The early Judas Priest albums

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I think you will find plenty of people defending the early Priest albums.

Granted, Rocka Rolla was not a defining album by any means nor a representation of the band's sound. Priest's signature sound came with Sad Wings of Destiny. Songs like The Ripper, Victim of Changes and Tyrant were the foundation for Priest's heavy metal sound and the twin guitar attack of later albums.

The albums that followed: Sin After Sin, Stained Class, and Hell Bent For Leather only helped fuel the heavy metal sound further. All those releases were very influential on the NWOBHM style. But more importantly, the songs are classic metal songs. Nothing generic to be found on any of those albums - stuff like Exciter, Starbreaker, Hell bent... all those fast paced songs were unheard of at the time.

I would definitely recommend you check out more from Priest to get a better understanding of what they are all about.

Judas are a top five band for me, but to defend them against such hopeless case of blatant ignorance? Thank you but no thanks. Stick to whatever ur listening to and be happy, peace.

Judas Priest is in my top 3 favourites ever.

But I will have to agree that their "early" albums were a bit "out-of-my-taste" but the Tipton-Downing guitar duo keeps me addicted to them no matter what. Even if I never like a Priest song, I always liked the "guitars" and how it sounds.

I pretty much love all priest, but "sad wings" through "hell bent" is probably my favorite era of their music. I don't find anything average about these albums. I think they were pioneering metal albums.

I completely disagree, even 'Rocka Rolla" which showed the band may not been exactly ready for prime time, still has some great songs on it, and the band had a huge winning streak in terms of songwriting, artistic accomplishment from 'Sad Wings of Destiny" to "Defenders of the Faith" very few bands can match the Priest discography during this same era.

Judas Priest - Dreamer Deceiver from Sad Wings of Destiny album.



I've never been a priest fan but when I heard this song, I was blown miles away and I became a fan in an instant.

If you wanna, like, not be metal, and not listen to old Judas Priest, I guess you can, I guess.

I have to admit, I wasn't very enamored by the earlier Priest material when I first heard it. I really only liked British Steel and after. But when I started upgrading to cd I decided to get the entire discography and something about those albums just clicked with me. I'm not sure what it was I didn't like in the beginning but that was long gone. Really good stuff. I should add though that I still haven't gotten Rocka Rolla yet (never even heard one note from it).

Judas Priest is my favorite band, and their 70s material is some of the best Heavy Metal ever produced. Stained Class is a masterpiece of epic proportions. Rocka-Rolla has some gems on it such as this:





How could any metalhead NOT like Sad Wings of Destiny? It's the template for traditional heavy metal.

I prefer their early stuff (say, from the debut up to SCREAMING FOR VENGEANCE) over most of what came afterwards.

IMHDO Priest wrote better songs from "Rocka Rolla" thru "Screaming For Vengeance"

Albeit, not as fast, sporadic, and/or heavy as the albums they did afterwards or the other flavors of metal done by other bands. It is all subjective, especially considering you are asking alot of us who bought those albums as new releases (or pretty close) to it and put them on a turntable in a time when very few bands were doing anything like that. While you are looking back in hindsight and comparing it to whatever it is you are comparing it to.

Fat Freddy wrote:

I prefer their early stuff (say, from the debut up to SCREAMING FOR VENGEANCE) over most of what came afterwards.

Yeah, I completely agree with this.

My suggestion for people that have trouble with the earliest Priest albums is to start with Unleashed In The East, the beefier production and more "metallic" guitar sounds makes early classic tracks like Victim Of Changes, Genocide, Tyrant and The Ripper really shine. Unleashed was my doorway into the early Priest material and I still think most of the songs on it are the definitive versions.

S.D. wrote:

Fat Freddy wrote:

I prefer their early stuff (say, from the debut up to SCREAMING FOR VENGEANCE) over most of what came afterwards.

Yeah, I completely agree with this.

My suggestion for people that have trouble with the earliest Priest albums is to start with Unleashed In The East, the beefier production and more "metallic" guitar sounds makes early classic tracks like Victim Of Changes, Genocide, Tyrant and The Ripper really shine. Unleashed was my doorway into the early Priest material and I still think most of the songs on it are the definitive versions.

I bought 'Rocka Rolla' and "Sad Wings ", after getting "Screaming" for Christmas in 1983, but I agree 'Unleased" helped me get into those studio albums such as "Stained Class' and this is perfect intro to those early Priest classics.

S.D. wrote:

Fat Freddy wrote:

I prefer their early stuff (say, from the debut up to SCREAMING FOR VENGEANCE) over most of what came afterwards.

