Judas Priest

Yeah, I even mentioned that in my post...

Ever since 2018 they tend to drop some of the evergreens in favor of new stuff and rarities. This is actually pretty interesting because you'd expect the opposite.
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Anyway, Rob sounded very good yesterday. The show was lots of fun. I hope he sounds as good or even better on sunday.
 
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Diesel 11 said:
They did include the Ripper albums in their full discography boxset not too long ago. Idk if you can get them separately though.
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I'll quote one Redditor who made a pretty good analysis of the situation:

I'm sceptical about the record label thing being a reason for the four Ripper albums not being available on streaming services anywhere. I think it's a lack of effort on the part of Priest as a business.

In different interviews over the years Ripper, KK, Ian and Scott (as recently as late last year) have said they outright don't know who owns the rights. Scott vaguely hinted at the business side of things not being the only reason:

I think the record label went out of business. And with Rob being back in the band, it's kind of probably a delicate situation as far as, 'Hey, we wanna re-release these records.'
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Looking at the liner notes for the 50 Heavy Metal Years box, the first two albums explicitly say "℗ 1974/6 Gull Entertainments Ltd" and Rocka Rolla says "Licensed courtesy of Gull Entertainments Ltd/Repertoire Records UK Limited/Entertainment One U.S. LP". When you get to the four Ripper albums, both the phonogram (sound recording copyright) and regular copyright symbols are attributed to Sony. There's no mention of SPV/Steamhammer or their parent Napalm and no mention of CMC or their parent BMG.

My theory is that Sony (Priest's label since Rob came back) owns the rights to those four albums - at least in the UK, but likely internationally, too, given that box was released by Columbia/Epic in the US and Europe.

In 2009 when SPV went into insolvency, Sony bailed them out and acquired a chunk of their catalogue. Given the documentation on the liner notes that the sound recording copyrights to those four albums were attributed solely to Sony (at least in 2021) and not licensed from Napalm or SPV, I think it's safe to say Sony acquired the rights to them in 2009. Priest were one of the higher-profile artists whose work was published on the label and they were one of the names namedropped in the industry announcement when Sony bailed out SPV and acquired some of their catalogue.

So, the label Priest is signed to own the rights to those four albums. Not Priest's holdings company or their own label (Exciter Records), but the company that sells/distributes every other Priest album across the globe, which is the next best thing.

The bottleneck for availability lies in the camp of Judas Priest as a business - Judas Priest Music Limited, which has four people on its board: Glenn, Rob and Ian as directors of the company and Jayne Andrews (their manager/Glenn's partner) as its secretary. Glenn and Ian played on the albums. Glenn wrote and produced them, so he's likely proud of them. Ian didn't even fuckin' know the albums weren't available and he's one of the bosses of the company. Jayne was still their manager during those years, so it's not like she has a personal problem with them. The outlier is Rob, who has said that he's never even listened to the albums and clearly has personal difficulties with that time in his life and Priest continuing without him.

But I don't think it's malice on the part of Rob or anyone else in the band/company. They released all four albums as part of that boxset and they've released official Jugulator merchandise in the last few years (I imported a shirt from Hot Topic and they had some other Jugulator shit on their official webstore).

I think the reason those four albums aren't widely available is the same root cause of every blunder and misstep they've made over the last several decades - the band, as a business, is run like absolute shit and the people running it (Glenn, Jayne, Rob, Ian) don't know how to operate a business to the scale that a band with such a legacy deserves.

tl;dr - those Ripper albums aren't widely available because Priest is run like shit, not because of malice or label/legal complications
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malfeitor said:
I'll quote one Redditor who made a pretty good analysis of the situation:
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Very interesting analysis, thank you for sharing it. Maybe you could have provided a source with the OG post.

I have read somewhere, maybe even on this forum, that if Judas Priest had Rod Smallwood they would be filling stadiums too. To more I hear how that band is badly run the more I believe it.
 
7th son said:
Very interesting analysis, thank you for sharing it. Maybe you could have provided a source with the OG post.

I have read somewhere, maybe even on this forum, that if Judas Priest had Rod Smallwood they would be filling stadiums too. To more I hear how that band is badly run the more I believe it.
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Sure, here's the comment and the thread:
https://www.reddit.com/r/judaspriest/comments/1slcfdl/comment/og79m4j

I'm not saying the guy's take on this subject is 100% right, but it sounds like it could be. For example, there are countries where you can listen to Demolition. I have it saved on Spotify, but I can't play it because it's "unavailable in my region". But there are people who do listen do Demolition on Spotify. This situation is just a big mess.

