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''Seventh Son of a Seventh Son'' is the seventh studio album by English heavy metal band
Iron Maiden Iron Maiden are an English heavy metal band formed in Leyton, East London, in 1975 by bassist and primary songwriter Steve Harris. While fluid in the early years of the band, the lineup for most of the band's history has consisted of Harr ...
. It was released on 11 April 1988 in the United Kingdom by
EMI Records EMI Records (formerly EMI Records Ltd.) is a multinational record label owned by Universal Music Group. It originally founded as a British flagship label by the music company of the same name in 1972, and launched in January 1973 as the succ ...
and in the United States by
Capitol Records Capitol Records, LLC (known legally as Capitol Records, Inc. until 2007) is an American record label distributed by Universal Music Group through its Capitol Music Group imprint. It was founded as the first West Coast-based record label of not ...
. Like '' The Number of the Beast'' (1982) and later ''
Fear of the Dark Fear of the dark is a common fear or phobia among children and, to a varying degree, adults. A fear of the dark does not always concern darkness itself; it can also be a fear of possible or imagined dangers concealed by darkness. Some degree of ...
'' (1992), ''
The Final Frontier ''The Final Frontier'' is the fifteenth studio album by English heavy metal band Iron Maiden. It was released on 13 August 2010 in Germany, Austria and Finland, 17 August in North America, 18 August in Japan, and 16 August worldwide. At 76&nbs ...
'' (2010), and '' The Book of Souls'' (2015), the album debuted at number one on the
UK Albums Chart The Official Albums Chart is a list of albums ranked by physical and digital sales and (from March 2015) audio streaming in the United Kingdom. It was published for the first time on 22 July 1956 and is compiled every week by the Official Charts ...
. The lead single "
Can I Play with Madness "Can I Play with Madness" is a song by the English heavy metal band Iron Maiden. The song is the sixteenth single released by the band. Released in 1988, it was the first single from their seventh studio album, '' Seventh Son of a Seventh Son'' ...
" was also a commercial success, peaking at No. 3 in the
UK Singles Chart The UK Singles Chart (currently titled Official Singles Chart, with the upper section more commonly known as the Official UK Top 40) is compiled by the Official Charts Company (OCC), on behalf of the British record industry, listing the top-s ...
. A
concept album A concept album is an album whose tracks hold a larger purpose or meaning collectively than they do individually. This is typically achieved through a single central narrative or theme, which can be instrumental, compositional, or lyrical. Some ...
inspired by the novel '' Seventh Son'' by
Orson Scott Card Orson Scott Card (born August 24, 1951) is an American writer known best for his science fiction works. He is the first and (as of 2022) only person to win both a Hugo Award and a Nebula Award in consecutive years, winning both awards for both ...
, the record incorporates elements of
progressive rock Progressive rock (shortened as prog rock or simply prog; sometimes conflated with art rock) is a broad genre of rock music that developed in the United Kingdom and United States through the mid- to late 1960s, peaking in the early 1970s. I ...
, seen in the length and complex structure of the title track. It was also the first Iron Maiden album to feature keyboards, after the band had introduced non-keyboard synth effects on their previous LP, '' Somewhere in Time'' (1986). After his contributions were rejected for ''Somewhere in Time'', ''Seventh Son of a Seventh Son'' features several songs co-written by lead vocalist
Bruce Dickinson Paul Bruce Dickinson (born 7 August 1958) is an English singer who has been the lead vocalist of the heavy metal band Iron Maiden from 1981 to 1993 and 1999–present. He is known for his wide-ranging operatic vocal style and energetic stag ...
, who states that his enthusiasm for the band was renewed during the album's production stages. Following the album's release, the band embarked on the Seventh Tour of a Seventh Tour in which
Derek Riggs Derek Riggs (born 13 February 1958) is a contemporary British artist best known for creating the band Iron Maiden's mascot, " Eddie". Career Born in Portsmouth, England, Riggs is a self-taught artist, both in his traditional painting and in hi ...
' cover artwork was recreated on stage. The band played over 100 shows, including the Monsters of Rock festival at
Donington Park Donington Park is a motorsport circuit located near Castle Donington in Leicestershire, England. The circuit business is now owned by Jonathan Palmer's MotorSport Vision organisation, and the surrounding Donington Park Estate, still owned b ...
, and recorded the '' Maiden England'' video at Birmingham's
NEC is a Japanese multinational information technology and electronics corporation, headquartered in Minato, Tokyo. The company was known as the Nippon Electric Company, Limited, before rebranding in 1983 as NEC. It provides IT and network soluti ...
. From 2012–2014, the band revisited the ''Seventh Son'' era on their
Maiden England World Tour The Maiden England World Tour was a concert tour by Iron Maiden, which began on 21 June 2012 in Charlotte, North Carolina and ended on 5 July 2014 with a performance at the Sonisphere Festival at Knebworth, UK. The tour's setlist was largely ba ...
.


