The Rock album Bruce Dickinson said is one of the best of all time

Bruce Dickinson was born in Worksop, Nottinghamshire, England back in 1958 and started his musical career at the age of 18 in 1976. Known first as Bruce Bruce, he was the vocalist of Samson from 1979 until 1981, when he accepted the offer to join Iron Maiden.

It was after becoming a member of Steve Harris’ band that Bruce started using his surname Dickinson and he really achieved a whole new leve of success with the release of “Number of The Beast” (1982), his first album with Maiden.

During the following years they have recorded many other incredible albums and became one of the best-selling bands of all time, with an estimated amount of more than 130 million records sold worldwide. Over the decades, Dickinson talked about many of his peers, even naming which is in his opinion one of the best albums of all time.

The Rock album Bruce Dickinson said is one of the best of all time

Although Iron Maiden was formed in 1975, the band managed to release their debut album only in 1980, so they were labeled as part of the “New Wave of The British Heavy Metal”. When the group made their first album with Bruce, Metal music was around already for more than one decade and was a huge phenomenon around the world.

But, if it wasn’t for the groups that appeared in the late 60s and early 70s, Maiden wouldn’t have been the same and Dickinson was also influenced by many of those groups. In an interview with Double J back in 2018, he listed some of his favorite albums and one of them was “Sabbath Bloody Sabbath” released in 1973 by Black Sabbath, the band that created Heavy Metal.

Besides picking that record as one of his favorites, the singer said it was one of the best ever made: “Black Sabbath was the second album I bought in an auction, after Deep Purple In Rock. Sabbath went through a few transitions, then they came out with this album, Sabbath Bloody Sabbath, which was just immense. To me it’s one of the best rock albums of all time.”

Dickinson continued:

“I’m guilty as charged, I did a terrible cover of this song because somebody offered me money. I was out of Maiden and short of a few quid so I went, ‘Yeah, go on then’. It just proved that you should never try and cover legendary things. They should just stay legendary,” Bruce Dickinson said.

“Sabbath Bloody Sabbath” was Sabbath’s fifth studio album and was released in 1973. It had classic songs like the title-track, “Sabbra Cadabra and “Killing Yourself To Live”. At the time the band had the classic line-up, formed by: Tony Iommi, Ozzy Osbourne, Geezer Butler and Bill Ward.

As Dickinson said, he covered the track “Sabbath Bloody Sabbath” back in 1994 with the group Godspeed. The version was part of the tribute album “Nativity In Black”. At the time, Dickinson had already left Maiden and was working on his solo career.

Feud with Ozzy and Sharon Osbourne

Although Dickinson praised Black Sabbath many times and is a fan of the group’s work, he doesn’t have a good relationship with Ozzy Osbourne and his wife/manager Sharon Osbourne. The feud between started when Maiden was part of the line-up of the Ozzfest back in 2005. One night Dickinson started saying bad things about Ozzy during Maiden’s show for no apparent reason.

After Sharon Osbourne was alerted about what he had said on stage, she prepared a revenge for their next presentation. She recalled her plan in an interview with Howard Stern during that same year (Transcribed by Rock and Roll Garage).

“We’ve know those guys since the 80s and we offered them the show. They were getting paid $185.000 dollars each night. Everything they wanted they got. They would go on stage and Bruce Dickinson, each night would slag Ozzy. (He would) Say really disrespectful things about him and Ozzy is the schmuck that is paying him!”

She continued:

“So I’m thinking to myself ‘Let it go on. Just carry on your little shit’. So on the last night in L.A, I’ve got 200 hispanic kids, loaded them with eggs. They had peanut butter, they fucking pelted the shit out of them. Then I went on stage and I said ‘Look, don’t fuck with us. Don’t be disrespectful, this is what you get,” Sharon Osbourne said.

More recently in 2022, she talked once again about that episode in an interview with Consequence and still didn’t had good things to say about the singer.

“Bruce Dickinson is a fucking prick. Well, no, he’s not a prick because a prick’s nice. He’s a fucking asshole. Because the situation is he was on a tour called Ozzfest. And Ozzy Osbourne was paying him every night to perform. He accepted the gig. He knew what he was doing.”

(…) He’s never apologized, he never even went up and said hello to Ozzy. The thing about him is that he is just so jealous. And always has been of Ozzy. And that’s his problem.”

Sharon continued:

“Because the thing is about Bruce Dickinson, he’s hugely successful. He’s got a great fan base, a great fan base that have been loyal. The band are great guys. All the band are great. And they do great. You know, they’re a great band, you can’t take it away, and neither would I take that away from them.”

“But the thing about Bruce is, he is unknown to the public. Bruce Dickinson could walk into anywhere and nobody would know who the fuck he is. Do you know what I’m saying? He’s a faceless singer to the general public. People aren’t scrambling to get him for an interview. And the thing is, he’s not interesting. But the thing is, Ozzy is original and Bruce isn’t and that’s what eats Bruce away.” Sharon Osbourne said.