The Number of the Beast

Maiden's third album was made at Battery Studios with Martin Birch producing, and recording and mixing took five weeks. Dickinson could not be credited as a writer, because of contractual issues with Samson, though he spoke of a moral contribution to Children of the Damned, The Prisoner and Run to the Hills. Burr co-wrote Gangland with Smith, and this is the only Maiden album with a writing credit for him. It is also the first with writing by Smith, who shares credit on The Prisoner and 22 Acacia Avenue. Harris later said the opener, Invaders, was not good enough but they had nothing else to put there. Dickinson recalled that nobody felt stress making it and said they were just having so much fun.

The sleeve painting by Derek Riggs was first made for the Purgatory single. Smallwood judged it too good for a single and kept it for the album. It shows Eddie controlling Satan like a puppet while Satan controls a smaller Eddie, and Smallwood said the idea was to ask who is manipulating whom. The album was controversial in the United States because of the religious references in its artwork and the title track lyrics.

The album entered the UK chart at number 1 on 10 April 1982, stayed in the top 75 for 31 weeks, and reached number 33 on the Billboard 200. Run to the Hills was released ahead of it and became the band's first UK top ten single. Harris said the B-side, Total Eclipse, would have been better on the album than Gangland. Metallica's Lars Ulrich said the record changed everything for his band. In an HMV poll in 2012 it was voted the best British album of the past 60 years. Rolling Stone ranked it fourth in its 2017 list of the 100 greatest metal albums of all time. The BBC made a Classic Albums documentary about it in 2001.