THE SPRUCE BRUCE

I'm not sure how it's possible but my 100% not-literal love affair with Iron Maiden singer Bruce Dickinson has actually intensified over the last decade. By the time of Fear Of The Dark, I had logged about 60K listening hours on Somewhere In Time and Seventh Son of a Seventh Son. To that you can add roughly 14 weeks each on Beast, Piece; let's agree that a season could approach and pass in the time I've spent rocking either No Prayer and Powerslave. My last semester at college is a blur of Chemical Wedding and Accident of Birth (not Accident At Birth, Brian); and then there's Skunkworks (3.5), which broke the record set by A Lil' Ain't Enough (3) for consecutive months in my shower stereo. A dude could lose an entire morning to just "Innerspace" and "Strange Death In Paradise" continuously.

Anyway even since all that, Bruce has rejoined Maiden for a classic and a two solids, has become a freaking jetliner captain who flies his goddamn fucking tour to and from "the asshole(s) of the world," and has still not once been a douche about anything, especially his own deafening awesomeness. Now sure, I don't really get his sensibilities in film and the written word. But I just figure that's cuz he's British and everything. Sorry the point is Bruce is tops and his breathtaking performances just with Maiden are pretty much innumerable. Plus, each Bruce highlight presses a different button, from dread ("Hallowed Be Thy Name") to pre-hysteria ("Public Enema #1") to bona fide wistfulness ("Wasted Years" thank you Adrian Smith) and so on. He's pretty much the best at the pleading, theatrically persecuted outcast ("The Prisoner," "Powerslave," "The Prophecy" vote for that shit over there). He sings about like relationships and shit on Skunkworks and it doesn't sound weird at all. I also love that he has worn a different outfit each tour. And nobody said SHIT when he covered -- and singled -- Bowie's "All The Young Dudes" which isn't actually as faggy as the title implies but still. Actually I'm a chick dude but if he asked me, I would let him take pictures of my butt. Sorry mom but there it is.