The Number of the Beast: Album Discussion

From the original Japanese lyric sheet (Bob Barton version):

I'm wading in my coal sell
When Labelle begins to shine
Reflecting on my past wife
And when does it have much dime?

Cause it's five or talk they take me to Galapagos
The sands of time for me are runny, lo!
Runny lo oh oh Yeah!

When the breeze come to feed me the last rice
Take a look tuna bars there - the last sites
Of a whirl that has gone Verizon for me

Canopy? Is there some sore to ear hair?
Had to sop the Sir Mountie tear or
Isn't relay the end? Knock some crasidrene.

Some bunny pleads let me drown, I'm dreaming
It's naughty, see, to stop some scheming
The worms escape me as I try to sleep

Deers call, but why? Am I trying?
As far a lime nod alfredo dying
Doh! I be leaf, then they're never - is an N?

Asgard mocks me out on the court yarn
Some bunny grimes on my sell, cod be witch, you
Is there a cod? Then I'm going to get me sole

Azhai mock my wife dips before me
Going in the sneer I've got sore knee
Catch my sole, its swimming to fry away

Mock my worms, be leaf my sole limps on
Done worry now that I'm half gone
Icon beyond to sing the tooth

Where Juno is a time that closed the hand
Mainly then Yul begins to join the band
Lies down here is just so strange, can use them
 
The Number of the Beast (1982)
  • The reasons this album is so good are twofold: 1) Everyone is bringing 110% to the table. So much fire. 2) Bruce fucking Dickinson lays waste to all of his competitors. Who's the greatest metal singer ever? Bruce is. And with his first Maiden album he gets that straight once and for all, that's for fucking clear.
  • I do have a huge negative though. God bless Martin Birch but the vocals on TNOTB are buried behind the wall of guitar, bass, and drums. A shame, but luckily the material makes up for that glaring flaw.
  • Even the weaker songs on here are pretty great. "Gangland" and "Invaders" get a bad rap, and I get it, they're simple and Maiden don't push themselves all that much on them. But "Gangland" still has a lot of action within it, and "Invaders" is fun as hell. "Total Eclipse" is a really fun rocker with some jaw-dropping atmospherics and performances.
  • "22 Acacia Avenue" is a terrific slab of heavy metal, but also has a couple points that drag it down. The lyrics are too preachy for my taste, even in spite of the twist at the end, and the instrumental section is just "Phantom" but weaker. Otherwise it's another great song.
  • The rest of the tracklist cooks. "Children of the Damned" is a brutal, haunting ballad; "The Prisoner" is a catchy rocker with a wonderful Hallelujah chorus. "The Number of the Beast" is one of the all-time great metal singles (that scream, that energy, that fire, that passion!), and so is "Run to the Hills" (truly one of the great, iconic choruses in metal).
  • And of course, TNOTB's trump card - "Hallowed Be Thy Name". It's the "Stairway to Heaven" of heavy metal (and I guess that makes "Master of Puppets" the "Free Bird"?). I still don't think it's the greatest Maiden song, but I've never not loved it. It's more the experience of it than the song itself. I think what makes it so iconic is just the fact that it was the right song at the right time. Metal bands weren't really writing these mini-epics back in 1982, and if they were, they certainly weren't doing it with the blazing dual-axes of Smith & Murray, the soaring powerhouse vocals of P. B. Dickinson, and the stubborn determination of Steve "'Arry" Harris. Regardless of whether it ripped off Beckett or not, "Hallowed" threw down the gauntlet to everyone else in the scene, commanding them to top it. And few did. One of the few that did was Steve Harris himself, cuz the madman also went and wrote a full-scale epic, which deserves the "best metal song" title more than "Hallowed" and "Master" do. But we'll get to it later. Suffice it to say that Maiden are awesome.
As a whole it's just a really fiery comeback from the mixed bag that is Killers, and Bruce's addition to the group was one of the greatest movements in metal history. It just kicks so much ass.

  1. Invaders - 9/10
  2. Children of the Damned - 10/10
  3. The Prisoner - 10/10
  4. 22 Acacia Avenue - 9/10
  5. The Number of the Beast - 10/10
  6. Run to the Hills - 10/10
  7. Gangland - 8/10
  8. Total Eclipse - 9/10
  9. Hallowed Be Thy Name - 10/10
Total: 94%
 
Invaders - 9, only thing wrong with this is "invaders, doo du diddle doo"

Children of the Damned - 10, classic Maiden template of quiet verse/loud chorus, Bruce letting us know he can sing during the verse

The Prisoner - 10, uptempo rocker with catchy chorus and Adrian stepping out from Dave's shadow for perhaps the first time with this solo

22 Acacia Avenue - 10, Music is phenomenal but the lyrics are embarrassing, I wouldn't use this track to introduce someone to Maiden which is a shame that it's on many peoples introductory album. I really should dock it marks for the words, but the music is too good that I'm willing to turn a blind eye

The Number of the Beast - 10, The best thing they ever released. It manages to both be a simple pop song while at the same time having mad time signatures and shifting moods. The bit between the 2 guitar solos is the best build up ever and my all time favourite section of music

Run to the Hills - 10, obviously Maiden's biggest hit, managing to have crossover appeal while also being trademark Maiden

Gangland - 8, simple straightforward rocker, nothing particularly wrong with it, it's just in stellar company

Hallowed Be Thy Name -10, again not much that needs to be said about Hallowed, it's what Maiden is all about. Not my personal favourite track (see above) but I'm willing to accept it's rightfully democratically deemed as Maiden's best on a regular basis.
 
