The Number of the Beast - Happy 30th Anniversary!

Feel old yet?


Iron Maiden's The Number Of The Beast was released 30 years ago today on March 22, 1982.

Happy Anniversary!

Do you remember when you first got this album? Tell us about it!

Holy crapamoley. I'm fuggin' ancient. HEY YOU DAMN KIDS! GET OFF MY LAWN!!!

Not exactly sure when I first heard the entire album, but I do remember seeing the video for the title track on MTV for the first time. I thought those gauntlets that Bruce Dickinson was wearing with the huge spikes on 'em were the most bad-ass thing I'd ever seen.

I know I had a dubbed tape of the album from a friend for a long time (as was the custom when we were broke teenagers; one guy would buy an album and dub it for the rest of us; then the next time another album we all wanted to hear came out, someone ELSE in the circle would buy it and do the same, and so on and so on...) and I may not have finally gotten my "own" copy till I started switching over to CDs.

I didn't get that album until like 89 or 90. Sounded great then & still holds up.

My brother used to have a copy of it on tape, which I used to borrow when he was not looking

The first Maiden album I bought was 'Piece of Mind' and this was the second or third. I loved the album but not for musical purposes ( thou the music was excellent) but because my mother would go ape sh!t whenever she saw the album cover and was convinced that mortal soul was going to H-E-double hockey sticks. She especially hated the intro but much to my mother's credit as much as she hated the album, she did not make me throw away like the next neighbor's tools parents did.

I found the cassette on public transportation in Portland. Crapola, am I really that old?

I don't remember exactly when I got my own copy, but it was probably sometime in the mid-90's when I was upgrading all my tapes and dubbed copies of various Maiden albums.

I'd heard it well before then, must've been in high school. Twin brothers, whom I'm still friends with to this day, were big Maiden fans. I remember seeing the big vinyl album cover. I'm pretty sure one of them had it on a t-shirt too. One of those black & white 3/4 sleeve baseball shirts.

EDIT: I believe Number of the Beast was the first Maiden album I purchased in the CD format. Seeing how that one was the most well-known, it would stand to reason that I'd get that one first when upgrading from tapes.

My friend's brother-in-law had this on vinyl and let him borrow it to make a copy which I then copied off that. I had this thing like that for the longest time til I lost it,it got destroyed,or whatever. I never upgraded this to cd until the mid 90s through good old Columbia House (or was it BMG?). It was the first Maiden I owned on cd.

And 30 years ? Incredible !

Sometime during the summer of 1982 I was watching HBO's Video Jukebox and they played the videos for Judas Priest's You Got Another Thing Comin' and Iron Maiden's The Number Of The Beast. I instantly fell in love with both. (I already owned Priest's Sin After Sin on vinyl).

I got The Number Of The Beast LP on my birthday, August 5th of that year. I also purchased the Maiden Japan EP on the same day because I've always been a fanatic for live albums.

The Number Of The Beast will always be my sentimental favorite Iron Maiden album.

...and GANGLAND is one of the most underrated tracks in their catalog.

I picked up Piece Of Mind first but of course I had seen the videos and was hooked. The reason I bought PoM was that by the time I had the $$ to buy TNOTB, PoM was the new release,d so I picked it up instead \m/

Picked TNOTB up on vinyl later along with the debut, Killers and Maiden Japan.

I have a copy of this one Vinyl (Thanks Manny!). I'll have to listen to it James B and SD style on Vinyl tonight!

thejokeriv wrote:

I have a copy of this one Vinyl (Thanks Manny!). I'll have to listen to it James B and SD style on Vinyl tonight!

I wish I still had the LP (my entire LP collection was stolen in the 90s) cause it sounded fantastic in that format. Piece Of Mind also sounds much better on LP.

I do have the first Japanese CD of TNOTB which is the next best thing.

I went to Groove Time Records to visit the "smoking" paraphernalia room in back to score some Randy's Insta-Roach papers...


I noticed something "killer" playing on the store speakers. When dude said it was Maiden, I tripped cause it wasn't D'ianno...it was different......it was way different....it was better. He showed me the album cover and of course it was "typical" bad @$$ Maiden cover art. I went back and got my reason for being there in the first place.

While playing frisbee at the park down the street, I won some cash by skipping a disc off the parking lot and knockin beer bottles off the picnic table. Then went back and bought the lp.

Don't get me wrong....Di'anno was great on those first three Maiden releases but they made a major upgrade and kicked things up a notch w/ Number Of The Beast.

S.D. wrote:

thejokeriv wrote:

I have a copy of this one Vinyl (Thanks Manny!). I'll have to listen to it James B and SD style on Vinyl tonight!

I wish I still had the LP (my entire LP collection was stolen in the 90s) cause it sounded fantastic in that format. Piece Of Mind also sounds much better on LP.

I do have the first Japanese CD of TNOTB which is the next best thing.

