Favorite album(s) by Judas Priest?

[1990 UM fan]

This poll contains ALL of their work. It includes 17 studio albums, 5 compilation albums, 6 live albums and 1 box set.

NOTE: This poll is multiple choice. However, once you have placed your vote, it cannot be undone.

[1990 UM fan]

Here's a list of all the songs from each album I chose that are favorites of mine:

"Victims of Changes", "The Ripper', "Dreamer Deceiver" (from Sad Wings of Destiny, 1976)

"Sinner", "Diamonds & Rust", "Starbreaker", "Last Rose of Summer", "Dissident Aggressor" (from Sin After Sin, 1977)

"Exciter", "Better by You, Better Than Me", "Beyond the Realms of Death" (from Stained Class, 1978)

"Hell Bent for Leather", "Delivering the Goods", "Before the Dawn" (from Killing Machine, 1978)

"Breaking the Law", "United", "Living After Midnight" (from British Steel, 1980)

"Heading Out to the Highway", "Hot Rockin'", "Desert Plains", "Solar Angels" (from Point of Entry, 1981)

"The Hellion/Electric Eye", "Riding on the Wind", "Screaming for Vengeance", "You've Got Another Thing Comin'" (from Screaming for Vengeance, 1982)

"Freewheel Burning", "Jawbreaker", "The Sentinel", "Night Comes Down", "Love Bites", "Rock Hard Ride Free" (from Defenders of the Faith, 1984)

"Turbo Lover", "Out in the Cold" (from Turbo, 1986)

"Ram It Down", "Blood Red Skies" (from Ram It Down, 1988)

"Painkiller", "A Touch of Evil", "Night Crawler", "Hell Patrol", "All Guns Blazing" (from Painkiller, 1990)

"Cathedral Spires" (from Jugulator, 1997)

"Judas Rising" (from Angel of Retribution, 2005)

"Nostradamus" (from Nostradamus, 2008)

"Halls of Valhalla" (from Redeemer of Souls, 2014)

[ABlairican Pie]

OH MY GOSH, WHERE DO WE START??!!!!!

For me, it all started in 1979 when I first heard the "Hellbent For Leather" album. Now THIS was a band to watch for!!!! I heard a lot of good things about this band in a time when what passed for metal was rather tepid. But WOW!!!! "Delivering the Goods", "Take On All the World", "Burnin' Up", "The Green Manalishi", "Running Wild", and the title track--who could ask for more??
Interestingly, the 1978 album "Killing Machine" was titled "Hellbent For Leather" in the U.S.

I had the fortune to see Judas Priest open for UFO in Seattle that spring of 1979, before most people had heard them--and though I had gotten to the show late and missed much of their set, I was blown away!!!

I got to hear the "Unleashed In the East" album on the radio that fall, and was amazed at such live versions of "Exciter", "Sinner", and other great tracks. I heard that a local radio station was putting out free tickets at various locations for their concert at the Seattle Center Coliseum, but I missed out on that show.

That next year, however, I got bitten by the new wave bug and unfortunately did not feel the full effect of the classic "British Steel" album--except for ONE track which really held my interest: "METAL GODS". Tracks like "Living After Midnight" and "Breaking the Law" were great, but it would take a while for the Priest to grab hold of me again. Unfortunately, their followup album, "Point Of Entry" wasn't it.

In 1982, Priest competed with the OTHER awesome British metal band, Iron Maiden, for chart supremacy, but strangely, "You've Got Another Thing Coming" was a sort of acquired taste--for then. But how about those opening tracks: "The Hellion" and "Electric Eye" grabbed me and did not let go!!! My problem, I felt, was that if something were popular with others, then it lost its uniqueness (which did not explain my attraction for new names like U2 and the Go-Go's and A Flock Of Seagulls, who were becoming huge....). But the decade was still young...

In 1984, things picked up Priest-wise when I had entered college and needed a proper diversion from campus drudgery--and Halford and his hellions were there. The new album "Defenders Of the Faith" had some stunners, such as "Freewheel Burning", "The Sentinel", and the awe-inspiring outro track, "Heavy Duty" and "Defenders Of the Faith".

However, the 1986 keyboard-laced album, "Turbo", was a bit of disappointment--many of the tracks felt more like a Pepsi commercial...

[Race's Girl]

Okay, my go now:

"Sinner", "Diamonds & Rust", "Starbreaker", "Last Rose of Summer", "Dissident Aggressor" (from Sin After Sin, 1977)

"Breaking the Law" (from British Steel, 1980)

[ABlairican Pie]

Btw, Current cranking: YOU DON'T HAVE TO BE OLD TO BE WISE!!!!!!!!!!

[ABlairican Pie]

In 1987, Judas Priest released another live album, but it didn't quite match the fire of "Unleashed In the East". But no matter, a new studio album was on the way in the coming year.

