Today in 1981, Bruce Dickinson joined Iron Maiden, replacing Paul Di'Anno as lead singer. It's fair to say that this was the biggest and most important thing that happened that year. (1981 also included two high-profile assassination attempts, the very first Space Shuttle launch, and the appointment of the first female Supreme Court justice. I might be applying a bit of hyperbole here.)
(By the way, this isn't to suggest that Di'Anno was a slouch; check out the pure rock'n'roll vocals on "Drifter" some time.)
The next three Iron Maiden albums - 1982's The Number of the Beast, 1983's Piece of Mind, and 1984's Powerslave - are three essentials in any heavy metal fan's collection. There are so many fantastic songs in here that it'd be ridiculous for me to just post one below and try to claim that "this sums up the awesomeness that is Iron Maiden with Bruce behind the mic." So instead, here's a quick list of some great ones:
The Number of the Beast
-Children of the Damned
-The Prisoner
-The Number of the Beast
-Hallowed be Thy Name
Piece of Mind
-Where Eagles Dare
-Revelations*
-The Trooper
Powerslave
-2 Minutes to Midnight
-Powerslave
-Rime of the Ancient Mariner
Iron Maiden's late-80s output wasn't quite up to snuff with those three albums, but there's some good stuff in there like "Wasted Years" and "Moonchild." Bruce left the band in 1993 to do a solo project (which produced a couple of songs that, if he had them in his firing chamber while he was with Maiden, Maiden were fools for not using) before everyone came to their senses and he rejoined the band in 1999. He's still totally f*ckin' got it.
*"Revelations" was, if I recall correctly, the first song Bruce "wrote" for Maiden (he had some input on the previous album, but couldn't officially get a writer's credit because of a contractual issue with his previous band, or something). Here's a bonus live version of that one too.
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