{"id":28437,"date":"2024-11-16T05:30:05","date_gmt":"2024-11-16T10:30:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/?p=28437"},"modified":"2025-09-03T10:12:12","modified_gmt":"2025-09-03T14:12:12","slug":"take-five-great-judas-priest-tracks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/2024\/11\/16\/take-five-great-judas-priest-tracks\/","title":{"rendered":"Take Five: Great Judas Priest Tracks"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Formed in Birmingham, England in 1969, heavy metal heroes Judas Priest released their debut album, <em>Rocka Rolla<\/em> in September 1974. In honor of the 50th anniversary of the band\u2019s debut, I&#8217;m taking a look at five award-winning tracks from this acclaimed, enduring and popular band.<\/p>\n<p>Starting with the band\u2019s third album, 1977\u2019s <em>Sin After Sin<\/em>, every single Judas Priest album for the next 13 years \u2013 a ten-album run \u2013 went Gold (500,000 units sold) in the U.S. Two of those went Platinum (1,000,000 sold), and one, 1984\u2019s <em>Defenders of the Faith<\/em>, went Double Platinum. Each of those releases fared well on the album charts in other countries as well. But album sales are just one measure of success. Judas Priest has been nominated for many awards, winning several of those. Here are five of the most notable, all from the 21st century.<\/p>\n<p><strong>\u201cRevolution\u201d from <em>Angel of Retribution<\/em> (2005)<\/strong><br \/>\nJudas Priest\u2019s 15th long player, <em>Angel of Retribution<\/em> featured the return \u2013 after a nearly 15-year absence \u2013 of beloved lead vocalist Rob Halford. The singer had left the group after 1990\u2019s <em>Painkiller<\/em>. Halford\u2019s return was greeted with enthusiasm by fans throughout the metal community. \u201cRevolution\u201d \u2013 not the Beatles song but an original written by Halford and guitarists Glenn Tipton and K.K. Downing \u2013 was released as a single from the album. <em>Angel of Retribution<\/em> scored not one but two awards: Best Heavy Metal Album at the Metal Storm Awards, and Best Album at Metal Hammer\u2019s Golden Gods Awards.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"YouTube video player\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/S68_spOUvdo?si=UAs9xT0ytN5B7Fra\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><strong>\u201cLost Love\u201d from <em>Nostradamus<\/em> (2008)<\/strong><br \/>\n2008\u2019s <em>Nostradamus<\/em> marked a departure from Judas Priest\u2019s customary approach. While most of the band\u2019s albums were single discs, <em>Nostradamus<\/em> was an expansive double album, running more than 100 minutes. The album was also a conceptual work, a heavy metal suite of songs chronicling the prophecies of the 16th century prognosticator. The album received a mixed reception from longtime fans, but Nostradamus was nonetheless nominated in the Best Heavy Metal Album category at the Metal Storm Awards, losing out to Metallica&#8217;s <em>Death Magnetic<\/em>. \u201cLost Love\u201d is among the album\u2019s most popular tracks.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"YouTube video player\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/VMnNB2dseOI?si=0RdP7kBWYRSuE0y7\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><strong>\u201cDissident Aggressor\u201d from <em>A Touch of Evil: Live<\/em> (2009)<\/strong><br \/>\nThis song was the fourth Judas Priest song to receive a prestigious Grammy nomination. 1999\u2019s \u201cBullet Train\u201d and 2009\u2019s \u201cNostradamus\u201d were both nominated in the Best Metal Performance category, and \u201cVisions\u201d from 2009 received a Best Hard Rock Performance nomination. But the fourth time was the charm: in 2010 the Recording Academy bestowed its Best Metal Performance award to this live cut from <em>A Touch of Evil: Live<\/em>. The studio version of the song first appeared 33 years earlier, as the closing track on <em>Sin After Sin<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"YouTube video player\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/jlE1zFfTlRc?si=Z2gIWALWVETSdyE9\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><strong>\u201cHalls of Valhalla\u201d from <em>Redeemer of Souls<\/em> (2015)<\/strong><br \/>\nThree singles would be released from Judas Priest\u2019s 17th studio album <em>Redeemers of Souls<\/em>, but \u201cHalls of Valhalla\u201d was not one of them. Still, the song is a fan favorite, and it earned a nomination in <em>Loudwire<\/em> Music Awards\u2019 Metal Song of the Year category. That award ultimately went instead to \u201cRoad of Resistance\u201d by all-female Japanese trio Babymetal. <em>Redeemer of Souls<\/em> marked the recorded debut of guitarist Richie Faulkner as a member of Judas Priest, taking over from founding member K.K. Downing.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"YouTube video player\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/VddfDsrVdcs?si=qA97rx4kZpV_KV3f\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><strong>\u201cLightning Strike\u201d from <em>Firepower<\/em> (2019)<\/strong><br \/>\n<em>Firepower<\/em> was the 18th album from Judas Priest; soaring to the #5 spot on the <em>Billboard<\/em> 200 album chart, it would be the band\u2019s highest-charting album in the U.S. At least four major rock publications (including <em>Decibel, Loudwire, Revolver<\/em> and <em>Rolling Stone<\/em>) named it among that year\u2019s top metal albums. And <em>Firepower<\/em> won not one but two awards: Biggest Surprise at the Metal Storm Awards, and Best British Album at that year\u2019s Planet Rock Awards. Three singles were released from the LP; \u201cLighting Strike\u201d was the most popular.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"YouTube video player\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/CUzcxJNZKC4?si=qDFkb8HKBiSs0H3d\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Formed in Birmingham, England in 1969, heavy metal heroes Judas Priest released their debut album, Rocka Rolla in September 1974. In honor of the 50th anniversary of the band\u2019s debut, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":28438,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[27,46],"tags":[5544],"class_list":["post-28437","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-essay","category-metal","tag-judas-priest","cat-27-id","cat-46-id","has_thumb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28437","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28437"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28437\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":30045,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28437\/revisions\/30045"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/28438"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28437"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28437"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28437"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}