The next album, 1988's "Ram It Down", had a number of heavy tracks such as the title song and a cover of "Johnny B. Goode", but unfortunately, things had radically changed in the past few years in metal. While the decade began with such legends as them and Iron Maiden and few others as being the defining champions of All That Was Heavy in music, they were now upstaged by a new breed of American metal that owed its existence to the very movement that gave birth to them: Bay Area thrash, with such newcomers as Metallica, Megadeth, and L.A.'s own Slayer and Anthrax from New York, were the new speed kings of metal--and they directly traced their roots from the movement which spawned Maiden and to some extent Priest and other U.K. bands, the New Wave Of British Heavy Metal, or NWOBHM. Earlier Priest and Maiden were of course still influential, but for the most part, the current versions of both bands were falling off the radar and appearing "outdated".

But a strange, disturbing turn of events was about to re-energize the mighty Priest in the next year or so....

[ABlairican Pie]

In 1990, Judas Priest found themselves in the midst of a huge legal controversy when the families of two young men sued the band for allegedly inciting the youths to commit suicide during the Christmas holiday in 1985. The "evidence" pertained to lyrics on their earlier songs, "Beyond the Realms Of Death" and "Better By You, Better Than Me" (in fact a song by 70's British band Spooky Tooth). In the politically charged cultural climate of the mid-decade when Tipper Gore's PMRC was attempting to silence metal and "objectionable" music and lyrics, one of metal's biggest acts found themselves to be a lightning rod over something that they were hard-pressed to understand: How was a band responsible for such a heinous, tragic act?

The story unfolds as follows: Two young men in Nevada, after facing a series of traumatic personal misfortunes, gave each other a Judas Priest album as a Christmas present. Following a period of hard drinking, both men decided to enter a suicide pact and entered a church playground where they
took a gun and both shot themselves. One died instantly, while the other miraculously survived--though his face was horribly disfigured. The families and authorities noted the gift of Priest albums and concluded--the band was to blame. How else to explain for such a horrific act--than with "horrible" music?
But when the case was brought to court, there was no legal justification for suing a band over lyrics others did not like. So in order to hurdle over the legal roadblock, there was a way to in fact to sue the band--use the accusation leveled at Iron Maiden several years before: backwards masking, or subliminal messages.
In other words, the prosecution was to come up with the evidence that the boys' actions were prompted by things beyond their cognitive abilities, in this case, "backwards" messages embedded in the lyrics recorded in reverse that the brain subconsciously deciphered. Now this would be unconscionable for the band to do, would it not?

The band was brought in to court and Rob Halford was grilled over such lyrics as, supposedly, "Do it" in one track. Aha!! thought the prosecution. Proof right there they incited the command to take their lives! But Halford countered, "Do what? Mow the lawn? Have a drink?" It was not clear that this cryptic "do it" message mean what what the prosecutors claimed it said. Another hilarious incident was when the lyrics backwards for "Stand for Exciter" was explained as "I-I-I asked her for a peppermint. I-I-I asked for her to bring me one."

In the end, the band was acquitted of the charges of inciting suicide. Unfortunately, several years later, the survivor of the suicide pact in fact died of the use of drugs used in treatment. But Priest emerged victorious in this trial, and as part of its success, began work on a new album: "Painkiller".

As the ads announced "60 minutes of musical free expression", the album was a mighty return to form for the band. The title track was one of the most blistering statements it had ever made, along with raucous songs as "Hell Patrol", "Metal Meltdown", "All Guns Blazing", "Between the Hammer And the Anvil", as well as the more commercial song and video "Touch Of Evil".

A tour commenced for the album, but unfortunately, this was the last many would see of Rob Halford fronting the band for a very long while. At the end of the tour in 1991, he announced his departure from the band. The reasons for this were very unclear, but he later explained it had to do with certain issues on the business end of the band. For the next few years, the future of one of metal's mightiest bands remained a huge question mark.

[ABlairican Pie]

Now cranking: LOCKED IN!!!!

[ABlairican Pie]

In the early 90's, Rob Halford formed a new band called Fight, which debuted with a fine album called 'War Of Words'. It was a bit of a different take on anything he had done in a while, not quite so epic, this more modified, stripped-down "modern" metal having more to do with newcomers Pantera and others than the epic Priest.

For the next few years, Judas Priest remained adrift as they searched for a new lead singer. Guitarist Glenn Tipton released a solo album, which remained largely under the radar. The band stayed relatively quiet for a while--until their search for a new vocalist was completed: A young singer named Tim "Ripper" Owens fit the bill to fit Rob's leather boots.
Owens was dubbed "Ripper" over his amazing ability to sing one of Priest's early classics, "The Ripper", in his own Priest tribute band. He was chosen on the spot and fingers were crossed that he would, in fact, be a worthy successor to Rob Halford.

In 1997, the band released "Jugulator" on a new label, a disc that had more in keeping with the modern, edgy metal trend in mind, full of de-tuned guitars and the like. Tracks such as "Burn In Hell", "Cathedral Spires", and the title track fit in the band's themes of Apocalypse and mythical metal figures such as the Painkiller and others, but opinion was divided. Many wished that Halford were to sing on it. Others thought the album was too much of a departure from their earlier work, but it was understandable that the band felt it would have to adapt to the times, more or less.

Thus the band entered into its own "Blaze Bayley" era, as had fellow metal band Iron Maiden, whose new vocalist also felt like a bit of disappointment following in the footsteps of a vocal legend.