Midlife Metal Crisis - Top Ten Heavy Metal Albums of the 1980's #4 Iron Maiden - Killers

Midlife Metal Crisis - Top Ten Heavy Metal Albums of the 1980's #4 Iron Maiden - Killers

Iron Maiden were the British heavy metal band that dominated the 1980's in the UK and half the world. Although they were absolutely huge they were probably not as well recognised as their mascot Eddie the Ed whose evolution from spiky -haired zombie to menacing mascot was complete on the cover of Killers in 1981. 


They had come on the scene with the New Wave of British Heavy Metal or NWOBHM as it was catchily called then. Other bands breaking through on this wave were Samson and Def Leppard. In 1981 Bruce Dickinson of Samson would take over vocal duties in late 1981 and the band would record their no 1 Number of the Beast album. World domination would follow.
Before the bombastic vocals of Dickinson, mainstream success and the spandex of the Powerslave tour. Iron Maiden would record two spiky, low budget sounding albums. Their eponymous début and Killers. The latter is my favourite Iron Maiden album and one that I still return to today. I always found Paul Di'Anno's vocals more edgy than Dickinsons and although in my teenage years this would have not got as much turntable time as live after death, looking back this is the controversial favourite.

The opening track is an instrumental(the first of two) followed by the familiar bass lines of Wrathcild. a live favourite that I think they still play today. An early version of this was recorded for the NWOBHM (remember your acronyms kids) seminal compilation Metal for Muthas.

Twilight Zone, Metal For Muthas and Purgatory Record Sleeves

The single Twilight zone wasn't on the album, a source of never ending annoyance on my part that was rectified on the 1998 remastered CD. The second single purgatory was a track that never really should have been released. If the title track or Wrathchild had been in its place it may have been a different story and Iron Maidens commercial break would have come sooner.

The following Killers world tour would introduce 'Maiden' to the world including Japan and the USA but would unfortunately spell the end of Di'Anno's stint as front man for the band. Cocaine and alcohol had left Di'Anno unreliable for gigs and a liability for the band, as the tours and commitments mounted up he was sacked and Dickinson brought in.

The final tracks recorded with Di'Anno would be released in the UK as the 4 track  Mini Album/12"  Maiden Japan. A full setlist of this concert is available in Japan and the available on the internet and features the originally discarded cover of Eddy the Ed holding the severed head of Di'Anno. 

Maiden Japan cover featuring the severed head of sacked singer Paul Di'Anno

As the 1980's progressed, the tours would get bigger and bigger. By the time I was old enough to go and see them in 1988 they had huge pyrotechnic explosions and animatronics the size of your house featuring Eddy the Ed. One thing that this next video of them on the BBC's Jim'll fix it in 1987 (which I remember watching at the time) was that they were genuinely nice guys who had a lot of time for the fans. 

Paul Di Anno went on to front bands Battlezone, Praying Matis and Killers with some success.

Midlife Metal Crisis - Top Ten Heavy Metal Albums of the 1980's #5 Anthrax - Among the Living

Midlife Metal Crisis - Top Ten Heavy Metal Albums of the 1980's #5 Anthrax - Among the Living (1987)

Anthrax released their third album in 1987, catipulting them into the big four of Thrash of the 1980's (the other four being  Metallica, Slayer and Megadeth). They had already had an underground hit album with their previous effort - Spreading the disease and expectations were high for this by the New York outfit. We were not disapointed. It was preceded by the single I am the law, an ode to Judge Dredd from 2000AD, music didn't get any better than this and to top it off you could get 7" picture discs like this:

The sound on this is clean and straight up avoiding all the eighties production clichés, probably why it has aged so well. The singles (I am the Law and Indians) sound great and the opening title track still sounds epic. Caught in the Mosh captures the intensity of what it was like in those mosh pits when those thrash bands were playing. What Anthrax had that the other bands of the time didn't was a sense of melody. They could swing sharply from a hardcore shouty scream to quite a melodic chorus and back again and still sound sincere in their delivery. A real hard trick to pull off.

They would be accused of selling out the metal fraternity with how they looked, dressed and championed hip hop acts, they wore Bermuda shorts, def jam t-shirts and baseball caps no studs or bullet belts. They would invent Rap-rock on the throw away in-joke  B side of I'm the Man (later released on its own merit) and go on to set the standard with their collaboration with Public enemy on Bring the Noise. Leading the young and impressionable away from the metal road and into new areas of music.

Anthrax and Public Enemy

Midlife Metal Crisis- top 10 Heavy Metal albums of the 1980's #10 Hear'n' Aid

Due to a CD transport failure on my old Rotel CD player (it only works if it's been switched on or an hour) I've been playing records a lot lately. The problem is I stopped buying records in around 1990 when I switched briefly to cassettes for my Walkman as worked away at the time and then on to Cd's
So barring some twisted nerve vinyl and stuff I've found in charity shops most of my records are eighties heavy metal. Or to more accurate, the heavy metal I couldn't bear to part with when I unforgivably donated most of my vinyl to the cancer research shop in the mod nineties. Don't judge me, at least it was a good cause.

