Piece of Mind is the fourth studio album by English heavy metal band Iron Maiden. It was released on 16 May 1983 in the United Kingdom by EMI Records and in the United States by Capitol Records. It was the first album to feature drummer Nicko McBrain, who had recently left the band Trust.

Piece of Mind was a critical and commercial success, reaching number three on the UK Albums Chart and achieving platinum certification in the UK and North America.

Background

In December 1982, drummer Clive Burr ended his association with the band due to personal and tour schedule problems and was replaced by Nicko McBrain, previously of French band Trust, as well as Pat Travers and Streetwalkers. Soon afterwards, the band went to Jersey to compose the songs, taking over the hotel Le Chalet (as it was out of season) and rehearsing in its restaurant. In February, the band journeyed for the first time to the Bahamas to record the album at Nassau's Compass Point Studios. Recordings were finished in March, and the album was later mixed at Electric Lady Studios in New York City.

This is the first of four Iron Maiden albums that were not named after a song featured on the album itself (though the lyrics in the song "Still Life" contain the expression "peace of mind"). Originally, the release's working title was Food for Thought—once the band had decided that Eddie would be lobotomised on the front cover—until the band came up with the title Piece of Mind in a pub in Jersey during the album's writing stage.

Included in the liner notes is a slightly altered version of a passage from the Book of Revelation, which reads,

The actual text (from Chapter 21, Verse 4) is nearly identical, except that it reads, "neither shall there be any more pain" rather than "brain", which was added as a pun on the album's title.

In a lower corner on the back side of the album cover, there is this message: "No synthesisers or ulterior motives".

Composition

Lyrically, the album largely reflects the group's literary interests, such as "To Tame a Land", inspired by Frank Herbert's 1965 science fiction novel Dune; "Sun and Steel", based on the life of samurai Miyamoto Musashi and its title taken from Yukio Mishima's 1968 essay Sun and Steel; "Still Life", influenced by Ramsey Campbell's 1964 short story "The Inhabitant of the Lake", Film influences are also present, such as "Where Eagles Dare", based on the Brian G. Hutton 1968 film of the same title, scripted by Alistair MacLean, and "Quest for Fire", based on the 1981 film by Jean-Jacques Annaud, which incorrectly puts together, in the same period of History, dinosaurs and men. On top of this, "Revelations", written by Dickinson, includes lines from G. K. Chesterton's hymn "O God of Earth and Altar", while the remainder of the song is influenced by Aleister Crowley.

| rev2 = Pitchfork

| rev2score = 8.5/10

| rev4 = Sputnikmusic

| rev4score =

| rev5 = Ultimate Guitar

| rev5score = 8.7/10

| rev6 = Metal.de

| rev6score = 9/10

Preceded by the single "Flight of Icarus" on 28 April, Piece of Mind was released on 16 May 1983. It peaked at No. 3 in the UK and spent eighteen weeks on the chart.

In North America, the album became the band's highest charting thus far, peaking at No.14 in the Billboard 200. By July, Piece of Mind was certified gold by the RIAA, rising up to platinum status in 1986. In 1995, the album achieved platinum status in the UK.

Reviews were mostly positive, with Sputnikmusic hailing it "easily an album that belongs in your collection" (although they argue that "the likes of Powerslave [1984], Somewhere in Time [1986], and Brave New World [2000] would overtake it"

German reviewer Metal.de stated "Piece of Mind" is another highlight in Iron Maiden's discography. The hit factor remains incredibly high—so much so that it is easy to overlook the fact that the album stumbles slightly in the home stretch."

In 1983, Kerrang! published a poll of the greatest metal albums of all time, with Piece of Mind ranking No.1 and The Number of the Beast at No.2.

It was ranked No. 21 on IGN's list of the top 25 metal albums in 2007. In 2013 Loudwire dubbed it the third best metal album of 1983.

<!-- NOTE: IRRELEVANT STATEMENT. REFERENCE DOES NOT VALIDATE THIS INFORMATION Along with Iron Maiden's follow up studio album Powerslave, Piece of Mind is the band's second highest selling album, with estimated sales in excess of 13.5&nbsp;million worldwide, their best selling album being their previous The Number of the Beast with an estimated fourteen million records sold worldwide. --><!-- Therein8383 (who left the above note and removed this section) is correct in that the reference does not cite a 13.5 mil figure for PoM, which kinda makes the rest that's been commented irrelevant. Please find a ref for the PoM sales claim or discuss on talk page. Regarding albums, the ref only covers NotB sales. (RobertMfromLI)-->

Tour

The UK leg of the World Piece Tour opened at Hull City Hall on 2 May. Subsequent legs in Europe, the US, followed by a second European tour were later carried out before the tour concluded on 18 December with a televised performance at Westfalenhalle in Dortmund. A total of 139 shows were performed throughout the tour.

