tattooed millionaire

Let’s set the scene.
It’s raining, a lot, its also quite mild and therefore good beer weather.
Beer always tastes better when there is a lot of moisture in the air (or it does for me). Weather like this reminds me of the times when I was a young metal head and it never seemed to stop raining, but that’s ok, I like rain.

Bruce Dickinson released his debut solo album Tattooed Millionaire in 1990 in what felt like the dying days of iron maiden, my friends and I thought the album was great at the time but to be honest I have not listened to it in 15 years or so. Time to revisit it methinks, inspired of course by rock of ages.

1. Son of a gun; as this track started my daughter walks in and asks if this is guns n roses or iron maiden, I ask her what she thinks and she replies iron maiden, close I say (impressed that she can notice the similarities for somebody who listens only to stuff released since 2005. says it all really, but I enjoyed this track, so far so good.
2. Tattooed Millionaire; now I know I had gone of this song years ago but I persevered and listened and I still don’t like it. Trying to hard to be angry.
3. Born in 58; liked this, in fact it seems quite relevant to how I feel today, a feeling of losing something beyond my control, as if the past no longer matters. Other artists have done this better but this song still appeals.
4. Hell on wheels; ok now Bruce is trying to be somebody else, not to sure on this track.
5. gypsy road; not to sure what’s going on here, trying t hard to be serious, no its not working, sorry.
6. Dive, dive, dive; ok that’s bad, it’s like a heavy metal carry on sketch but not funny.
7. all the young dudes; great track, like this a lot but not sure if it’s the song itself or the cover version, but better version of this song about but it is a great song.
8. Lckin’ the gun and 9. Zulu Lulu; yep these both sound like Aerosmith covers that Aerosmith never wrote, again trying to be somebody else maybe?
9. no lies; couldn’t figure this one out, to be honest I had lost interest by this point and was concentrating more on getting Sunday dinner ready.

So it was not as good as I remembered but on the whole it was nice to listen to it again, the album comes across as something he needed to get out of his system but he went on to do a lot more solo stuff of which I have never listened to, which for all I know could be far superior.

To put the album into a little bit of context; this was something I had recorded from a friend so on the flip side of the tape was Giant and their album Last Of The Runaways, when Tattooed Millionaire finished I turned the tape over and thought what the hell, 30 seconds latter I was rewinding the tape so I could play the other side again.