So the stuff I have left is what I thought was irreplaceable at the time and as a rule it does stand up. So to celebrate what I am calling my midlife metal crisis I am going to revisit my top ten metal albums from my eighties hey day. I'm not getting into arguments about what is metal and what isn't or what types. Also most of these are in the mid to late eighties period when I was most rock. I assume there are pictures somewhere of me with Iron Maiden T-shirts, bullet belts and Mullets but thankfully the Internet wasn't around then and they will stay safely stashed in the my Mums big box of photos.

The Best Heavy Metal Albums of the 1980's #10 Hear 'n' Aid - Various Artists

This starts the list not as an actual favourite top ten album but out of respect for it's existence. It's release was instrumental in showcasing to the 12 year old me the bands out there. Also there is not enough written about heavy metals very own Band Aid charity record - Stars.

Heavy Metal pioneer, the late great Elf himself Ronnie James Dio's self named band at the time looked on as Sir Bob led the pop world in raising money for famine relief in Africa and set about uniting the Heavy Metal scene for the power of Good. Ronnie James Dio, Guitarist Vivian Campbell and Bassist Jimmy Bain wrote the song Stars, the word went out and the Heavy Metal Heavy weights turned up in their droves.

Members of Dio, Iron Maiden, Motley Crue, Judas Priest, Blue Oyster Cult, Twisted Sister, Dokken, Journey, WASP and many others entered the studio in May 1985 to record the lengthy epic.

Fuck Bono and his "tonight thank god it's them..." line this thing had Iron Maiden's twin guitars as a rhythm section and no less than 12 fucking lead guitar players banging out 6 guitar solos, all trying to outdo each other with more and more ridiculous licks. Reports suggest there was enough spandex in the room to cover a herd of African Elephants and that the hairspray bill ran into thousands.

Stars was released almost a year later due to record company legal wrangles reaching the dizzy heights of #26 in the UK charts.

There are few versions of this on Youtube but I thought this was the best, plus it has the lyrics so you can sing along.






The subsequent compilation album that was released featured the full extended version of Stars and 8 other tracks donated by bands that barring Dio and Y&T didn't perform on the charity record. These were Accept, The Scorpions, Kiss, Motorhead, Rush and Jimi Hendrix ( although to be fair he couldn't really be expected to have heeded the call to perform on the record). I didn't hear the Hendrix track for a couple of years as my friend who the album belonged to hated it so much he physically scratched it out of existence so I could never tape it. When I finally got the vinyl a couple of years later this so-so track was like a revelation.

The rest of the compilation is standard eighties heavy metal fair with mostly exclusive live tracks from Dio, Rush, Motorhead, Kiss and the Scorpions. Heavens on fire was my introduction to Kiss and although I can appreciate the attraction to their seventies make up clad hey-day I still have a soft spot for the ropey eighties years that most Kiss fans disown. Destroyer does Rock but give me Animalize or Lick it up any day.





The Scorpions will feature later in the top ten but The Zoo live is awesome:
i
Motorhead's On the Road.




Dio's contribution was a live track from his Sacred Heart album:


And don't forget the merchandise available to JOIN YOUR FAVOURITE HARD ROCK HEROES IN THE FIGHT TO END WORLD HUNGER!

Above all things I wanted and still want a Hear'n'Aid Bandanna. I've tasked Shelley with getting me one for my Fortieth Birthday.If anyone has one of these send me a pic and I'll post it.

So in at number ten is the Heavy Metal charity album that never got the recognition outside the heavy metal community. Although it was covered in the heavy metal press, looking back I'm not really sure what to make of the Kerrang cover at the time, they probably meant well:

The 1980's was the defining decade for heavy metal although it was destined to be it's final days. Grunge was on its way to destroy the genre, its spandex trousers, hair spray and leather. In its final days would produce its greatest moments. The next few posts will go into them. 

The Sound House - Ashton Under Lyne

In a thread on the Guardian Website about record shops that changed our lives a shout out is deserved for The Sound House of Ashton under lyne. Where Hip Hop heads met Heavy Metal fans in a very small cramped space tucked away on a back street where those in the know would go.

It later moved to the more shopper friendly arcade but still kept it's independent ethos. Andys Records killed it off with its chain store mentality, which in turn died off due to being expensive and shit.

The quite frankly pointless HMV is the only place in Ashton now to buy music. These big chains killed off the smaller independent shops as they just couldn't compete. The internet is killing off the big stores not  because they can't compete but because they just didn't know how to provide a service for people any more. For some insane reason I felt the need to re-buy Iron Maidens first album last week (I'm having a heavy metal midlife crisis) I knew it was £3.99 all over the internet but was willing to pay a couple of quid more to get it there and then. In HMV it was £13.50 thats over triple the cost so they didn't get a sale. On looking throught he new releases it's the same selection at Tesco, the internet is the last refuge for the music collector. Although |Vinyl Exchange in Manchetsre is still going (hopefully) strong.