By JAY ROBERTS

The Cassette Chronicles is a continuing series of mini reviews and reflections on albums from the 1980’s and 1990’s. The aim of this series is to highlight both known and underappreciated albums from rock, pop and metal genres from this time period through the cassette editions of their releases. Some of the albums I have known about and loved for years, while others are new to me and were music I’ve always wanted to hear. There will be some review analysis and my own personal stories about my connection with various albums. These opinions are strictly my own and do not reflect the views of anyone else at Limelight Magazine.

IRON MAIDEN – THE NUMBER OF THE BEAST (1982)

When I decided to write about the Iron Maiden album The Number of the Beast, little did I know there were so many firsts and lasts involved with the album’s creation.

The most notable “first” is that it was the first album to feature Bruce Dickinson on vocals. I think we all know how well that lineup change from Paul Di’Anno worked out for the band. It was also the last album to feature drummer Clive Burr, who received his first and only writing credits for the band on the release as well. Meanwhile, guitarist Adrian Smith got his first writing credits on the album after only playing on the previous album Killers

I was still a few years away from “discovering” Iron Maiden for myself but since that fateful day I’ve snapped up all of their studio albums and for me The Number of the Beast is definitely the album that would’ve gotten me into the band had I heard it first. As much as others like the first two albums, I’m not nearly as big a fan of them. For me, a lot of those songs on the first two albums didn’t really get me all excited until I heard Bruce Dickinson singing them. I’m sure that’s considered blasphemy but there it is.

When you look at the track listing for the album, it is almost a greatest hits package all by itself. 

“Invaders” kicks off the album and I find it funny that such a blitzing metal attack that really fires you up when you listen to it is or at least was considered “not good enough” by bassist Steve Harris and likely would’ve been cut from the album if they’d had anything else to replace it with. WHAT? Man, that would’ve been a bummer because I think the song is killer all the way through.

For “Children of the Damned”, I like the way the song starts off sort of slow with an impassioned but restrained vocal performance from Dickinson. But the way Maiden builds the song’s intensity lets the song grow into a real classic that moves from each individual strength of the band members at the time. The intensity buildup begins in the chorus but then growns even more insistent as the music begins to get faster as Dickinson’s singing builds the storyline until it finally breaks out into a full-fledged blazing musical soundtrack that continues right til the end of the track.

With “The Prisoner” being based off the 1960s TV show, the use of the audio clip from the show in the song’s introduction really brings it home for me. (Seriously, I really need to find a way to watch the TV show someday.) After the spoken word clip, you get an almost marching musical beat intro for a bit but then the music explodes into a full bore rocking sound. Add in a fantastic set of lyrics and a delivery of said lyrics and you get the kind of relentless metal assault that gets you amped up and keeps you on a high energy level to the very last notes of the song. 

The closing song for Side One is “22 Acacia Avenue” which is the second song about “Charlotte the Harlot”. I really dig the song but it also gave me a bit of a funny moment at one of the Iron Maiden concerts I went to. I was there to right a review of the show so I had the setlist on hand so I could just check off each song as it was played. There was a husband and wife behind me during the opening act and the husband saw my list and asked to see it during the intermission. Whatever song he was hoping to hear wasn’t on my list but what made things both funny and memorable was that the couple had brought their two teenage daughters to the show. It was their first Iron Maiden concert and the guy said they were hoping to hear their favorite song. I asked what it was and they said, “22 Acacia Avenue”. I couldn’t help myself and said to the dad, “Do they know what that song is about?” I don’t know, I just wasn’t expecting a couple of teenage girls to have a song about a whorehouse be their favorite track.

I know these four particular tracks aren’t in every setlist for when the band is on the road, but for me, they are always a welcome addition to any live show and each of them are damn good songs any way you look at it.

As for Side Two, talk about a master class in metal music greatness! I mean three of the songs are played in nearly every single concert tour Iron Maiden has done since these songs were first released!

Normally when I go to shows, I’m doing a review and you will barely see me react to what I see during the concert because I’m busy concentrating on taking it all in so I can write about it with as much detail as possible.

But that all goes out the window when the opening narration of the album’s title track starts to play. I join in with everyone else and just blow the roof off the venue with loud cheers of exhultation for this song. When I first heard it, my instant love for the song was likely due to the whole not exactly accurate song about Satan idea, knowing how it would piss off people that I liked the song so much. I know now that the song was inspired by a nightmare Steve Harris had but I didn’t know that when I first heard the track. Thus I had my own take on the song, however wrong that turned out to be. 

