The Number of the Beast met with considerable critical and commercial success and was a landmark release for the band, becoming their first album to reach No. 1 in the UK Albums Chart , and be certified platinum in the US. The album also produced the singles " Run to the Hills " and " The Number of the Beast ", the former of which was the band's first top-ten UK single. The album was also controversial – particularly in the US – due to the religious nature of its lyrics and its artwork. The Number of the Beast is Iron Maiden's only album to include songwriting credits from Clive Burr, and was the band's first album to feature writing by guitarist Adrian Smith . [ 5 ] In addition, the release saw Steve Harris adopt a different approach to writing, which would cater more for new vocalist Bruce Dickinson. The album's producer, Martin Birch , remarked, "I simply didn't think [former vocalist Paul Di'Anno] was capable of handling lead vocals on some of the quite complicated directions I knew Steve wanted to explore... when Bruce joined, it opened up the possibilities for the new album tremendously." [ 6 ] According to several interviews, Dickinson was heavily involved in writing several of the album's songs, and in particular the tracks "Children of the Damned", "The Prisoner" and "Run to the Hills". [ 7 ] Due to his previous band Samson 's ongoing contractual issues, Dickinson could not legally take part