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Iron Maiden 'The X Factor' Released October 2, 1995

Ages like fine w**e?
Album artwork?
Best tracks?
Blaze?
What if Bruce sand on this album?
What is Di'anno sang on this album?

Today on The Metal Voice

Note
The X Factor is the tenth studio album

✝️ RIP Conrad "Cronos" Lant • Venom (1963 ⛧ 2026)

📸 Fryderyk Gabowicz (1984)

On this day in 1979, the Police single “Message in a Bottle” went to #1 on the UK Singles Chart (September 29)

Andy Summers’ jangly guitar, Stewart Copeland’s new wave/reggae-infused lock-down beat, with his exuberant creativity, and Sting’s distinctive clear-as-a-bell vocals, combined again on this one, with the Police’s trademark “sound”.

Summers recalled:
“Sting had that riff for a while, but there was another tune with it originally. He'd been fiddling about with it during our first American tour.
Finally, he rearranged the riff slightly and came up with the song."

Summers called it Copeland’s “finest drum track”, and and said, "For me, it's still the best song Sting ever came up with and the best Police track."

Copeland said it was "one of our best moments in the studio and always great on stage."

Sting reflected:

“‘Message in a Bottle' is a good song.
That can move me.
I like the idea that while it's about loneliness and alienation it's also about finding solace and other people going through the same thing.

The guy's on a desert island and throws a bottle out to sea saying he's alone and all these millions of bottles come back saying, So what So am I!

I like the fact that the whole deal is clinched by the third verse.
It makes a journey.”

The lead single from their second studio album, “Reggatta de Blanc”, and written by Sting, was the first of their five UK #1 singles.

It was also an international breakthrough of sorts, with the band charting in single digits in multiple international markets for the first time.

It went to #1 in the UK and Ireland, #2 in Canada, #4 in the Netherlands, #5 in Australia and Belgium, #11 in New Zealand, #20 in Sweden, and #21 in Italy.

They were still finding the US hard to crack, with “Message in a Bottle” peaking at a disappointing #74.

Rolling Stone ranked it #65 on its list of the "100 Greatest Guitar Songs of All Time".

Click on the link below to watch:

https://youtu.be/7Hip-X7kQ9w?si=P95jpzIwyvYFD_5t

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Judas Priest '98 Live Meltdown' Released September 29, 1998

Ripper's Vocals ?
Set List?
Overall thoughts?

Today on The Metal Voice

Note
98 Live Meltdown is the first live album to feature new lead singer Tim "Ripper

This week in 1975, the Black Sabbath LP “Sabotage” debuted on the UK Albums Chart at #7 (September 27)

The title “Sabotage” was chosen for their sixth studio album because the band were at the time being sued by their former management and felt they were being "sabotaged all the way along the line and getting punched from all sides", according to guitarist and co-producer Tony Iommi.

"It was probably the only album ever made with lawyers in the studio," said drummer Bill Ward.

In 2001, bass player Geezer Butler explained to Dan Epstein, "Around the time of Sabbath Bloody Sabbath, we found out that we were being ripped off by our management and our record company. So, much of the time, when we weren't onstage or in the studio, we were in lawyer's offices trying to get out of all our contracts.
We were literally in the studio, trying to record, and we'd be signing all these affidavits and everything. That's why it's called Sabotage – because we felt that the whole process was just being totally sabotaged by all these people ripping us off.”

“It was a relief just to write a song”, Butler admitted.

In his autobiography “I Am Ozzy”, singer Ozzy Osbourne confirms that "writs were being delivered to us at the mixing desk"…

Some excellent songs on this one…

Guitar virtuoso Yngwie Malmsteen told Nick Bowcott of Guitar Player in 2008 that the riff to "Symptom of the Universe" was the first Tony Iommi riff he ever heard and that "Tony's use of the flat fifth would have got him burned at the stake a couple hundred years ago."

“Sabotage” went to #6 in Norway and Austria, #7 in the UK, #11 in Sweden, #17 in Germany, #25 in Switzerland, #28 in the US, and #33 in Canada and New Zealand.

In 2017, Rolling Stone ranked it 32nd on their "100 Greatest Metal Albums of All Time" list.

Click on the link below to watch “Symptom of the Universe”:

https://youtu.be/fLOb4KVS-S8

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