Background, writing and concept

The idea to base the album around the folklore concept of the seventh son of a seventh son came to bassist Steve Harris after he read
Orson Scott Card Orson Scott Card (born August 24, 1951) is an American writer known best for his science fiction works. He is the first and (as of 2022) only person to win both a Hugo Award and a Nebula Award in consecutive years, winning both awards for both ...
's '' Seventh Son''. Harris stated, "It was our seventh studio album and I didn't have a title for it or any ideas at all. Then I read the story of the seventh son, this mystical figure that was supposed to have all these paranormal gifts, like second sight and what have you, and it was more, at first, that it was just a good title for the seventh album, you know? But then I rang
Bruce Dickinson Paul Bruce Dickinson (born 7 August 1958) is an English singer who has been the lead vocalist of the heavy metal band Iron Maiden from 1981 to 1993 and 1999–present. He is known for his wide-ranging operatic vocal style and energetic stag ...
and started talking about it and the idea just grew." After his songwriting contributions were rejected from the band's previous album, 1986's '' Somewhere in Time'', Dickinson felt that his role within the band had diminished, as he "just became the singer", but felt renewed enthusiasm when Harris explained the concept to him; "I thought, 'What a great idea! Brilliant!' And of course I was really chuffed, too, because he'd actually rung me to talk about it and ask me if I had any songs that might fit that sort of theme. I was like, 'Well, no, but give me a minute and I'll see what I can do. Speaking about the record in later years, however, Dickinson remarked that "we almost did omething great, explaining that, "it was only half a concept album. There was no attempt to see it all the way through, like we really should have done. ''Seventh Son...'' has no story. It's about good and evil, heaven and hell, but isn't every Iron Maiden record?" In addition to Dickinson's return to writing, the album was also notable for its number of co-written pieces, in contrast to its predecessor, with five of the eight tracks being collaborative efforts. According to Harris, this was probably because they "spent more time checking up on each other to see what everybody else was up to, just to make sure the story fitted properly and went somewhere". To make sure each song fit with the record's concept, the band drew up a basic outline for the story, which Harris states "didn't make the actual writing any easier ... I probably took longer over the writing I've done on this album than any I've done before. But the stuff we all started coming up with, once we'd agreed that we were definitely going for a fully fledged 'concept' album, really startled me. It was so much better than anything we'd done in ages". Stylistically, ''Seventh Son of a Seventh Son'' developed the sounds first heard on ''Somewhere in Time'', although, on this occasion, the
synth A synthesizer (also spelled synthesiser) is an electronic musical instrument that generates audio signals. Synthesizers typically create sounds by generating waveforms through methods including subtractive synthesis, additive synthesis and ...
effects were created by keyboards rather than
bass Bass or Basses may refer to: Fish * Bass (fish), various saltwater and freshwater species Music * Bass (sound), describing low-frequency sound or one of several instruments in the bass range: ** Bass (instrument), including: ** Acoustic bass gui ...
or guitar synthesisers. According to Dickinson, the band decided not to hire a keyboard player, with the parts being "mainly one-finger stuff from Adrian mith, guitarist Steve, the engineer or whoever had a finger free at the time". Harris was fond of the development, in spite of the fact that the record did not sell as well as its predecessor in the United States; "I thought it was the best album we did since '' Piece of Mind''. I loved it because it was more progressive—I thought the keyboards really fitted in brilliantly—'cause that's the influences I grew up with, and I was so pissed off with the Americans, because they didn't really seem to accept it. Everyone said afterwards that it was a European-sounding album. I'm not so sure about that. What's a European-sounding album? To me, it's just a Maiden-sounding album." ''Seventh Son of a Seventh Son'' and its supporting tour marked the last appearance of Adrian Smith until he returned to the band in 1999. The guitarist left during the pre-production stages of the band's following album, 1990's ''
No Prayer for the Dying ''No Prayer for the Dying'' is the eighth studio album by English heavy metal band Iron Maiden. It is their first album to feature Janick Gers on guitar, who replaced Adrian Smith. Smith left the band during the pre-production phase, unhappy ...
'', as he was unhappy with the more "street-level" direction the group were taking, professing that he "thought we were heading in the right direction with the last two albums" and that he "thought we needed to keep going forward, and it just didn't feel like that to me".


