JUDAS PRIEST ALBUM RANKING GAME: FINAL ENTRY AND RECAP

I'm kinda used to being on the "Sad Wings is kinda overrated" side of the discussion, but this thread might have flipped me. :)

It's got some really interesting, groundbreaking songs, a clear identity and a lot of variety, but it's just not deep enough to rank among the true classics.

Changes, Ripper and Tyrant are fantastic and the Deceivers are very cool, but is that enough to make it great?

Good album that ranked #7 for me, but could have been lower. IMO Sin After Sin offers everything this one does, but better.
 
One of the things I like best about Stained Class is the range of songs and the way they are sequenced. It's a template that carries over to their very best albums and it's probably the imprint that I personally carry a bias toward when judging how any album is constructed.

One of the things I like least is the sound. It's clean and relatively dynamic, and it's not actively annoying like Ram it Down, but it is so freaking dry. It robs the songs of their power.

The songs themselves are a mixed bag. The album is relatively deep, in that there aren't any songs I dislike. And there is some interesting parts and a nice mix of compositions. But where it gains points at the bottom, it loses them at the top. That's because Priest has a very deep catalogue and this album has several tracks that rank in the bottom half of my list, and very few tracks that crack the upper end.

Exciter is an excellent thrash song, but they have better from the same template. Beyond the Realms is fantastic, but it's the solo that truly elevates it. The title track is the only other one that I'd consider an essential.

I think the reason I lean toward Sin After Sin out of that '70s trio is because it has both the high-end songs and the depth.

It sits 10th on my list, but as I said earlier, 11-6 are pretty much pick-'em.
 
1:
2:
3:
4:
5: British Steel
6: Stained Class
7: Sad Wings of Destiny
8: Angel of Retribution
9: Sin After Sin
10: Killing Machine
11: Turbo
12: Nostradamus
13: Redeemer of Souls
14: Ram It Down
15: Point of Entry
16: Jugulator
17: Demolition
18: Rocka Rolla

Highest Score: 18 (@Sth2112)
Lowest Score: 8 (@Eddieson)

Sorry folks for the late update, been quite the busy week. This will be the only update for the week, and I'll try to go back to two a week starting next Monday. If you're missing the frequent updates, maybe you can spend some time with the Nightwish discography?

British Steel appropriately kicks off our top 5. Of the big post 70s albums (British Steel, SFV, Painkiller, Defenders), I think it makes a lot of sense that this is not the preferred Maidenfans album. For one thing, Priest leans way into the commercial on this album. Songs like United, Metal Gods, Living After Midnight, You Don't Have To Be Old To Be Wise show the band really going for it. When listening to the album myself I am in awe of the huge production sound and the tightly written hooks, but I also find myself missing the pure Metal. The other famous Priest albums, notably SFV have a little bit more of a balance there.

1980 was a huge year for rock and metal. I can think of a few monumental albums from this year: Black Sabbath's Heaven and Hell, AC/DC's Back in Black, the debut Iron Maiden album, and British Steel. Each of these albums are similar in the sense that they seem to be responding to the NWOBHM movement and heralding a more mainstream and accessible version of hard rock and metal compared to the 70s. They all do it differently though. Black Sabbath had a pretty radical adjustment to their sound, primarily by bringing on Dio. AC/DC is pretty much doing the same thing as the 70s, but much more refined with a polished production. Iron Maiden is the scrappy underground NWOBHM act, but you still get songs like Running Free that have single potential. Judas Priest exists somewhere in the middle of these acts. They are an older band and almost unrecognizable compared to the band that made Sad Wings of Destiny, but they have also spent a few years moving in this direction (with Killing Machine being a pretty big transitional album). I also always felt like British Steel was a little bit more connected with the NWOBHM sound than any other band that was trying to capitalize off of that movement without actually being part of it. I think Priest correctly and successfully identified that a lot of the musical appeal of the NWOBHM was in the fact that it was often more immediate and easy to digest than the more progressive/psychedelic tendencies of 70s hard rock.