These days, understanding what the song is actually about doesn’t change how much I love it though. You get that darkly powerful riff after the spoken word intro, and a shaded vocal from Dickinson in that first verse. But this is another song that you can hear grow from a slower tempo into something that just rips your throat out all the way. After that first verse and one hellaciously powerful scream from Bruce, the music is an unstoppable blitzkrieg as the guitars are on fire and the drumming from Clive Burr builds the foundation which allows for Harris, Dave Murray and Adrian Smith to just shine throughout. This is always going to be one of my favorite songs not only by Iron Maiden but throughout the entire metal genre.

Do you remember when chat rooms were the big thing on the Internet? I was in a music one for a long while and while it is entirely possible the person was full of it, they said they were a nun and she was a huge Iron Maiden fan and “The Number of the Beast” was one of her favorite songs. I remember when they said that, my response was “I’m guessing you don’t play that one loudly at the convent.” That chat room is long gone but it was an interaction that has stuck with me.

The conflict between Native Americans and European settlers is the focus of “Run to the Hills” which remains one of the major Iron Maiden songs more than four decades after its release. It was the first single released ahead of the album itself coming out. It’s utterly relentless musically, but the video for the song is what gets me. Despite the serious nature of the song’s subject matter, I only just learned by reading it on the album’s Wikipedia page, the footage of the fighting between the two sides comes from a parody movie from 1923 called The Uncovered Wagon. See, you really do learn something new every day.

Poor “Gangland”, it is seemingly the most unloved song that found its way onto The Number of the Beast album. The band seems to regret not only putting it on the album but it also seems like they even regret writing the song period. The thing is that while it may not be Iron Maiden’s greatest ever song, I like the full throttle musical score and I think the way Bruce Dickinson attacks the lyrics vocally is damn good. Plus, the chorus really works as well. It’s definitely a song that deserves more love from its creators.

While Iron Maiden has had plenty of worthy epic-type tracks over their career, the closing song “Hallowed Be Thy Name” remains their biggest, best and most popular one. And when you listen to the song, you can certainly hear why. 

With that deeply dark intro and Dickinson vocally embodying a prisoner wait for his execution by hanging, you can hear the church bell ringing its tone as the prisoner’s final moments approach. Once the heavier musical delivery thrusts into the open, the vocal delivery becomes so intense that it feels like it is shredding your brain. You can see everything in your mind that is being described to you. Between “Rime of the Ancient Mariner” from the Powerslave album and this track, Iron Maiden amply demonstrates their ability to craft the cinematic epics that create visuals in your mind to go along with the music. It’s another song that has featured in nearly every Iron Maiden tour over the years and there’s a good reason for it. It’s a stone cold classic track in every sense of the word. I love the extended musical piece over the second half of the song that leads into the dramatic flourish that brings both the song and album to a fitting conclusion.

The Number of the Beast album was the first time the rest of the band worked with Bruce Dickinson. And I’m sure no one had any idea how it would turn out. But clearly they not only hit it out of the park their first time out together, but it was just the start of a decades long collaboration that brought the band to heights undreamt. This album is utterly fantastic..I don’t know any other way to put it so succinctly.

NOTES OF INTEREST: The Number of the Beast album has been certified gold or platinum in at least 15 countries. In the US, it hit the platinum sales mark.

The album was reissued in 1995 with a bonus disc featuring while the 1998 reissue had just one disc with the original eight tracks while adding in the song “Total Eclipse” from the 1995 reissue. The 40th anniversary vinyl reissue in 2022 drops the song “Gangland” entirely and puts “Total Eclipse” in its place. Because “Total Eclipse” figures so much into later versions of the album, I went and listened to the song and while the song has a solidly thumping tempo, I don’t really think it is all that superior to “Gangland”.

According to a quote from artist Derek Riggs, the cover art was at least in part inspired by artwork he saw in a Doctor Strange comic book. The cover art would appear in the video for the song “Speed of Light” from the band’s album The Book of Souls.

Barry Clayton, who provided the spoken word intro for the song “The Number of the Beast” passed away in 2011. While working as both an actor and director, he performed the role of the narrator on the animated series Count Duckula.