Piece Of Mind is 30 years old, believe it or not!
May 16, 1983 saw the release of Piece Of Mind. The first Iron Maiden album to feature drummer Nicko McBrain, it was also the first that saw the band set out on a headlining tour of North America. The single Flight Of Icarus is still one of Maiden’s biggest chart successes, and the follow-up single The Trooper has only been absent from 2 of Maiden’s tours since.
Maiden fans have 15 studio albums to argue about when it comes to picking a favorite, but it’s safe to say that Piece Of Mind will top many lists and rarely be far down others. It’s a ridiculously great album!
(Continues under the picture!)
The Piece Of Mind line-up finds the quality of material on their new album utterly ridiculous. Left to right: Adrian Smith, Nicko McBrain, Bruce Dickinson, Steve Harris, Dave Murray.
We’ve praised the record earlier in this retro review, hailing it as an absolute masterpiece. We could add – not just in Maiden’s catalog, but in the history of hard rock and metal. Sure we’re biased, but how many bands have made such an unbelievable record in their career?
As the Piece Of Mind album was re-released on vinyl picture disc last year, we took the opportunity to celebrate the coming of both McBrain and singer Bruce Dickinson to the band in an article in our Feature Friday series.
But don’t just take our word for it! Check out Ultimate Classic Rock’s tribute to one of the ultimate Maiden classics. They call it “one of the most beloved heavy metal albums of all time.”
Happy anniversary, Piece Of Mind!
Maiden Revelations 
A reblogué ceci sur SERGULA.
I haven’t dug into the details of the 1990’s and 2000’s albums but it’s interesting to me that this was their first album to not have a song track with the same name as the album. Of course, “piece of mind” is a lyric in Still Life. When I was a teen in the mid to late 1980s I also noticed that the titles of their first six albums were in alphabetical order, e.g., I, K, N, Pi, Po, S. B-)
This is my favorite Iron Maiden album. I’m probably biased as it was the first Maiden album that I got and first one I listened to in its entirety (I had heard a few tracks from Number of the Beast). The combination of gothic style album artwork (I think Piece of Mind is Derek Riggs’ best IM artwork – for it’s depth and atmosphere), variety of song subjects, and the excellent vocals and instrumentation. For me it’s a very atmospheric album, especially for “Revelations”, “Still Life”, and “To Tame a Land”. Also, at least for the 1980’s albums, I feel Steve Harris’ bass sounds best on this one. There is as much or more low to midrange bass “growl” as there is higher frequency fret pops, which sound more prominent on the later albums, starting with Powerslave.
p.s. I saw Maiden in concert twice in the 1980s in Germany: Nov. 1984 and Nov. 1986. I haven’t seen them since but I have seen a number of their concert DVDs and online. 🙂