Songs

"The Clairvoyant" was the first track written for the album. According to Steve Harris, the song's lyrics were inspired by the death of psychic
Doris Stokes Doris May Fisher Stokes (6 January 1920 – 8 May 1987), born Doris Sutton, was a British spiritualist, self-proclaimed medium, and author. Her professed ability to communicate with the dead, public performances, television appearances, and mem ...
, after which he wondered to himself whether "she could foresee her own death". Harris then began to write the song "Seventh Son of a Seventh Son", which gave him the idea of turning the full album into a concept record given that the main character would also have the power of clairvoyance. According to Smith, the song "Can I Play with Madness" "actually started life as a ballad I had been working on called 'On the Wings of Eagles'. Then Bruce had a verse for it but wanted to change the title to 'Can I Play with Madness'. I must admit, it did sound better that way. So we took that one and Steve liked it, too. It was Steve who came up with the time change in the middle and the instrumental passage, which again gave it that lift it needed." According to Dickinson, however, Harris' addition resulted in "a big row ... Adrian absolutely hated it." Of the album's remaining songs, ''
Metal Hammer ''Metal Hammer'' is a heavy metal music magazine and website founded in 1983, published in the United Kingdom by Future, with other language editions available in numerous other countries. ''Metal Hammer'' features news, reviews and long-form ...
'' states that "Moonchild" is loosely based on the
Aleister Crowley Aleister Crowley (; born Edward Alexander Crowley; 12 October 1875 – 1 December 1947) was an English occultist, ceremonial magician, poet, painter, novelist, and mountaineer. He founded the religion of Thelema, identifying himself as the pr ...
novel of the same name, while "Infinite Dreams" is about a character who "implores a spiritualist to unlock the meaning behind his tortured dreams", although
Sputnikmusic Sputnikmusic is an American music community website offering music criticism and music news alongside features commonly associated with wiki-style websites. The format of the website is unusual in that it includes both professional and amateur ...
state that the song also explores "themes of reality, life after death, and the meaning of life". The final track, "Only the Good Die Young", closes the storyline and was later featured in an episode of the 1980s' TV series ''
Miami Vice ''Miami Vice'' is an American crime drama television series created by Anthony Yerkovich and produced by Michael Mann (director), Michael Mann for NBC. The series stars Don Johnson as James "Sonny" Crockett and Philip Michael Thomas as Ricardo ...
''. The record opens and closes with an identical brief acoustic piece accompanied by two verses of lyrics, written by Dickinson, which, according to Sputnikmusic, "foreshadows doom and failure for the protagonist" and "wraps up the album". "The Evil That Men Do", "The Clairvoyant" and "Can I Play with Madness" have been played live the most frequently following the Seventh Tour of a Seventh Tour.


Promotion

To promote the album, the band hosted an evening of television, radio and press interviews at Castle Schnellenberg in Attendorn, Germany prior to the record's release, before holding a small number of "secret" club shows, under the name "Charlotte and the Harlots", at Empire, Cologne and L'Amour, New York. In May, the group set out on a supporting tour which saw them perform to more than two million people worldwide over seven months. In August, the band headlined the Monsters of Rock festival at
Donington Park Donington Park is a motorsport circuit located near Castle Donington in Leicestershire, England. The circuit business is now owned by Jonathan Palmer's MotorSport Vision organisation, and the surrounding Donington Park Estate, still owned b ...
for the first time before a crowd of 107,000, the largest in Donington's history, and recorded a concert video, entitled '' Maiden England'' at the
NEC is a Japanese multinational information technology and electronics corporation, headquartered in Minato, Tokyo. The company was known as the Nippon Electric Company, Limited, before rebranding in 1983 as NEC. It provides IT and network soluti ...
, Birmingham in November. To recreate the album's keyboards onstage, the group recruited Michael Kenney, Steve Harris' bass technician, to play the keys throughout the tour, during which he would perform the song "Seventh Son of a Seventh Son" on a forklift truck under the alias of "The Count" (for which he would wear a black cape and mask). Iron Maiden was apparently included in the Guinness Book Of World Records Museum in Las Vegas, NV. According to The Guinness book of Records (1990 ed. p. 155): "Largest PA system: On Aug 20th 1988 at the Castle Donington 'Monsters of Rock' Festival a total of 360 Turbosound cabinets offering a potential 523kW of programme power, formed the largest front-of-house PA. The average Sound Pressure Level at the mixing tower was 118dB, peaking at a maximum of 124dB during Iron Maiden's set. It took five days to set up the system."


