Review Summary: A very enjoyable accident
When asked to record a song for the fifth Nightmare on Elm Street movie, Bruce Dickinson would never have known that this would be the beginning of his solo career. It was indeed, another accident of birth, as he would later call his own birth and his fifth studio album. With a little help from this piloting randomness, soon the album project came together whereas the requested song took the name "Bring your Daughter...to the Slaughter" and found its' place later in Iron Maiden's
No Prayer for the Dying. And while the aforementioned song became Maidens' only top reaching single, we can easily suppose that it marked the beginning of Bruce's musical detachment from his fellow bandmates. However,
Tattooed Millionaire is far from being an album of emotional engrossment in the likes of his later attempts. It's in fact a fun hard rock album written with one eye to Dickinson's beloved rock bands ( like Aerosmith) and one to his want for singing more personal, straight and with a dose of dirt songs.
" Janick Gers and I wrote Tatooed Millionaire in the front room of his house in Hounslow, under the final approach path of jumbo jets. It took us two weeks, with the title track being the last one to arrive" said Bruce, and while by his words one can imagine a hastily written, uninspired album, it's a common mistake to equate the time spent on the album with its' overall quality. It's also a mistake to hung on words of such curious frontmen, but the thing is that
Tattooed Millionaire does have a sense of rush that is generally filtered through the songs which are stripped out of any pretentiousness or urge to sound bombastic. This approach, if seen under the aforementioned rush of writing and recording process, can reveal the album's most representative element: its' straightforward and visceral attitude that highlights the sincerity of the attempt. Bruce reveals for the first time an other self and brings out his more satirical and edgy side. Still he manages to keep its' furious and spirited character which made him the voice of Maiden, and this thing is obvious from the very beginning, with " Son of a Gun" being one of the album's best songs. His voice is in excellent condition and his singing hasn't changed at all, when compared with the Maiden records. His lyrics though, now move from smart social comments to clumsy freedom declarations. The title track alongside with " Born in '58" stand out as great examples of the album. A mocking anthem of the fake glamour and egocentricity of rock stars and a tribute song to Bruce's youth and lost values, the pair is maybe the albums' best moment.
However, sincerity alone can't save
Tattooed Millionaire, which stares heavily to more melodic, lighthearted, hard rock standards, with only average songs to support it. "Lickin' the Gun" seems like a failed attempt to sound like Aerosmith and "Dive! Dive! Dive !" strives to sound anthemic." Hell on Wheels" and "Gypsy Road", while catchy and bright at times, still sound typical and "Zulu Lulu" continues blithely but soon gets boring. Gers delivers some quite interesting guitar melodies here and there, but inside the rather common riffs and instrumentation, they widely go unnoticed. Mott the Hopple's " All the Young Dudes" cover , with its' memorable chorus is a good surprise, but it's still a cover, played with no further addition or instrumental change. At the end, the rush nature of the album is confirmed, as between the decent and the not to be taken seriously material, there is obvious filler stuff that heavily diminishes the overall quality.
Still,
Tattooed Millionaire never intended to brake the barriers of metal or to redefine the hard rock status. So then, what's the album really about? Once again, Bruce has the answer to the million dollar question:
"Many saw it as a challenge to Iron Maiden, which it was never intended to be. It was, in truth, a fun album which few mates put together because, well, we could ". That's right. They could and they did it. It's fun. And that's all.
