10 Best Rock Album Openers Of The 1980s
4. Aces High - Iron Maiden (Powerslave)
In typical Iron Maiden fashion, their song Aces High is set during the Battle of Britain.
If there's a historical conflict that involved the UK , then you can bet that Maiden will have a song about it. The music video sets the scene perfectly; footage of Nazi soldiers advancing across Europe is soundtracked by Winston Churchill's famous "We shall fight on the beaches" speech.
This is very much the calm before the storm portion of the video, as the song itself comes crashing in at full pelt. With the typically-rapid speed of his band behind him, Bruce Dickinson wails the story of a young fighter pilot caught up in the maelstrom of battle.
It's big, it's grandiose, it's... well, it's an Iron Maiden song. How better to start off one of their albums then, which is precisely what Aces High did. It was the opening track on 1984's Powerslave, which had the tough act of following Piece of Mind and The Number of the Beast.
When Maiden fans dropped the needle on their new purchase and heard this screaming back at them, they must have known that they were in good hands.