Cover artwork

According to Rod Smallwood, the band's manager, the brief given to
Derek Riggs Derek Riggs (born 13 February 1958) is a contemporary British artist best known for creating the band Iron Maiden's mascot, " Eddie". Career Born in Portsmouth, England, Riggs is a self-taught artist, both in his traditional painting and in hi ...
(the group's then regular artist) was, unlike with previous albums, to create "simply something surreal and bloody weird". Riggs confirms that "they said they wanted one of my surreal things. 'It's about prophecy and seeing into the future, and we want one of your surreal things.' That was the brief ... I had a limited time to do the picture, and I thought it was pretty weird their concept, so I just went with that." According to Dickinson, his revitalised enthusiasm, brought about by Harris's idea to make a concept album, carried forward into the cover artwork, saying, "I was probably responsible in a large part for the cover, with Derek." Dickinson states that the idea to set the painting in a polar landscape may have originated from when he showed Riggs a
Gustave Doré Paul Gustave Louis Christophe Doré ( , , ; 6 January 1832 – 23 January 1883) was a French artist, as a printmaker, illustrator, painter, comics artist, caricaturist, and sculptor. He is best known for his prolific output of wood-engravin ...
piece, depicting traitors frozen in a lake of ice in the ninth circle of Dante's Inferno. In contradiction of this, Riggs states that the setting was because he "might have just seen a documentary about the North Pole or something ... I wanted something that was a departure from all the cityscapes and things. It was about prophecy and seeing the future, and so I just wanted something distant. And then they said, on the back, 'Could you stick all the other Eddies in the ice?' So I did." Speaking about the depiction of the band's mascot, Eddie, Riggs states that "I thought, you know, I don't feel like painting all of Eddie, so I'll get rid of him. I'll chop him off, and make it look kind of non-pleasant." In addition to the lobotomy and cyborg enhancements, left over from the '' Piece of Mind'' and '' Somewhere in Time'' album covers respectively, this incarnation also comes with an in utero baby in his left hand and an apple, inspired by the
Garden of Eden In Abrahamic religions, the Garden of Eden ( he, גַּן־עֵדֶן, ) or Garden of God (, and גַן־אֱלֹהִים ''gan- Elohim''), also called the Terrestrial Paradise, is the biblical paradise described in Genesis 2-3 and Ezekiel 28 ...
and featuring a red and green
yin and yang Yin and yang ( and ) is a Chinese philosophical concept that describes opposite but interconnected forces. In Chinese cosmology, the universe creates itself out of a primary chaos of material energy, organized into the cycles of yin and ya ...
. On top of this, Eddie's head is on fire, which Riggs states is "a symbol for inspiration", an idea which he "stole" from Arthur Brown.


Critical reception

The album has received consistent critical praise since its release, with
AllMusic AllMusic (previously known as All Music Guide and AMG) is an American online database, online music database. It catalogs more than three million album entries and 30 million tracks, as well as information on Musical artist, musicians and Music ...
rating it 4.5 out of 5, saying that the addition of keyboards "restores the crunch that was sometimes lacking in the shinier production of the previous album" and that it "ranks among their best work".
Sputnikmusic Sputnikmusic is an American music community website offering music criticism and music news alongside features commonly associated with wiki-style websites. The format of the website is unusual in that it includes both professional and amateur ...
scored the album 4 out of 5, and, while they state that "the band has better releases, such as ''Powerslave'' and ''Somewhere in Time''", they argue that it is "lyrically ... one of Maiden's finest efforts". In 2005, the album was ranked No. 305 in ''
Rock Hard "Rock Hard" is a single by the Beastie Boys, released by Def Jam Records on 12" in 1984. The track contains samples from the AC/DC song "Back in Black", which was used without obtaining legal permission, causing the record to be withdrawn. ...
'' magazine's book of ''The 500 Greatest Rock & Metal Albums of All Time''. In his biography of the band, Paul Stenning stated, "this line-up of the group hit its peak in 1988". It also ranked No. 11 in ''
Loudwire ''Loudwire'' is an American online media magazine that covers news of hard rock and heavy metal artists. It is owned by media and entertainment business Townsquare Media. Since its launch in August of 2011, ''Loudwire'' has secured exclusive i ...
s list of the "Top 25 Progressive Metal Albums of All Time". Although Geoff Barton states that contemporary reviews contained "a definite reaction against Maiden emphasising their prog-rock pretensions", and that "one critic ... slammed Maiden for ''Seventh Son...'' and accused them of having regressed into
Genesis Genesis may refer to: Bible * Book of Genesis, the first book of the biblical scriptures of both Judaism and Christianity, describing the creation of the Earth and of mankind * Genesis creation narrative, the first several chapters of the Book of ...
-style prog rockers from the 70s", ''
Kerrang! ''Kerrang!'' is a British weekly magazine devoted to rock, punk and heavy metal music, currently published by Wasted Talent (the same company that owns electronic music publication '' Mixmag''). It was first published on 6 June 1981 as a on ...
'' were extremely positive upon the album's release, awarding full marks and stating that " ith ''Seventh Son of a Seventh Son''Iron Maiden have given rock music back its direction and its pride" and that the record "will eventually be hailed alongside such past milestones as '' Tommy'', '' Tubular Bells'' and '' heDark Side of the Moon''."