Cover versions

In 2010, Maiden uniteD, featuring lead singer Damian Wilson, released an all-acoustic reinterpretation of the album entitled Mind the Acoustic Pieces.

Two songs were covered for the 2008 tribute album Maiden Heaven: A Tribute to Iron Maiden: "The Trooper" by Coheed and Cambria and "To Tame a Land" by Dream Theater. The latter was also included in the special edition of Dream Theater's 2009 album Black Clouds & Silver Linings.

"The Trooper" has been covered by Finnish doom/death metal band Sentenced on their 1994 EP The Trooper, the American heavy metal band Iced Earth on the "tour edition" of their 2011 album, Dystopia, the death metal band Vital Remains on the 1998 tribute album A Call to Irons, Christian metal band Stryper on the album The Covering in 2011, and Swedish lounge act Hellsongs on their 2008 album, Hymns in the Key of 666. In 2024, Mongolian folk metal band The Hu released a Mongolian language version of "The Trooper" on their EP of the same name.

"Where Eagles Dare" has been covered by Fozzy on their second album, Happenstance, in 2002. Fozzy have also covered "The Prisoner" (from The Number of the Beast) on their debut, Fozzy. The song was also covered by Faroese viking metal band Týr on their 2013 album Valkyrja, and Deliverance on their 2013 album Hear What I Say!.

Track listing

<!-- Do NOT change any song lengths. They are listed here as in Iron Maiden's official website, as well as the original UK release (EMI, EMA 800) -->

  • The song, "To Tame a Land" is inspired by Frank Herbert's sci-fi novel Dune and was originally intended to share the book's title. However, the band was forced to rename it to "To Tame a Land" after Herbert's agent refused permission, famously stating that the author "doesn't like rock bands, particularly heavy rock bands, and especially bands like Iron Maiden." Because this change occurred at the last minute, a few initial pressings of the album retained the "Dune" song title.
  • The first North American picture disc edition includes "Cross-Eyed Mary" as a bonus track on side one.
  • The first Japanese CD pressing from 1986 has the hidden message preceding "Still Life" included as a separate track listed as "Phatoor".

Personnel

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

Iron Maiden

  • Bruce Dickinson&nbsp;– vocals
  • Dave Murray&nbsp;– guitars
  • Adrian Smith&nbsp;– guitars
  • Steve Harris&nbsp;– bass guitar
  • Nicko McBrain&nbsp;– drums

Production

  • Martin "Black Night" Birch&nbsp;– producer, engineer, mixing
  • Frank Gibson&nbsp;– assistant engineer
  • Denis Haliburton&nbsp;– assistant engineer
  • Bruce Buchhalter&nbsp;– assistant mixing engineer
  • Derek Riggs&nbsp;– sleeve illustration, sleeve design, sleeve concept
  • Simon Fowler&nbsp;– photography
  • Keith Peacock&nbsp;– art continuation
  • Rod Smallwood&nbsp;– sleeve design, sleeve concept
  • George Marino at Sterling Sound&nbsp;– Original US LP mastering
  • Utopia Studios, London UK&nbsp;– Original UK LP mastering
  • Simon Heyworth&nbsp;– remastering (1998 edition)
  • Ross Halfin&nbsp;– photography (1998 edition)
  • Robert Ellis&nbsp;– photography (1998 edition)

Charts

Weekly charts

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! Chart (1983)

! Peak<br/>position

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! scope="row"| Australian Albums (Kent Music Report)

| align="center"| 17

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! scope="row"| Finnish Albums (The Official Finnish Charts)

| align="center"| 2

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!scope="row"|Italian Albums (Musica e dischi)

| style="text-align:center;"|18

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!scope="row"|Japanese Albums (Oricon)

| align="center"| 26

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|-

|-

|-

|-

|}

{| class="wikitable sortable plainrowheaders"

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! Chart (2006)

! Peak<br/>position

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! Chart (2010)

! Peak<br/>position

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! Chart (2012)

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! Chart (2018–2020)

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Year-end charts

{| class="wikitable plainrowheaders" style="text-align:center"

! scope="col" | Chart (1983)

! scope="col" | Position

|-

! scope="row" | German Albums (Offizielle Top 100)

| 57

|}

Certifications

References

Bibliography