I remember feeling crushed at the end of 1981 because Paul DiAnno had left Iron Maiden. How could they possibly survive this hammer blow? Was my favourite band about to die a premature death?

I remember being at a friend's house, listening to the radio, early in 1982 and we were hoping a new Iron Maiden song would be played on The Friday Rock Show. The moment the show started, and without any introduction, we heard Run to the Hills for the first time. We didn't know for sure it was even Iron Maiden, but we all knew it was jaw-droppingly good! As the final notes ebbed away, we were told this was the new Iron Maiden, with Bruce Dickinson on vocals and we all breathed a sigh of relief. If the rest of the album was as good as this, Iron Maiden had far from died. they'd taken a massive step forward.

I've heard Maiden albums with more classic songs on them and I can understand why younger fans might wonder why it's held in such high regard. All of the songs on the first side are good, but I wouldn't say any of them are classics. On the second side, Gangland is only average, but the other three: The Number of the Beast, Run to the Hills, and Hallowed Be Thy Name are all absolute classics and Maiden have rarely written anything better. As classic as these three tracks are, that's still less than half the album, so why is this album revered so much?

To a degree, I think you had to be there to fully appreciate it's impact. Iron Maiden had already positioned themselves towards the top of the Heavy Metal tree by this point, but there were other great bands. TNOTB took Maiden to a whole new level and it was a level nobody else could live with at the time. These songs were brilliantly produced, very well written and their complexity showed increasing ambition. Adrian Smith was starting to contribute songs but again for contractual reasons, Bruce was unable to write anything for this album. Bruce's voice was simply incredible and his range and power allowed Maiden to open up new directions. This is not the best album Maiden has ever done, but I think it was the most significant because it was such a complete game-changer. They had a new lease of life on vinyl and a new lease of life on stage. Bruce brought towering vocals and far more energy on stage.

For a teenage lad, life couldn't get much better than this.
 
Curious info:

The recording and mixing of the album had to be completed in only five weeks, after the band had spent too long constructing the new songs. This was allegedly because the group were for the first time creating a new album from scratch, with very little material written prior to the record's pre-production stage. However, live recordings show that five of the album's songs (22AA, COTD, HBTN, RTTH, The Prisoner) had been premiered live already at a few shows towards the end of the Killer World Tour in November and December 1981. With "Invaders" being a re-write of an earlier song, "Invasion", this suggests only two tracks – the title track and "Gangland" – were written after the 1981 tour ended.

Is the info about Invaders and Invasion true?

en.wikipedia.org

The Number of the Beast (album) - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org en.wikipedia.org
 
Kalata said:
Curious info:

The recording and mixing of the album had to be completed in only five weeks, after the band had spent too long constructing the new songs. This was allegedly because the group were for the first time creating a new album from scratch, with very little material written prior to the record's pre-production stage. However, live recordings show that five of the album's songs (22AA, COTD, HBTN, RTTH, The Prisoner) had been premiered live already at a few shows towards the end of the Killer World Tour in November and December 1981. With "Invaders" being a re-write of an earlier song, "Invasion", this suggests only two tracks – the title track and "Gangland" – were written after the 1981 tour ended.

Is the info about Invaders and Invasion true?

en.wikipedia.org

The Number of the Beast (album) - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org en.wikipedia.org
Click to expand...

No that's nonsense.

Invaders is about the same subject, and has a similar name, to Invasion, but other than those superficial similarities they are different.
 
Spaldy said:
NOTB is officially 40. Maiden have been busy on social media today posting NOTB memories including this Tweet claiming that the video has been upscaled? I don't know if this upscale is recent or not but I'm disappointed to see it's been cropped from the original 4:3 aspect ratio.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1506249349579354112
Click to expand...

I suspect it's not a recent upscaling, the date is 2015 on youtube, so I presume if they update the video then the date would update too????
 
GhostofCain said:
Nope, it is not. They might not be as good as the rest of the album, but loads of bands would have killed to write songs like those two.
Click to expand...
They’re not as good as the rest of the discography, much less the rest of the album. Invaders or Gangland, if written by other bands, would still be middle-tier-to-middling at best.
 
It’s a legendary album and IMO no weak song, yes I love Gangland and Invaders. With Total Eclipse it’s even better. I know some might have some “fatigue” with this record now but it’s importance in the history of heavy metal cannot be understated.
 
srfc said:
I suspect it's not a recent upscaling, the date is 2015 on youtube, so I presume if they update the video then the date would update too????
Click to expand...
I think you can update videos without changing the date but you've got to have some sort of special YouTube privileges.
 
The Number of the Beast (1982)

Invaders - 8/10 >
Children of the Damned - 8/10 >
The Prisoner - 9/10 >
22 Acacia Avenue - 8/10 >
The Number of the Beast - 9/10 >
Run to the Hills - 10/10 >
Gangland - 7/10 >
Hallowed Be Thy Name - 9/10 >

So much better than Killers. Bruce opens new doors, the songwriting steps up, the playing steps up, it’s a really strong metal record. Birch’s production is even better here (although Bruce is too low in the mix). Not perfect, but one of those game changers that set the scene for the brilliance still in store for us.

Total: 85%
Weighted: 85%
 
I still can't believe all we got for the 40th anniversary was just a stupid fucking cassette tape! What are we going to get for Live After Death? A laser disc?
 
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