Judas Priest: Stained Class CD Track Listing

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Judas Priest Stained Class (1978)
Originally Released February 1978\nCD Edition Released \nRemastered + Expanded CD Edition Released November 6, 2001\n\nAMG EXPERT REVIEW: An indisputable metal masterpiece, Stained Class is the apex of '70s Judas Priest, a sinister, muscular collection that ties the disparate strands of their style together while jacking the adrenaline rush up to previously undreamed-of levels. Even the lone slow-tempo track, "Beyond the Realms of Death," has an exciting, visceral intensity, and the whole band is at the absolute peak of its powers in terms of technical execution. Lyrically, Stained Class is probably the darkest moment in a career filled with them; the whole second half of the record is positively obsessed with death, although the ridiculous 1989-1990 court case alleging that the album provoked two Nevada teenagers' suicides was instead centered around the Gary Wright/Spooky Tooth cover "Better by You, Better Than Me," in which Rob Halford allegedly embedded the subliminal, backward-recorded message, "Do it." At any rate, the air of malevolence about Stained Class, and the sheer power of its jackhammer guitar riffs, was unrivaled in heavy metal upon its release (even in Priest's own catalog), stamping the album an instant classic and solidifying Judas Priest's status as arguably the most original and musical metal band of its time. More than any other Priest album, the style of Stained Class also laid the groundwork for the thrash and speed metal that would rise to dominance in the mid- to late '80s, making it a defining moment for the New Wave of British Heavy Metal movement and one of the genre's all-time landmarks. [The 2001 reissue offers two bonus tracks: the previously unreleased track "Fire Burns Below" and a live version of "Better by You, Better Than Me."] ~ Steve Huey\n\nAmazon.com Customer Review\nArguably Judas Priest's best 1970s album, September 7, 2004\nReviewer: Terrence J Reardon (SC and Mass., USA)\nJudas Priest's fourth album Stained Class was released in February of 1978. The album featured the drum debut of Les Binks who replaced Simon Phillips for the Sin After Sin tour which saw Priest's first US shows opening for, of all people, REO Speedwagon among others. Once again, the Priest's guitar duo of KK Downing and Glenn Tipton, the vocals of Rob Halford and bass playing of Ian Hill made a classic masterpiece with producer Dennis Mackay for all the tracks save Better By You Better Than Me which was co-produced by James Guthrie(Pink Floyd, Queensryche). The aforementioned track Better By You Better Than Me was the cause of why this album has been controversial in recent years. In late 1985, two guys who were DRUNK AND HIGH ON DRUGS listening to that song and the rest of the album took their own lives with a shotgun(one succeeded the other has a disfigured face ala Quasimodo and eventually passed away in 1988). Then their parents(whom were obviously under the influence of Tipper Gore and her deluded bunch of people called the PMRC), tried to file a wrongful death lawsuit on the band for millions of dollars in 1989-90. Eventually, the band won because of the First Amendment with its Freedom of Speech right. That case was ridiculous because it wasn't the subliminal messages that made the kids act the way they did it was the results of either the drugs or the parents neglecting their kids. Aside that infamous track, Stained Class does feature superb tracks which are classics like the opening Exciter, the excellent Saints in Hell, the title cut and of course the long-running concert staple Beyond the Realms of Death which is arguably the best epic in the Priest canon. Since the controversy, Stained CLass' sales are way past Gold now and is now considered a masterpiece despite its controversy and the fact this album flopped when released in 1978. This album is highly recommended and look out for a new Priest CD with a returning Rob Halford in December!\n\nAmazon.com Customer Review\nIt's the birth of heavy metal as we know it, August 12, 2004\nReviewer: Ilya Malafeyev (Russia)\nThe critics label quite a few albums as "the first heavy metal ever". Mostly they are wrong. Because the first true pure heavy metal album in music history is this, "Stained Class" by Judas Priest. This is exactly the kind of music that is called heavy metal even now, 26 years after its release, fast, furious, with dual-guitar attack, plenty of riffs and a killer rhythm section. \n\nThis album is the 4th in JP's long discography. Only two participants changed since their previous offering, "Sin After Sin". Deep Purple's Roger Glover was substituted by Dennis MacKay as the producer, and Les Binks took his place behind the drum-kit. And it worked! The rhythm section found heavy groove and tightness, with some tasty variety. Overall, the band finally shook