I
hadn’t thought about Iron Maiden for ages until sometime during
the past year I got ahold of half of a Bruce Dickinson best-of comp.
Huh? Yes, that’s right: the original singer of Iron Maiden put
out a two-disc best-of collection. What’s more, it was pretty
damned great, and had at least one song (“The Tower”) that’d
go onto every Why I Love Metal mix CD I made, if I made those kinds
of things. “The Tower” reminded me that Dickinson’s
real gift lay in phrasing: he has that wholly dedicated approach to
delivering his lyrics, singing even his most hambone lines with an
involvement that reminds me of Phil Lynott, sort of. (Bring on the
hate mail, you Lizzy fiends. I love Thin Lizzy as much as any of you
and I still meant what I said.) But where Lynott is laid-back, Dickinson
is all heat, and you can hear, on his high notes, the edge that sent
a million young men out to L.A. to try and get famous by buying stagetime
at Gazzari’s on the Strip and wailing songs about blondes and
cars.
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