With all of these things in mind, #5 makes sense, although I'm not sure I would take this album over any of the 70s albums aside from Rocka Rolla. Priest created a really accessible album here, but I think they also gave up a lot of their charm and uniqueness to get there. The songwriting and production is obviously leagues above some of the previous albums, but I also miss the atmosphere and attitude in a song like Exciter. I miss the guitar harmonies which are practically non existent on this album, and even the riffing isn't great. They would find a way to marry the commercial with the metal on other albums, but British Steel is really the band embracing FM rock a little too heavily for my tastes.
 
Yeah, British Steel isn’t all that, IMO. “Breaking The Law” is great, and “Living After Midnight” and “The Rage” are good, but I could take or leave everything else on there.
 
British Steel is classic Priest without a doubt and I think its ranking is right. I ranked it 6th and it can't beat the other albums. It's commercial Priest plus heavy metal/NWOBHM, but this time with stronger songwriting overall (unlike the previous 2 albums). With it, I think they found their preferred formula, style and structure of songs. And it works perfectly. The album is great as a whole listen, especially with the several anthems.

The production is great, polished, louder and clean. Rob's vocals are great too, his voice from this album on is what I prefer.
If I categorize anything with this album, it's Glenn and KK's riffs - simple but very effective. Literally in every song and that helps a lot. Some of the solos are shorter, but most of them are very good (Rapid, Metal, Living). The drumming is also pretty solid.

The big classics are: Breaking The Law, Living After Midnight, Metal Gods and Rapid Fire.
- Rapid is one of the best metal openers and the solos battle in the instrumental section is still awesome. I'm not the biggest fan of Metal Gods, but its simplistic and catchy approach (that tempo), like for the other 2 classics, is what makes them memorable. Timeless riffs! I mean, Breaking The Law!! Grinder is a nice typical Priest rocker, Steeler is cool and works just awesome as a fast closer with longer instrumental section (it's like a continuation of the opener) and You Don't Have To Be Old To Be Wise is one of the band's interesting ''lesser'' songs on classic albums. As for the other songs, The Rage is a needed song with a different vibe for the album, United is a filler for me.

This album is a true classic in metal and doesn't need to be more complex or something (like not having guitar melodies at all, the melodic riffs shine here). It really underlines how a strong songwriting can boost the great ideas.
 
British Steel is definitely where the band turns a corner and you can hear it in everything from the performance to the production.

The songs are simpler, often to their detriment, but you can feel that the band is tighter than ever. It's easily the best (and most consistent) Rob has ever sounded on a record up til this point. The hooks are big, even when they're horrifically lame (re: United).

The only perfect songs here, IMO, are Breaking The Law and The Rage. The rest run the gamut from pretty good (Rapid Fire, Living After Midnight) to really, really not good (see again, re: United). My least favorite Judas Priest sound, after the Ripper shit of course, is the "boom bap" discount AC/DC vibe and it's all over British Steel. Thankfully, the songwriting here is vastly superior to what they would do on the follow-up record. Even United, which again, is not good, still never reaches some of the awful lows that they would pander on earlier (and later) records to try and "get a stadium singing like Queen fans".

Wish they'd do more songs like The Rage, though.

This one dropped half a point to earn a respectable 7.3/10, landing just above every 70s record except for Sin After Sin.
 
Not much to pick at about about British Steel.

It sounds magnificent: powerful and overflowing with hooks. It's got a good variety, yet is well-tracked and the pieces fit. Fantastic energy throughout, but with just enough tonal shifts to keep things interesting. And top-to-bottom fun.

It took all the elements of what the NWOBHM was trying to be, said "you mean like this?" and captured it perfectly.

A tone-setter for my musical tastes as one of the first metal records I fell in love with, and one of my all-time favourite albums.

Number 3 on my Priest list. Wouldn't change a thing.
 
