Blindspotting: Iron Maiden, "Seventh Son of a Seventh Son"

The Legacy: Like you need me to tell you, but okay: Iron Maiden helped lead the New Wave of British Heavy Metal charge starting with their self-titled 1980 debut; by the time they got down to work on their seventh LP in early 1988, they were riding high off a string of gold and platinum albums, and also starting to get on each other's nerves after a series of lengthy tours. Singer Bruce Dickinson was particularly down in the dumps, feeling unappreciated after trying to drag the band toward more of a Led Zeppelin IV vibe — and being shut out of the songwriting process as a result — during the sessions for 1986's Somewhere in Time.

Enter Orson Scott Card to the rescue. The bestselling sci-fi author and infamous bigot piqued bassist Steve Harris' fancy after Harris read Card's 1987 novel Seventh Son, which... well, you can plainly see the inspiration Harris took from the book, which takes place in a world where seventh sons of seventh sons are gifted with magical abilities or something. Honestly, you don't really need to know much about the plot of the book in order to understand the Iron Maiden album — chiefly because the record's ties to Card's work are very loose, and it isn't even really a concept album all the way through. Dickinson himself has admitted that it "has no story," but he wasn't too bent out of shape about it, because he had a hand in writing four of Son's eight tracks.

Aside from dipping into the sci-fi/fantasy section of your local bookstore for inspiration, the group broadened its approach by incorporating keyboards for the first time. While they'd used synth bass and guitar synths on Somewhere in Time, they leaned in further with Son, which added another color to their sonic palette while putting them closer in line with the many keyboard-assisted rock and metal bands of the era. The change paid dividends, extending Maiden's streak of Top 20 chart placements and platinum sales in the U.S. while they continued to rule the charts back home. The record didn't produce much in the way of hit singles here, but that's always been the case for Maiden; their biggest Stateside radio hit is 1983's "Flight of Icarus," and it isn't particularly close.

Unfortunately for Maiden fans, the relative creative harmony surrounding Seventh Son of a Seventh Son turned out to be a temporary bandage on a festering wound. Guitarist Adrian Smith took a hike during sessions for the follow-up, 1990's "No Prayer for the Dying," due to his unhappiness with the more stripped-down approach they opted to take; Dickinson followed suit after 1992's Fear of the Dark, leading to several years in which the band was fronted by replacement singer Blaze Bayley and sales tumbled. (Unlike most British bands, who have been known to split up and quietly hate one another forever, the guys in Maiden mended fences toward the turn of the century, and they remain one of the most widely loved hard rock acts in the world. All's well that ends well.)

First Impressions: I avoided these guys as a kid because they seemed a lot harder and far more serious than the rock acts I was into — not just CHR mainstays like Billy Joel and Chicago, mind you, but most of my hair-metal faves as well. After listening to Seventh Son of a Seventh Son, I can plainly hear that I had no reason not to avail myself of their musical stylings; all in all, at least based on the evidence presented by this album, they were basically a more aggressive version of Yes or Kansas, with loads of fancy musical stylings assembled around lyrics that were far more likely to deal with "serious" themes than stuff like getting loaded and partying with chicks.

I turned 14 the year this album came out, and I can tell you with complete certainty that I was much more interested in partying with chicks than anything Bruce Dickinson is yelling about on any of Son's songs, so I'm sure the album's appeal would have been lost on me at the time. And it definitely has a certain lumbering appeal, although I also think it's hard to listen to this kind of thing through a post-Spinal Tap lens without giggling a little. These guys were trying hard, which is commendable, but... it really sounds like they were trying hard, and also like they'd been reading way too many sci-fi/fantasy novels. If you're seriously into lyrics about prophets and crystal balls, I assure you I mean no disrespect; I'd happily listen to more Maiden, and I have also thoroughly enjoyed their beer. But it's hard to argue that this stuff doesn't come across as at least faintly silly. And again, much if not most of the AOR of the '80s is faintly silly! It's just that I think the songs about women and alcohol are, uh, more relatable. From a musical perspective, it's certainly much more impressive and ambitious than anything Night Ranger or Bon Jovi or Poison or whoever ever did, but it's also generally less memorable.

Put more succinctly: Listening to Seventh Son of a Seventh Son would have given me more to talk about with my hesher buds while we stood around outside the liquor store in the late '80s... and perhaps, in retrospect, it's for the best that I was listening to Bad Company and Bonham instead.

Hidden Gems: Maiden fans are so hardcore that I don't think there's any such thing as a hidden gem anywhere in their catalog. I'd be tempted to put the nearly ten-minute title track here purely on grounds of sheer musical ambition, but I kinda can't get around the fact that the chorus is just Dickinson shouting the name of the song over and over again. Without any solid options to choose from, I guess I'll just say that if you've never listened to this record in particular or Maiden in general, you could probably do worse than starting out with "Can I Play with Madness," which was the album's leadoff single and biggest hit for some very good, genuinely catchy reasons.