AllMusic rated the album two stars out of five, stating that "suffering from a lack of powerful riffs and tightly written songs, The X Factor is a lackluster latter-day album from Iron Maiden. The X Factor was met with lukewarm responses from critics.
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Live recordings of "Blood on the World's Hands" and "The Aftermath" from the X Factor were issued as B-sides and also on the Best of the 'B' Sides compilation.īlaze Bayley later recorded a re-arranged version of "Sign of the Cross" on the live album As Live as It Gets.Ĭritical reception Professional ratings Review scores "Sign of the Cross" is based on the Umberto Eco's novel The Name of the Rose.
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"The Edge of Darkness" is based on the 1979 film Apocalypse Now, adapted from Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness, " Man on the Edge" is based on the 1993 movie Falling Down, and "Lord of the Flies" is based on the William Golding novel of the same name. Live versions of these songs with Dickinson on vocals can be found on " The Wicker Man" single and the live albums Death on the Road, Rock in Rio and Nights of the Dead respectively, while the same live takes of "Man on the Edge" and "Sign of the Cross" were later re-released on Iron Maiden's 2011 compilation album From Fear to Eternity. Both of these songs, and "Sign of the Cross," remained in Iron Maiden set lists following Bruce Dickinson's return. " Man on the Edge" and " Lord of the Flies" were released as singles. Much like the tour for the following album, Virtual XI, several dates in the United States were canceled as Bayley suffered from occasional vocal issues from the band's heavy concert schedule. The X Factor was Maiden's tenth consecutive UK top ten album but spent only four weeks on the chart – making it their shortest-staying studio album. The latter two would also be featured on the Best of the 'B' Sides collection. "We actually ended up doing 14 songs and we used eleven," said Steve Harris, "which is very unusual for us." The three songs that did not make the cut, "I Live My Way", "Justice of The Peace" and "Judgement Day," were released as B-sides to the album’s singles. The X Factor is also unusual in that it yielded several band compositions that did not make it onto the album. The album was the last until 2015's The Book of Souls to use the classic variant of the band's logo: every studio release from Virtual XI to The Final Frontier used an alternate that removed the extended ends of the "R", "M", and both "N's".
Due to the cover's "lifelike" style, the band was forced to release the album in a reversible sleeve, with a less graphic view of Eddie from a distance. The cover art, depicting Eddie undergoing another lobotomy, was created by Hugh Syme. It is also very apt as this is our tenth studio album and "X" can bring up many images." This became the working title for the album and we liked it, so we kept it. According to producer Nigel Green: "We all felt that the way things were progressing – the songs, Blaze's new involvement, the sound, the commitment – the new album really would have that extra quality, that bit of magic, that 'X Factor'. The album title came about at the start of the recording. This was the band's first album with vocalist Blaze Bayley.
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