1:
2:
3:
4: Firepower
5: British Steel
6: Stained Class
7: Sad Wings of Destiny
8: Angel of Retribution
9: Sin After Sin
10: Killing Machine
11: Turbo
12: Nostradamus
13: Redeemer of Souls
14: Ram It Down
15: Point of Entry
16: Jugulator
17: Demolition
18: Rocka Rolla

Highest Score: 17 (@Kalata @MrKnickerbocker)
Lowest Score: 4 (@Sth2112)

Perhaps the biggest upset in this entire game is Priest's latest album (at the time of the poll) coming in at #4! Firepower is a Priest album like no other up to this point. The modern production, riffing style, and Faulkner becoming more prominent as a writer and player (he has more of a hired gun quality on Redeemer) gives Firepower* its own identity in the catalog. To me, it has the unique quality of a Priest album sort of suspended in time. For a band that is so influenced by what is going on around them musically, or some sort of concept or conceit to define the album (think Nostradamus), it's actually kinda weird to have a Priest album that is just focused on being heavy and accessible. It's "just" a Priest album, but it also makes you ask what it even means to be a Priest album. For a band whose catalog ranges from Stained Class to Screaming For Vengeance, to Painkiller, to Turbo, to Nostradamus, it's hard to pinpoint an album that just captures the band in their element and most authentic selves. Until now. I think Firepower scores highly because it is the only Priest album to be competently produced, modern sounding, and consistently written. It's also the first album since Painkiller that manages to be as relentlessly heavy as that album, and particularly among the younger fanbase, Painkiller tends to be the gold standard.

A surprising number of users had this one in their top 5 (nine to be precise). There is a clear majority that considers Firepower to be among Priest's classic albums. And while there were a few outlier low rankings, even those who had it outside their top 5 still placed it very high. I would say this is pretty impressive and that the newness of this album has worn off quite a bit since then, so maybe its placement is permanent. For a band such as Priest to release an album as revered by the fans as Firepower is impressive, to say the least.

Like a few other albums, such as British Steel, I find Firepower's greatest strength to also be its downfall. The album is undoubtedly well made, but I think it also lacks a lot of personality. I don't find the songs to be that memorable, and I actually think the album has a ton of filler. Sure these are really well written Metal songs (and Faulkner is amazing), but there is not a single song on this album that I would liken to The Sentinel, Painkiller, Electric Eye, Beyond the Realms of Death, Exciter, Victim of Changes, or any of the top tier Priest songs. Even a song at the caliber of Judas Rising is not found on Firepower. They all kind of exist in the mid tier. While Priest has several albums that are largely filler, I don't think Firepower holds up against most of their 70s and 80s output which are not only mostly without filler but also contain several songs that set a gold standard for Metal. But, clearly, I am in the minority here.

Listening back to Firepower (not to mention a lot of spinning of Invincible Shield) has me reflecting quite a bit on Priest's history since Halford rejoined the band. It's tough for me to judge because I don't love any of the later albums, but they also have different strengths and weaknesses. I think I could agree that Firepower is the strongest of the bunch, but I'm not too sure. I think Redeemer of Souls has a little bit more personality and musical variety, but Halford's singing and the production truly holds the album back. Still, there are a few songs I find more memorable than anything on FIrepower. Angel of Retribution I think has higher highs than Firepower, but a lot more filler and several moments that are much worse than anything on that album. Nostradamus is pretty much a failure for me, so that one isn't even close. Overall though I'm not sure I would ever reach for any of these albums over the classics.

By the way, I'm curious how people rate Invincible Shield now that it has been out for awhile and since it wasn't included in this game. How does it compare to Firepower for you and where would it rank overall in their discography?

*And Invincible Shield, but I'm not going to constantly make that disclaimer as they are two very similar albums.
 
I agree on the remaining top three. For me the order goes:

1 - Painkiller
2 - Screaming for Vengeance
3 - Defenders of the Faith
 
Mosh said:
By the way, I'm curious how people rate Invincible Shield now that it has been out for awhile and since it wasn't included in this game. How does it compare to Firepower for you and where would it rank overall in their discography?
Click to expand...
I'm planning on giving IS a real thorough rating when we're finished here to see where it might stack up.
 
