Bruce Dickinson

Immediately following his departure from metal legends Iron Maiden, singer and jack of all trades Bruce Dickinson signed a new deal stateside to Mercury Records and went to work on his second solo effort. Notwithstanding some dreadful artwork, his Polygram debut, Balls to Picasso, is somewhat of a disappointment and, for the most part, an ill-conceived project…

In 1990, Bruce Dickinson launched his solo career with Tattooed Millionaire, which is far from a carbon copy of his work with Iron Maiden. Many of the fans who knew him as Maiden's lead vocalist assumed that this solo debut would be Maiden-like – they expected an album of aggressive yet melodic fantasy metal in the Maiden/Ronnie James Dio/Black Sabbath vein. But Tattooed Millionaire found Dickinson favoring more of a hard rock/pop-metal approach. This album is full of glossy and lighthearted pop-metal that wouldn't be out of place on an album by Winger, Bon Jovi, or Def Leppard…

Despite leaving Iron Maiden for a spell in the '90s, Bruce Dickinson's solo efforts were not that dramatically different than his albums with Maiden. In fact, quite a few tracks could have fit on such albums as Fear of the Dark with no problem. Thus, it shouldn't come as a surprise that two live sets from Dickinson's '90s solo era sound as if he's fronting Iron Maiden. In 2005, these concert sets, 1995's Alive in Studio A/Alive at the Marquee and 1999's Scream for Me Brazil, were compiled together as a three-disc set, Alive…

Of all of Bruce Dickinson's solo albums, Accident of Birth sounds the most similar to Iron Maiden, which isn't surprising since former Maiden guitarist Adrian Smith co-wrote many of the songs and plays on the record. The album is better than many latter-day Maiden efforts, and though the songwriting is occasionally uneven, the best moments (including "Man of Sorrows") make it an intriguing album.

Sarajevo in 1994 was a city under siege. Mortars and grenades rained down on the city, killing indiscriminately every day. Amongst the madness, would it be possible to persuade a global rock star to come and play a show for local fans? Scream for Me Sarajevo is the soundtrack to the amazing and astonishing documentary film story of the most unlikely of rock concerts, performed by Bruce Dickinson and his band Skunkworks in 1994, in the midst of the Siege of Sarajevo. This is a film about extraordinary people defying the horrors of war, and the musicians who risked their lives to play a show for them. Featuring footage from the historic gig, the film also meets those that made it to the show and made the show happen; determined to keep living their lives despite the atrocities going on around them. Interviews with the band, crew and security bring home the reality of the situation that was not only dangerous, it was barbaric.