Commercial performance

The album debuted at No. 1 in the UK Albums Chart (their first since '' The Number of the Beast'') as well as No. 12 in the US, while the singles "
Can I Play with Madness "Can I Play with Madness" is a song by the English heavy metal band Iron Maiden. The song is the sixteenth single released by the band. Released in 1988, it was the first single from their seventh studio album, '' Seventh Son of a Seventh Son'' ...
", " The Evil That Men Do" and " The Clairvoyant (live)" reached No. 3, No. 5 and No. 6 positions respectively in the UK Singles Chart. Smith highlights "Can I Play with Madness" as "our first proper hit single."


Track listing

* The US version of the 1995 reissue bonus disc features a somewhat different track order, with "Infinite Dreams" playing after "The Prisoner".


Personnel

Production and performance credits are adapted from the album liner notes.


Iron Maiden

*
Bruce Dickinson Paul Bruce Dickinson (born 7 August 1958) is an English singer who has been the lead vocalist of the heavy metal band Iron Maiden from 1981 to 1993 and 1999–present. He is known for his wide-ranging operatic vocal style and energetic stag ...
 – vocals * Dave Murray – guitars *
Adrian Smith Adrian Frederick "H" Smith (born 27 February 1957) is an English guitarist best known as a member of heavy metal band Iron Maiden, for whom he also writes songs and performs backing vocals both live and in the studio. Smith grew up in London ...
 – guitars,
synthesizer A synthesizer (also spelled synthesiser) is an electronic musical instrument that generates audio signals. Synthesizers typically create sounds by generating waveforms through methods including subtractive synthesis, additive synthesis a ...
* Steve Harris – bass,
string synthesizer A string synthesizer or string machine is a specialized synthesizer designed specifically to make sounds similar to that of a string orchestra. Dedicated string synthesizers occupied a specific musical instrument niche between electronic organs ...
*
Nicko McBrain Michael Henry "Nicko" McBrain (born 5 June 1952) is an English musician, best known as the drummer of the heavy metal band Iron Maiden since 1982. Having played in small pub bands since 1966 from the age of 14, McBrain paid his bills after grad ...
 – drums


Production

* Martin "Disappearing Armchair" Birch – producer,
engineer Engineers, as practitioners of engineering, are professionals who Invention, invent, design, analyze, build and test machines, complex systems, structures, gadgets and materials to fulfill functional objectives and requirements while considerin ...
, mixing, tape operator * Stephane Wissner – engineer, assistant engineer * Bernd Maier – engineer, assistant engineer * George Marino –
mastering engineer A mastering engineer is a person skilled in the practice of taking audio (typically musical content) that has been previously mixed in either the analog or digital domain as mono, stereo, or multichannel formats and preparing it for use in distr ...
*
Derek Riggs Derek Riggs (born 13 February 1958) is a contemporary British artist best known for creating the band Iron Maiden's mascot, " Eddie". Career Born in Portsmouth, England, Riggs is a self-taught artist, both in his traditional painting and in hi ...
 – sleeve illustrations * Ross Halfin – photography * Rod Smallwood – management, sleeve concept * Andy Taylor – management * Hugh Gilmour – reissue design (1998 edition)


Charts


Weekly charts


Certifications


References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Seventh Son of a Seventh Son 1988 albums Iron Maiden albums Concept albums Albums produced by Martin Birch EMI Records albums