off Deep Purple-like sound and riffing, and presented itself as a style-defining force, a founder of what was soon called New Wave of British Heavy Metal. \n\n"Exciter" is the epitome of everything good in this style of music. Fast, with superb riffing and inventive drumming, with Rob Halford's trademark ripping vocals, this song was any live show favorite for many years since. The harmonized dual-guitar solo in the middle is one of the most genre-defining melodies, and to my best knowledge this is where it was used first. Classic! \n"White Heat Red Hot" slows down just a little bit, and demonstrates some very interesting two-guitars interplay. Soaring vocals and shout along chorus adds to this yet another template for a heavy metal song. \n"Better By You, Better Than Me" is a Spooky Tooth song, which JP recorded because their record label wanted to have a cover song as a possible single. Surprisingly, it turned out to be another fan-favorite. Its melodics blended with the Priest's new found style just perfectly. The slow ending with Halford's emotional singing and mixed in high back-vocals nearly makes my heart stop. \n"Stained Class" is yet another heavy metal classics. Glenn Tipton and K.K. Downing demonstrate the effect of galloping guitars, to be copied over and over by hundreds of bands ever since. This song gives us another strong performance by Halford. Just listen to the bridge part, where he takes over the rhythm pattern and accentuates every third note with peculiar vocal overtones! \nThe following 3 tracks fall short somewhat, since they mostly combine all the stylistic elements of the previous songs, but the songwriting is less sharp. They are good, just not on par with other timeless classics, of which there are so many in this album. \nWith "Beyond the Realms of Death" we have another mindblowing song from the founding fathers of metal! This is a ballad with some really heavy riffing in choruses, a very effective track and a must to hear! One more all-time favorite. \n"Heroes End" is a mid-tempo track, simplistic to the first listen, but with some hidden gems. \n\nThis remastered edition of "Stained Class" also includes two excellent bonus-tracks. One, "Fire Burns Below", recorded sometime in 1987, is an impressive emotional slow rocker, reminiscent of slow song "Blood Red Skies" from "Ram it Down" album. Halford shines! The other one is a capture of "Better By You, Better Than Me" performed live. \n\nNow, if you're still hesitant whether you should own a copy of this recording, let me just tell you that you can buy "Stained Class" alone and effectively skip the next 6 years of metal music altogether (excluding Iron Maiden). It's all played here. \n\nPS People from Amazon.com, what have you been thinking?! If this album doesn't deserve the "Essential Album" badge, then I don't know what CD does.\n\nAmazon.com Customer Review\nThe album that defined JP in terms of style and sound, November 15, 2002\nReviewer: M. B. Link "tkdmateo" (USA)\nStained Class. Judas Priest's fourth studio album and first one to feature the talented drumming of Les Binks. In the first years of the band's career, they were searching for the right sound that could set them apart from other heavy metal bands of the 70s. This was especially apparent on their first album Rocka Rolla(1974) and Sad Wings Of Destiny(1976). Although both albums were a commercial flop at the time, the latter album produced many great songs that gained them a steadily increasing fanbase. Priest was financially poor and were ready to quit for good when in no time, CBS(Columbia) Records offered them a name-promoting contract deal to leave Gull Records and record with them for many years. So they happily obliged and recorded their third album Sin After Sin(1977) which gained an American interest for the first time. Although a good album, it still showed signs that the band were trying different things in order to find a fix.\nJudas Priest finally made up their minds and decided to go with a full-blown heavy metal style, enhanced further by bringing leather and studs into the formula. With heavier guitars and a new drummer, they released Stained Class(1978) an enhanced followup bearing the same style as Sad Wings. It's a dark album similar to the later released Defenders Of The Faith(1984) but in a 70s metal vein.