Yeah, I completely agree with this.

My suggestion for people that have trouble with the earliest Priest albums is to start with Unleashed In The East, the beefier production and more "metallic" guitar sounds makes early classic tracks like Victim Of Changes, Genocide, Tyrant and The Ripper really shine. Unleashed was my doorway into the early Priest material and I still think most of the songs on it are the definitive versions.

Completely agree.

Tyrant
Sinner
Saints In Hell
Starbreaker (Unleashed In the East version)
Stained Class
Beyond The Realms of Death
Dreamer Deceiver
Diamonds and Rust

woo

Witchfinder wrote:

S.D. wrote:

Fat Freddy wrote:

I prefer their early stuff (say, from the debut up to SCREAMING FOR VENGEANCE) over most of what came afterwards.

Yeah, I completely agree with this.

My suggestion for people that have trouble with the earliest Priest albums is to start with Unleashed In The East, the beefier production and more "metallic" guitar sounds makes early classic tracks like Victim Of Changes, Genocide, Tyrant and The Ripper really shine. Unleashed was my doorway into the early Priest material and I still think most of the songs on it are the definitive versions.

Completely agree.

.....and Les Binks drums on it!!!

Quote :

Fat Freddy wrote:

I prefer their early stuff (say, from the debut up to SCREAMING FOR VENGEANCE) over most of what came afterwards.

This. I like stuff after too and some of it a lot.

I to prefer the early early Priest albums just something about Judas Priest early on before they got huge!

Metalwargod

I prefer their early catalog to the 80's stuff. With the NWOBHM movement, Priest actually had to 'dumb-down' their sound some. The arrangements and riffs weren't quite as complicated as the 70's material. I mean, I love "British Steel" but there is no doubt that songs like "Breaking the Law" and "Living After Midnight" don't compare to stuff like "Dissident Aggressor", "Starbreaker", "Victim of Changes", "Dreamer Deceiver" or even "Never Satisfied" from the first album.

And Judas Priest is the definition of HEAVY METAL. This is exactly what I rant about constantly with people trying to strip the 1970's bands of their place in heavy metal history by making comments like, "seems like average hard rock music" or "it's just hard rock not heavy metal". Rather, those early bands were the creators of that hard-n-heavy sound. It use to just be American bands like Aerosmith, Ted Nugent and Kiss that people would argue against. Now I see it on discussion boards people saying bands like Saxon, Judas Priest, Black Sabbath, UFO, Scorpions, etc. were never heavy metal bands but are "just hard rock". It's history revisionism.

Dark Horseman wrote:

Quote :

Fat Freddy wrote:

I prefer their early stuff (say, from the debut up to SCREAMING FOR VENGEANCE) over most of what came afterwards.

This. I like stuff after too and some of it a lot.

Oh yeah, almost all Priest is good Priest (with the exception of Demolition and some of Turbo). I'm not saying that they suddenly started sh*tting the bed after Screaming For Vengeance, and there are a lot of post-SFV songs that I dig, but for me at least a lot of their post-Screaming output doesn't hold up nearly as well as the vintage stuff.

ultmetal wrote:

And Judas Priest is the definition of HEAVY METAL. This is exactly what I rant about constantly with people trying to strip the 1970's bands of their place in heavy metal history by making comments like, "seems like average hard rock music" or "it's just hard rock not heavy metal". Rather, those early bands were the creators of that hard-n-heavy sound. It use to just be American bands like Aerosmith, Ted Nugent and Kiss that people would argue against. Now I see it on discussion boards people saying bands like Saxon, Judas Priest, Black Sabbath, UFO, Scorpions, etc. were never heavy metal bands but are "just hard rock". It's history revisionism.

Oh, here we go again! At least we can all agree that Bon Jovi are definitely metal without any fear of controversy

"The Ripper" is the best song of their's.

Boris2008 wrote:

ultmetal wrote:

And Judas Priest is the definition of HEAVY METAL. This is exactly what I rant about constantly with people trying to strip the 1970's bands of their place in heavy metal history by making comments like, "seems like average hard rock music" or "it's just hard rock not heavy metal". Rather, those early bands were the creators of that hard-n-heavy sound. It use to just be American bands like Aerosmith, Ted Nugent and Kiss that people would argue against. Now I see it on discussion boards people saying bands like Saxon, Judas Priest, Black Sabbath, UFO, Scorpions, etc. were never heavy metal bands but are "just hard rock". It's history revisionism.

Oh, here we go again! At least we can all agree that Bon Jovi are definitely metal without any fear of controversy

"You Give Love a Bad Name" is the ultimate death metal song of all time.