Best Tune on the Painkiller album by Priest

The title track for me as well. One of the few songs on the album that still holds up all these years later. (the other being "Night Crawler").

I saw them live twice while they were touring this record - unfortunately they were blown off the stage both times (by Rust in Peace era Megadeth the first time, and by Alice Cooper on the ill fated Operation Rock N Roll Tour) ... a lot of people seemed surprised when Halford announced he was leaving at the end of the Painkiller run, but I wasn't... he looked tired at both gigs.

Tho I gotta say when I saw him on his first tour with Fight a couple of years later, The Man's batteries had definitely been re-juvenated.

Another notch for the title track. This was the first JP album (tape) I owned and would be for the longest time.

So many good songs on that one but I went with one of my favorite JP songs, Nightcrawler.

This album is so awesomely consistent throughout, every single song can be a winner here!

This album is just okay to me. It's definitely better than Turbo and Ram It Down, but it's Priest once again trying to jump on what was hot at that moment. The trend around this time was Thrash music, so Priest sped it up. I'm going with a Touch of Evil, just barely over that of "Between the Hammer & the Anvil".

Yeah, "Painkiller" is easily the best metal song ever to my ears.

I was 12 when the video came out and it was the first Priest I heard. I certainly did not know or care if they were trend hopping, bandwagon jumping or selling out. And I still don't care. Whatever their reasoning, it's hard to argue with the results. This whole album rips from front to back.

painkiller should be the logical choice.

I still went for touch of evil. an awesome track that I first heard on a stormy night in the mountain.

creepy and haunting.

Touch of Evil for sure. The solo alone is worth the price of admission. Just a powerful tune.

Nightcrawler would be second. Sorry guys but Painkiller, for me, is the weakest track on this album. I always labeled it "double-bass-boredom." That might brand me a heretic, but whatever. I always thought Metal Meltdown, in all its cheesy glory, would've made for a better opener. But that's just me.

I'm a bit confused by this record as I've heard a lot of people say this is where Priest jumped on the thrash metal bandwagon. I don't hear it at all! It just sounds like a heavier than average Priest but no more so than Freewheel Burning, Rapid Fire or The Sentinel. There are thrash riffs all over Jugulator but not this one.

Favorite song is probably Painkiller but I wasn't blown away by this record.

Boris2008 wrote:

I'm a bit confused by this record as I've heard a lot of people say this is where Priest jumped on the thrash metal bandwagon. I don't hear it at all! It just sounds like a heavier than average Priest but no more so than Freewheel Burning, Rapid Fire or The Sentinel. There are thrash riffs all over Jugulator but not this one.

Favorite song is probably Painkiller but I wasn't blown away by this record.

It's a funny thing; I was blown away by this record as a KID. Nowadays I'm less than impressed (save for how Tipton and Downing amped up their technique to full bore shredding status). It's more or less a fun listen--Defenders of the Faith with a bunch of double bass. Perhaps more speed metal this time around--but yeah, certainly not thrash in any way.

I think it's becoming one of those albums of old tagged with the maxim "you had to be there for it." Even though I wasn't (didn't discover it until I was 13, or 1993).

Always nice to see someone discover this song for the first time

corplhicks wrote:

Defenders of the Faith with a bunch of double bass.

That sounds freakin' amazing actually.

Painkiller is awesome. Maybe their best after Defenders or Stained Class.

Man, so many of you have a surprising opinion on this album. Odd to me that any metal fan, particularly those who are also Priest fans, could find this album to be anything but amazing.

MetalGuy71 wrote:

Another notch for the title track. This was the first JP album (tape) I owned and would be for the longest time.

At the time of it's release, I was in high school and was only familiar with a handful of hits from JP's past catalog. When I first saw the video on MTV, my first thought was "Wow!! THIS is Judas Priest? I need to hear more of this!!"

So yea, if people thought this was them jumping on the thrash bandwagon or not a "true representation" of their sound, it didn't matter to me then or now. It made me want to hear more of them and that album and song made me a fan ever since.

Why are you guys so concerned with speculating over the supposed "reason" behind the sound of albums? Just listen to the damn music and judge it on those merits alone.

The title track gets my vote - one of the most perfect heavy metal songs ever recorded, in my opinion.

Deep Purple Keyboardist Don Airey: I Played Bass on Judas Priest’s ‘Painkiller’

Deep Purple keyboardist Don Airey managed to keep it secret that he actually played bass on Judas Priest's 1990 album, Painkiller, rather than mainstay Ian Hill, the band's longest tenured member.

"...at the time Ian wasn’t very well, so he wasn’t at the sessions. So, I got made to do all the bass and they kept it."

Thanks for the info Lari.

It's a Minimoog synthesizer. That's why it sounds like from a video game.

https://www.invisibleoranges.com/the-making-of-judas-priest-painkiller/

"Now, try and get a low end on something as fast as Painkiller," Tsangarides explained in the Tape Op interview. "It's either going to be a big old mush, or it's not going to be a bass -- it's so damn fast there's not enough time for the thing to speak, for the sound wave to do its thing. It just doesn't happen. The slower the song, the bassier you can get it. The faster the song, the thinner it's going to be. By using the Moog, we could use the attack from the (bass) guitar and the lows from the Moog."