Nostalgia trip: Piece of Mind by Iron Maiden - of God and ghouls
Before Oasis, there was Iron Maiden. Long before Manchester's gobbiest pop stars even thought of flicking two fingers at a paparazzo, East London's rock titans were strutting round the world as the consummate lad band.
Iron Maiden
EMI/Capitol
From their music (fast and loud) to their outside interests (soccer, beer and war films), the West Ham United-supporting rockers have made no bones about their credentials. They're not macho, like British contemporaries Def Leppard, or sexist, like US peers Motley Crue. They're just lads, in a very British, tongue-in-cheek way - the musical equivalent of Jeremy Clarkson, minus the violence.
If the band's private jet, the sword fencing or the Maiden-brand ale aren't proof enough that their career has been one long testosterone-fuelled soccer-terrace chant, then check out , the opening track to their fourth album, 1983's .
The album's powerhouse intro is indebted to the 1968 war movie from which it took its name: a brainless, muscle-bound romp. Richard Burton and Clint Eastwood play the he-man heroes of the second world war action thriller, in which Allied officers rescue a key military tactician from a Nazi prison. With a screenplay written by Scottish author Alistair MacLean, what it lacks in intellectual probity it makes up for in action and emotion.
Just like Iron Maiden.