As for the Jugulator merch - they did release it a few years ago (2024? I can't remember). I even considered buying it because it was quite unexpected and the design was nice, but I eventually didn't do that. I think it looked like this one, but I'm not sure:

tss--8a2651606fdee42358494674a6202741.jpg
 
Hey guys, I am coming with a weird one.

I started getting really intro Priest in the beginning of this year, mostly powering my bike rides to work and back. Lord oh lord, have I been sleeping on this band for decades. I decided somehow during the year that while they are playing live still, I gotta see them, because the time will be up soon, same as Maiden's case. They will be in the NL end of this year.

But the difference between Rob's live singing and album quality is just so massive I can't consider it the same music pretty much, my ears are just like - dude no. Not only high notes, but also length of the notes, and the fact that Rob sounds like he is simply reciting and out of breath and just going through with it to be done with it.

Like I read comments "the Sentinel hasn't sounded this GOOD in ages" and for me it's unfortunately almost like it's not the song that I know from the record.

All glory and respect to him, all his fame and success deserved, but I am afraid I would only feel regret and awkwardness at the show, because my brain would always keep telling me "this is nowhere as good as you know it". And I gotta say the reason I am now also into Priest and quite a fan is mostly carried on Rob's shoulders. I have seen live recordings of his youth, stellar and absolutely unbelieaveable performances, how this is in human capabilities is a wonder.

No disrespect or criticism, it's what it is and we all age. Just wondering how the rest of you sees this. Thanks!
 
Rob must have some really good nights and some really bad nights, then, because he sounded surprisingly good when I saw them on the Invincible Shield tour…
 
We are talking about a 74 years men.

Btw i saw a video of a guy saying that judas priest was playing some parts in plsyack and i thought he was lying. Maybe some parts were recorded?


Btw what a beast they were in 90s. What a start by Rob and what a solo men, glenn titpon
 
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Yax said:
I don’t think Rob sounds more different to the records than Bruce in general does, especially these days.
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I dont think bruce sung bad the SJ songs live... senjutsu stratego and wotw has some dificult parts,the chorus and wotw the whole songs many words and going up and down.
 
dickinson1978 said:
Btw i saw a video of a guy saying that judas priest was playing some parts in plsyack and i thought he was lying. Maybe some parts were recorded?
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We talked about this some pages back. It is not "playback", in the way most people define the word, but the lead vocal getting reinforced (by tracks) in spots, just like you do on a record when you layer stuff.
 
Yax said:
We talked about this some pages back. It is not "playback", in the way most people define the word, but the lead vocal getting reinforced (by tracks) in spots, just like you do on a record when you layer stuff.
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Ok so just a few parts and he is still singing. But its not like wasp
 
Personally, I wouldn't be surprised if Rob's singing is enhanced a little these days. I mean, more than just the occasional background vocal harmony or something along those lines.

While watching live videos from the previous tour, I wondered why his singing sounded so good. Just my impression - I have no proof and no desire to diss Rob. Just a thought that could very possibly be completely erroneous.
 
Azas said:
Personally, I wouldn't be surprised if Rob's singing is enhanced a little these days. I mean, more than just the occasional background vocal harmony or something along those lines.

While watching live videos from the previous tour, I wondered why his singing sounded so good. Just my impression - I have no proof and no desire to diss Rob. Just a thought that could very possibly be completely erroneous.
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For sure wasp have turned to 100 % live shows lol. Blackie was singing half of the songs and the others the rest
 
Azas said:
Personally, I wouldn't be surprised if Rob's singing is enhanced a little these days. I mean, more than just the occasional background vocal harmony or something along those lines.

While watching live videos from the previous tour, I wondered why his singing sounded so good. Just my impression - I have no proof and no desire to diss Rob. Just a thought that could very possibly be completely erroneous.
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It's easy, just line up a few instances of the same song from a few different gigs and listen to the same phrases. I did that for the last tour, and no, the vocals are not identical, which means that his lead mic is - the lead.
 
Yax said:
It's easy, just line up a few instances of the same song from a few different gigs and listen to the same phrases. I did that for the last tour, and no, the vocals are not identical, which means that his lead mic is - the lead.
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In that case, Rob sings pretty damn well for his age. Kudos!
 
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