Nostalgia trip: Piece of Mind by Iron Maiden - of God and ghouls
Before Oasis, there was Iron Maiden. Long before Manchester's gobbiest pop stars even thought of flicking two fingers at a paparazzo, East London's rock titans were strutting round the world as the consummate lad band.
Iron Maiden
EMI/Capitol
From their music (fast and loud) to their outside interests (soccer, beer and war films), the West Ham United-supporting rockers have made no bones about their credentials. They're not macho, like British contemporaries Def Leppard, or sexist, like US peers Motley Crue. They're just lads, in a very British, tongue-in-cheek way - the musical equivalent of Jeremy Clarkson, minus the violence.
If the band's private jet, the sword fencing or the Maiden-brand ale aren't proof enough that their career has been one long testosterone-fuelled soccer-terrace chant, then check out Where Eagles Dare, the opening track to their fourth album, 1983's Piece of Mind.
The album's powerhouse intro is indebted to the 1968 war movie from which it took its name: a brainless, muscle-bound romp. Richard Burton and Clint Eastwood play the he-man heroes of the second world war action thriller, in which Allied officers rescue a key military tactician from a Nazi prison. With a screenplay written by Scottish author Alistair MacLean, what it lacks in intellectual probity it makes up for in action and emotion.
Just like Iron Maiden.