\n\nAny true Priest fan knows this album's two monster hit numbers, Exciter and Beyond The Realms Of Death. Both songs display a level of complexity not found in most any song that Priest has ever made since then. Exciter showcases Rob's high vocals and speedy riffs, unknown to metal music at the time. BTROD is more of a slower tune which emphasizes a powerful vocal performance and complex guitar arrangements. Those two songs aside, there are still great rockers spread throughout the disc. White Heat Red Hot and Invader are fast moving tracks that often get overlooked by fans. Also, Stained Class has to be the most underrated title track in Priest's discography. It has enough good guitar playing by Glenn and K.K. to label it as a classic. Then there's Better By You Better Than Me, a catchy cover song, and Hero's End, a midpaced song with a memorable midsection. Unfortunately, both of these songs ended up getting the band into trouble twelve years later, as they were brought up in a lawsuit about a couple of kids commiting suicide after listening to those songs. Savage is similar to Sin After Sin's Dissident Aggressor, but with a theme about Indians forced out of their homes by the white men. The only song I don't really like on here is Saints In Hell, which although it has a decent Black Sabbath-esque guitar section, is hindered by a lame chorus. Now even though the bonus track, Fire Burns Below doesn't belong here, it's still a very powerful unfinished track that should have replaced some of the bad songs off of Ram It Down(1988). The live version of BBYBTM is a decent live outtake, neither better nor worse than the original.\n\nStained Class ended up being the first high-selling Priest album, which would be topped with each succeeding one. After having their first headlining tour in Japan and Europe, Priest took their sound a step further with their next album, Killing Machine(1978)(also titled Hell Bent For Leather). Even though they shortened their songs and made them more commercial, it still retained the same raw heavy metal Priest fans were used to, so it ended up being a great success. All told, I recommend this album as one of the first ones to pick up, especially if you're interested in early Priest. It took me a while to warm up to Stained Class, but since then it has become one of my favorite albums. Others to check out besides this one are Sad Wings, Hell Bent, and British Steel. Then go for the others. Even if you already have Metal Works 73-93, you're still missing many of the band's great songs off of Stained Class. Five Stars for the album, excellent remastering quality, and extras. Now Judas Priest has begun to climb the stairs of success as the one and only Metal Gods. At the very least, this album is a great sign of things for the future to come.\n\nAmazon.com Customer Review\nTheir weakest album of the 70's., December 4, 2001\nReviewer: R. Recchia "matzaball man" (Ithaca, ny)\nOf all the albums that JP did in the 70's, this is definitely\ntheir weakest. It does sport a great album cover, tho! STAINED\nCLASS was a transitional album for JP, where they started to a-\nbandon their SABBATH influenced prog metal and go for a simpler,\nmore straight forward hard rock sound. There is plenty to like\nhere, especially the DEEP PURPLE-ish hard rocker SAVAGE and the\ntitle track and INVADER, this last song being only one of three\nJP songs on which bassist IAN HILL got a co-writing credit.\nMy favorite track is the one that sparked the most controversy,\nJP's cover of the SPOOKY TOOTH song BETTER BY YOU, BETTER THAN ME. JP had a real knack for doing a great job with covers during\nthe 70's(e.g. DIAMONDS AND RUST and THE GREEN MANALISHI) and this\nis no exception. Elsewhere, some of the songs just seem like \nriffs with vocals added. The low point of the album is SAINTS IN\nHELL, JP's most unintentionally silly song and unfortunately a\nsign of things to come for them with some of their cartoon metal\nsongs of the 80's.\nI highly recommend the recently remastered version on cd.\nThe addition of song lyrics is a brilliant one; one really needs\nthem for early JP songs! Also, the bonus track FIRE BURNS BELOW\nis quite enjoyable, even tho' the song was recorded in 87. The\nhighlight of this track is without a doubt the guitar playing.\nThe classical guitar solo is an unexpected, but very nice touch!\nIncidentally, just in case you haven't figured it out yet, if\nyou put the spines of all the remastered cds together, you'll\nget a picture! I don't know what it is yet, for I haven't got\nall the remastered cds, but trust me they really do form a \npicture!\n\nAmazon.com Customer Review\nJP's first heavy metal record . . . and most overrated, November 10, 2001\nReviewer: S. Baker "sdbaker70" (Phoenix, Arizona United States)\nTo be sure, `Stained Class' (1978), Judas Priest's fourth release, marked a distinctive point where the band became less of an inconsistent product of AOR influences of its time and more of a heavy metal band, defining its own musical path in terms of crunching power-chords. Nonetheless, with the notable exceptions of "Exciter" and "Beyond the Realms of Death", much of this record (as with much of `Painkiller' (1990)) is almost a self-parody. To be sure, rock and roll is supposed to be silly, and heavy metal can be even sillier when it just doesn't work. Here, the songs of alien invasion ("Invaders", complete with the sounds of landing spacecraft) and imperialist invasions ("Savage") just don't work. Furthermore, the Spooky Tooth cover, "Better By You, Better Than Me", seems like a very strange addition to this set. That said, and considering the high regard this album was given by heavy metal historians, I would have to classify this as one of Judas Priest's most overrated records.