Bruce Dickinson admits he doesn’t get Drake’s music

Iron Maiden jack-of-all-trades frontman Bruce Dickinson has admitted that he doesn’t “really get” Drake‘s music.

The 63-year-old pioneer made the comment less than four months after Iron Maiden were narrowly beaten to the No. 1 spot on the U.K. album chart by none other than the Grammy-winning Drake himself.

Even though Iron Maiden’s “Senjutsu” was critically acclaimed, and was ahead for much of the release week, Drake‘s digital-only release “Certified Lover Boy” landed at the top of the chart with 45,651 chart sales, 43,623 of which were from streams. “Senjutsu” ended with a total of 44,473, including 39,032 physical copies, and also made No. 1 on the vinyl albums chart.

We went head to head with Drake the week the album was released. I don’t really get what he does, though a lot of people do, but going head to head with him felt like, ‘No this is real music played by a bunch of old geezers who make no concessions to the times in which we live.

People say, ‘You’re dinosaurs.’ And we go, ‘Yeah and there aren’t too many of those left.’ This is who we are, it’s what we do.”

Bruce Dickinson

Bruce then went on to say that he is pleased with the fact that Iron Maiden hasn’t relied on social media to grow its fanbase.

By and large our audience as moved on with us. Maiden‘s audience is like a table made of plywood; every year you just add a new layer and the table gets bigger and bigger. We’ve grown organically — not through social media or any of that stuff. We’ve grown by going out and doing it in front of people.”

“Senjutsu”, Iron Maiden‘s first album in six years, was recorded in 2019 in Paris with longstanding producer Kevin Shirley and co-produced by bassist Steve Harris.

For “Senjutsu” (loosely translated from Japanese as “tactics and strategy”) the band once again bestowed the services of Mark Wilkinson to create Samurai-themed cover artwork, which was based off an idea, also by Steve Harris.

“Senjutsu” finally stopped at No. 3 on the Billboard 200 chart, charting higher than the band’s early classics like “Powerslave” and even “The Number Of The Beast”. Nearly 90 percent of the LP’s 64,000 equivalent album units earned came from pure album sales rather than from streams. “Senjutsu” also debuted one place higher than 2015’s “The Book Of Souls” and 2010’s “The Final Frontier”, which both peaked at No. 4 upon their releases.

“Senjutsu” was Iron Maiden‘s 13th album to top in the Top 40 in the U.S.

Iron Maiden‘s first two Paul Di’Anno-era albums, “Iron Maiden” (1980) and “Killers” (1981), as well as with those recorded with singer Blaze Bayley, “The X Factor” (1995) and “Virtual XI” (1998), all failed to even enter the Top 40 in the United States.

According to Billboard, “Senjutsu” logged the second-largest week of 2021 for a hard rock album in both equivalent album units earned and in traditional album sales. It was second only to Foo Fighters‘ “Medicine At Midnight”, which debuted on the Feb. 20 chart with 70,000 units, 64,000 of which were in album sales.

“Senjutsu” topped the charts in several European countries upon its release, including in Belgium, Finland, Germany, Italy, Sweden and Switzerland.

So in conclusion, regardless of whether or not they were topped by Drake, Iron Maiden continue to break new boundaries and remind the planet of their dominant position in both the metal music world and the music world at large.