Iron Maiden - The Number Of The Beast

The Number Of The Beast is the third studio album by British heavy metal band Iron Maiden, originally released in March 1982 via EMI Records.

Iron Maiden formed in 1975 by bassist and primary songwriter Steve Harris. Pioneers of the new wave of British heavy metal, Iron Maiden achieved initial success during the early 1980s. After several line-up changes, the band went on to release a series of UK and US platinum and gold albums. Since the return of lead vocalist Bruce Dickinson and guitarist Adrian Smith in 1999, the band have undergone a resurgence in popularity. Despite little radio or television support. Iron Maiden are considered one of the most successful heavy metal bands in history, selling over 90 million albums worldwide.

The Number of the Beast was their first album to feature vocalist Bruce Dickinson and their last with the late drummer Clive Burr. This is Iron Maiden's only album to include songwriting credits from Clive Burr and was the band's first album to feature writing by guitarist Adrian Smith. In addition, the release saw Steve Harris adopt a different approach to writing, which would cater more for new vocalist Bruce Dickinson. The album's producer Martin Birch remarked, "I simply didn't think (former vocalist Paul Di'Anno) was capable of handling lead vocals on some of the quite complicated directions I knew Steve wanted to explore... When Bruce joined, it opened up the possibilities for the new album tremendously."

According to several interviews, Dickinson was heavily involved in writing several of the album's songs, and in particular Children of the Damned, The Prisoner and Run to the Hills. unfortunately, due to his previous band Samson's ongoing contractual issues, Dickinson could not legally take part in any songwriting for the record, and so made what he called a "moral contribution" but one which did not give him songwriting credits.

The recording and mixing of the album had to be completed in only five weeks, after the band had spent considerable time constructing the new songs. This was 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.

The Number of the Beast was met with considerable critical and commercial success and was a landmark release for the band—becoming their first album to reach No. 1 in the UK Albums Chart, and be certified platinum in the US. The album also produced the singles Run to the Hills and The Number of the Beast, the former of which was the band's first top-ten UK single. 

This album is a 40^th Anniversary reissue on 180 gram black vinyl with a printed inner sleeve, pressed in Europe via Parlophone Records.