\nThe bonus track ("Fire Down Below") is one of the better outtakes released on these reissues, but sounds a bit out of place given that it was most likely recorded ten years later. The live version of "Better By You, Better Than Me" (circa 1980-1981) is not particularly notable.\n\nAmazon.com Customer Review\nJudas Priest Speed Things Up, November 7, 2001\nReviewer: Midnight Rambler (Highland Heights, KY)\nThis was their fourth studio album which originally came out in early 1978. It was also when they started to speed up many of their songs, introducing double bass, which they had first experimented with on their previous album "Sin After Sin" only this time the sound was a lot heavier. For many this is when Judas Priest really found their classic sound and look, as this is when the band began to wear leather and spikes, and Rob Halford's classic S & M gear on stage!!\nThe album opens with "Exciter", surely one of the first ever speed metal anthems, probably only Motorhead and a couple other heavy punk bands played faster than Priest did in the late 70's. The song has some great double bass drum work done by their drummer at the time, Les Binks. Then the guitar team of Tipton and Downing take over with some great riffs and dueling leads in the middle. Check out how high Halford gets by the end of the song, and he can do it live just as good, amazing!! "White Heat, Red Hot" keeps up the frentic pace with more great riffs and visions of some futurisitc evil and chaotic god taking over. "Better By You, Better Than Me" is the controversial song of the album, the one they went on trial for but the thing is, they didn't even write the song!! It was a cover of the band Spooky Tooth, and really the song is just about a guy who is too shy to tell a close female friend how he really feels, so he tells a friend of his to tell the girl for him, thinking "its better she hears it from you then by me", and this is where the title of the song comes from. It does have a sad theme to it, but how they say it caused suicide is beyond me!! "Stained Class" is a great title track, one great Judas Priest original and one of my all time favorites by them, I only wish they played it live more, and thankfully with Halford's new solo band they brought this song back from the dead and its on their new live album "Live Insurrection". This is my second favorite song of the album. "Saints In Hell" is my favorite of the album, a very under rated track, with great lyrics of religious rebellion and so many great riffs and leads by Tipton and Downing. Here's hoping they bring this song back too!! "Beyond The Realms Of Death" for many is the highlight of this album and for good reason, its one of the best metal ballads ever, kind of an epitaph of someone who didn't want to live anymore and all his struggles. "Heroes End" asks why does it seem that when a star dies, they reach heights of fame they never saw in life?? And if you listen to the verses of the song, its obvious their talking of Janis Joplin and Jimi Hendrix. This remastered version includes a previously unissued song, "Fire Burns Below" which is almost as good as the gems on this album, and a rare live version of "Beter By You, Better Than Me." This album is an important step in their development, as well as where you can see where metal starting having its classic look of leather and spikes. It also helped take metal into faster tempos which paved the way for thrash which came about with the help of this album.\n\nHalf.com Album Notes\nJudas Priest: Rob Halford (vocals); Glen Tipton (guitar, background vocals); K.K. Downing (guitar); Ian Hill (bass); Les Binks (drums).\n\nProducers: Dennis MacKay, James Guthrie, Judas Priest.\n\nEngineers include: Neil Ross, Ken Thomas, Paul Northfield.\n\nPrincipally recorded at Chipping Norton Studios, Cotswold, England in 1978. Includes liner notes by Judas Priest.\n\nDigitally remastered by Jon Astley.\n\nAfter the stunning success of 1977's SIN AFTER SIN, Judas Priest offered another exceptional album with its follow-up one year later, STAINED CLASS. Though disco and punk were grabbing all the headlines in the late '70s, Priest turned a deaf ear to these new musical developments, and stuck to its heavy metal guns. Rarely has metal sounded so inspired and precise as this album's highlights, "Beyond the Realms of Death," "Better By You Better Than Me," and "Exciter." STAINED CLASS was Judas Priest's third classic release in a row.
This rock cd contains 9 tracks and runs 43min 53sec.
Freedb: 6b0a4709
Buy: from Amazon.com

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Judas Priest: Stained Class CD Track Listing

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