Burr and then accompanied by the power chords of Bruce Dickinson all to a superior level. In fact most of the songs on the album whether they are truly great or not featured all the spiralling dynamics of the band in full cry. Gone on the album are the street level topics of the previous two albums, to be replaced by the more grandiose subjects of fantasy, history and horror which would all be subject staples of the genre very soon anyway. Now despite its very high and lofty postion both here and in most other places on the internet, I’ve always seen
The Number of the Beast as being the perfect example of ‘a flawed masterpiece’. In that the album is not as masterful as it should’ve been for an album of such standing, simply because there are a number of musical and timing variables to take into consideration when listening to it. Firstly some of the tracks were actually written with Paul Di’Anno in mind like the well known “22 Acacia Avenue” a follow-up to “Charlotte the Harlot”, it’s a good song but does feel like an ambitious Paul Di’Anno track at heart and then “Gangland” which is most definitely a Paul Di’Anno track. The main issue though is probably in the sequencing of the tracks, as I don’t think a song like “Invaders” was a good choice to start off the album and the classic “Children of the Damned” with its dynamic proportions doesn’t sit well as the album’s second track. In fact I could sift through the song sequencing on the album and raise a number of issues, because overall the album seems to have a random feel concerning its track order which is noticed by some and ignored by others. Secondly one or two tracks are probably not as great as they’re made out to be like “The Prisoner” which is based around the UK TV series, but it is saved by its middle section which serves up some masterful guitar interplay. “Invaders” is nothing special and “Gangland” belongs on the previous two albums, and the spare track “Total Eclipse” which would appear on the 1998 remaster of the album kicks the butt of both of those two songs imo. But these negatives are easily matched by everything that is great on the album and these come in the album’s four showcase tracks which are worth the price of admission alone and are capable of sweeping most of the opposition under the carpet. There is the epic “Children of the Damned” a slower Black Sabbath Dio era inspired classic. The title track “The Number of the Beast” dominated by Steve Harris’ rumbling bass and the album’s big single “Run to the Hills” which accounts the conquest of Native Americans. “Hallowed Be Thy Name” is the album’s extended classic and one of the best tracks ever put out by a metal band. The key ingredient of Iron Maiden’s popularity would revolve around the fact that serious metalheads could easily engage with the sound and image of the band, without ever compromising their true metal credentials, as the band would always deliver what they saw as serious metal, yet this serious metal was still melodic enough to equally engage casual listeners into what they saw as being true heavy metal as well. Overall this was a remarkable achievement by the band, considering that the 1980s would be flooded with bands from all sides of the heavy metal spectrum and in Iron Maiden even more so than say Judas Priest, heavy metal had an irremovable and solid heart that was firmly anchored in stone. This aspect alone, would provide the vital ingredient for the huge longevity of the band over the coming decades.
Bruce Dickinson- Vocals
Dave Murray- Guitar
Adrian Smith- Guitar
Steve Harris- Bass
Clive Burr- Drums
Production- Martin Birch