I just won a still sealed Piece Of Mind on Vinyl

I didn't get this album until some time in 83. It was my very first Maiden album though and second metal album I bought period, behind only Metal Health. It's still my second favorite behind Somewhere In Time.

being 28 years old I wasn't alive when it was released (almost though). This and Judas Priest's "Defenders of the Faith" were the only two cassettes my dad owned that, in the late 80s, he wouldn't let my brother or me listen to. Interestingly, he let us listen to his copy of GnR "Appetite for Destruction." I think based on lyrics, he should have reversed the decision. But since I was only 4 or 5, maybe he thought the cover would freak me out?

My first Maiden album!

I can't remember exactly how old I was when I first heard it. Couldn't have been older than six years old. I first heard "The Number of the Beast" (the title track) playing on my sister's stereo. I stopped and sat down to listen...

"Woe to you, oh earth and sea..."

Hmm, ok, kind of creepy...

Followed shortly thereafter with...

"AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!! ..."

Oh, wow...

"6! 6! 6! The Number of the BEAST! Hell and fire were spawned to be released! ..."

Ohmygoodness. This band was PURE EVIL.

So of course I loved it. My sister made me a cassette copy of it (as she often did, she saw it as her duty to push as much music onto me as possible when I was growing up, I think!) and I wore it out. That album, along with Metallica's Kill 'Em All, probably did more to influence my musical tastes growing up than anything else up to that point. Shortly after that I bought Powerslave, Live After Death and Somewhere in Time, and that just cemented me as a life-long Maiden fan.

Absolutely classic record and one that never gets old. "Hallowed Be Thy Name" might just be the greatest metal song ever written as far as I'm concerned.

wow. Great album and I feel old!

This was the first Maiden album I had ever heard, and it was one of the first albums I'd ever bought (albeit, it wasn't 30 years ago! ). This album definitely helped shape my musical tastes to what they are now.

Every song on this album is sheer metal bad-assery, IMO.

back in '82 my friend had the first 2 Maiden albums and we listened to those all the time. Then he bought this album the week it came out. I recorded it onto some TDK cassette or something and played the crap out of it. I eventually bought all three, of course.

The guy that did the spoken intro to the title track passed away a short time ago at the age of 80. From what I understand, they wanted to get Vincent Price to do it originally. That would have been interesting to hear.

I'm on my 4th copy of this amazing album

CasetteTape >Casette Tape (de Luxe) > CD 1st pressing Germany > CD + 'Total Eclipse' U.S. pressing

I love this album.Didnt get it until few years back.

Eddie the Beast lives forever! Up the Iron's!

One of my friend's older brothers was my initial intro to it. Dude was a real jerk but since I was so into metal he was pretty cool with me. He used to blast it on his stereo to the point the windows shook. Perfect way to hear it. Believe it or not my grandma bought me a copy on cassette a few years later for my birthday. She would always want to hear the music she bought me, and then after a minute tell me to go put it on my walkman because it's just "too much noise for me". God bless her she was so cool with those things. It wasn't till I got older that I even realized other people's grandmothers not only didn't buy them metal albums but tended to forbid/judge it. I also never thought it strange the record store (Nightwinds) in her small town that we would go to was also quite the head shop along with the music. I can safely say I had it too good as far as parents and grandparents were concerned.

I remember it well. Its one of those memories that's clear in my mind, yet its like a fuzzy dream.

This was the album that started it all for me, both as a bonafide Maiden fanatic and on to Metal voyage. I followed a fellow classmate home one day after school to listen to what referred to as "real music". I wasnt really interested in music at the time - it was just some songs that one would hear on the radio every now and then. But I was curious, so I went along. I wish I would remember the date, seeing how pivotal an experience this was for me. But it was definately spring of 1983, probably late spring, so I guess The Number of the Beast was a little over a year old at the time.

I still remember first looking at the cover. I wasnt very impressed at first glance because I had the usual prenotion that Metal (or "Hårdrock" as we referred it to in Sweden) was evil, satanic, devilworshipping noise from idiots who couldnt handle their instruments. It was actually the music that converted me. Another friend who was also along suggested to my classmate to put the second side on first (obviously vinyl), as he thought it was better. Thus, the first Maiden track I ever heard was the title track. I dont have any vivid recollection until after that side had ended, when I was asked what I thought. I was spellbound, you see. It wasnt a gradual thing for me; it all happened then and there, on that afternoon. I guess it was like a deep instant religious experience, only it was music.

When asked about Iron Maiden on the Metal Evolution show, Exodus guitarist Gary Holt said it was like "hearing music for the first time". Thats an excellent way to put it as it was exactly like that for me as well. I remember being striked by their melodies because as said I had this prenotion that it would be noise. Maiden was epic, their music just had some deeper meaning to me that went beyond songs. In fact, listening to it now, Im striked just how heavy Number actually is.

This, alongside Piece of Mind and Powerslave, are still probably to me the ultimate display of grandiose, powerful Heavy Metal. Music at its very best. Im still a fan, but that trilogy, even after hearing thousands of bands and albums, still stands for me as the ultimate in Metal Mastery.

Thanks for reading=)