Earlier in 2021, Iron Maiden released their first album in six years, the critically-acclaimed “Senjutsu.” The album topped the U.K. album chart for most of the week it was released until it was bumped from the top spot by the new record from Drake, “Certified Lover Boy.” Iron Maiden singer Bruce Dickinson admitted, “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 many of those left. This is who we are, it’s what we do.”
“Senjutsu” reached No. 3 on the Billboard 2002 chart, and nearly 90% of its sales came from physical copies sold. It was Iron Maiden’s 13th album to appear in the Top 40 in the U.S. “By and large our audience has moved on with us,” Dickinson said. “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.”
Iron Maiden will embark on their Legacy of the Beast World Tour in 2022.
