10 Bad Opening Songs On Great Rock Music Albums
2. Invaders - The Number Of The Beast (Iron Maiden)
With new vocalist Bruce Dickinson in their ranks and the power of Satan himself behind them, Iron Maiden unleashed their tour de force on the world in 1982.
The Number of the Beast is an album that speaks for itself, which is utterly fascinating as its opening track is one of the worst to ever begin a Maiden release.
Invaders does okay to begin with. The drums and guitar welcome the audience in with a fast-paced hook, as Steve Harris plays a tasty bit of bass in the background. Sadly, this is where the song peaks.
The rest of the music is weirdly upbeat, even as Dickinson sings about bloodied corpses and ferocious battles. It does a poor job in setting up what's to come later, which is one of the primary functions of an album opener.
In a cruel twist of fate, all Maiden had to do to fix this issue was swap the two sides of the LP around. Side two is opened by the legendary title track, which could just as easily have opened up the whole thing. It's even got a spoken word intro!