Firepower - a modern classic for the band. One of my favorite albums as a whole piece I'm glad it's so high in the ranking. I think its biggest strength is the consistency, the strong and interesting songwriting and even the variety. With this album the band returned to their classic albums from the 80's (in style), plus the Painkiller sound, but at the same time added a bit of a ''new'' flavor to their sound - and this is mainly due to Richie's playing, which is different from Priest's traditional approach. Kind of a unique approach back then. Their songwriting become more melodically-oriented (vocals and music) and even catchier, which is great for me. It's like Richie united the Priest and the Maiden sound in a way. Not that the previous album was that different, but I think the band needed such an album then and again in their discography (after the previous few ones).

The production is great. Powerful, clean, loud and modern. I admit that for some of the songs it plays a big role for them to shine.
Rob's vocals are great and this is probably my favorite voice of his. He sounds younger on this album.
The guitar playing is really great and tasty. Richie and Glenn have produced some very cool riffs (title track, Lightning, Evil, Children, Traitors) and solos (Rising(!), title track, Evil, Traitors, Spectre, No Surrender, Sea). Richie really shines here, but I think more longer solos are a bit lacking overall, although the songs are shorter. Scott's drumming is also very good.

It's hard to beat the classics, but the album has some songs to rival them - Rising From Ruins, Traitors Gate and No Surrender. The first two are Top 10 material, one of my favorite songs of the band with their vibe, melodies, instrumental sections and epic choruses. The latter is every bit as good as their short classic anthems. These songs are classic Priest but with a bit of an upgrade.
The album offers more good-to-great songs and gems: Sea Of Red (perfect metal ballad-y closer that sounds epic and is a bit different for the band. What an emotion it creates with its melodies and chorus), the title track (one of their fastest songs with simple yet brutal chorus, but is melodic in terms of vocals and riffs), Evil Never Dies (Painkiller sound in its full glory, riffs, chorus, solos, middle part. The song sounds epic and is only 4 minutes long. Kudos), Never The Heroes (slower anthemic song that fits the band so well now. That chorus and all vocals are memorable), Lightning Strikes (classic catchy and memorable single) and Necromancer (typical and solid Priest rocker with heavy riff and vocals).

As for the other songs: Guardians is a wonderful and epic intro to a song (another classic like Hellion), Children Of The Sun is a good song that is typical of the Faulkner era, Spectre is the traditional and typical mid-tempo rocker that is solid, Lone Wolf is a nod to their early sound but done modern (cool riff, melody and chorus) and Flame Thrower (cool instrumental section) is a just a fun song. I feel these songs are mainly saved by the riffs and I can only call Flame Thrower and one other ''fillers''. Some songs could have been left out, but the album would have been really short.

Overall, this is an album that is easy to return to. I really really like it.The catchy approach always work and it's great that the songs have interesting and some longer parts in them (intros, harmonies, middle parts, more vocals). I think Priest have found their new formula with this and the next album.
 
I rank British Steel above Firepower. British Steel is a perfect amalgam of accessible metal. It's Judas Priest's Black Album in a way.
 
Mosh said:
By the way, I'm curious how people rate Invincible Shield now that it has been out for awhile and since it wasn't included in this game. How does it compare to Firepower for you and where would it rank overall in their discography?
Click to expand...
Pure metal is what Priest does best and Invincible Shield continues that. I ranked Firepower really high so I should rank the new album high too because they are similar albums, but I don't like it as much. The album is very good and very solid, but I don't think the variety (as in between the songs on it) and the stronger/noticeable material is enough for me. The solos are longer and more, which is great and I have to point it out. Imo there are 5 really great songs (+-1) and the overall catchy approach, but that's it. I like 2 of the bonus songs and think they should have been added.

Since I think the album is like Angel or Redeemer - my ranking would be #6-9.
 
Never understood the hype for Firepower.
Four strong songs start each side of vinyl; Firepower, Heroes, Ruins, Gate, the rest mediocre.
My least favorite of the reunion, Shield destroys it.
No. 4? Harris/Faulkner bias? IDK.:confused:
 
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