Judas Priest Boxed Set

Kinda sad this thread never took off, I'd be interested to hear what the more diehard Priest fans felt of the tracklisting. I've had this for a couple months, but never really made it into the latter two discs until today. The synth sound certainly didn't work out too well for these guys did it? Although the intro to "Out in the Cold" has its own cold appeal.

I love "Out in the Cold", it's one of the best songs they did in the 1980s.

The box set tracklisting is spot-on and kind of frustrating at the same time. I wish there were none of those live "rarities", I would rather have had the album versions of stuff like "Breaking the Law", "Hot Rockin'" and "Love Bites". But it's still a very fun compilation.

The excellent Metalogy didn't kick off this thread but maybe the Complete Albums set will. I'm so tempted just for remastered Rocka Rolla and Sad Wings Of Destiny.

remastered sad wings... mmmmmm

But is it worth $100? That is the question.

Oh man, now I'm even more glad I didn't pull the trigger on buying a partial (it was missing a couple of couple albums) set of the old version of this at a local used shop.

For someone like me who only has Metalogy and a couple of their albums on battered vinyl, yes!

Based on Adrien's tweets last night it looks like I'm going to have to take the plunge. I think the term glowing would slightly de-emphasize his actual praise for Rocka Rolla and Sad Wings.

Good to see somebody else repping for "Out in the Cold!" Not surprised that it's Adrien.

Yeah, I compared the new Rocka Rolla &Sad Wings remasters to past CD versions, indeed the new ones blow the others out of the water. Rocka Rolla's punchier, not severely louder but significant enough, while Sad Wings sounds phenomenal. Really leaps out this time. It's about time an album this important sounded as good as it possibly can on CD.

The other interesting thing about these remasters is that "Winter" is presented as a proper nine and a half minute suite instead of four separate short tracks. I believe that's the first time that's ever been corrected on CD. Also, Sad Wings starts off with the "Preluse"/"Tyrant" side first, which always felt like the proper way to me, and which will hopefully put to bed all the confusion about which side is side 1.

logically that order makes sense, but I tried for a while to listen to the album that way and it didn't work for me. it was like listening to paranoid without "war pigs" coming first

I actually prefer Victim/Ripper/Dreamer Deceiver/Deceiver as side two...what a climax that becomes.

My mental sequencing is thrown off by the fact I had Hero, Hero for at least 5 years before I heard either of the first two records. Victim is followed by Dying to Meet You, Dreamer Deceiver/Deceiver by Winter, etc. Always was thrown off by the Tyrant & Rocka Rolla segue.

So I broke down and ordered this set. Couldn't help myself.

the internet era makes things like that so difficult to resist. it's one thing being in a store and being able to fight the temptation to go up to the register, but a twitchy finger and oops look what i did order's been sent, can't cancel it nooooow

Totally! Also, I don't have anything after British Steel on cd, so it's not really $100 for only the first two. It's like $75 for the first two because I'm not going to play the 80s and beyond records very often.

$100 for 17 albums is a pretty incredible deal.

It's funny how they're practically disowning the Ripper albums. Not exactly fair though, there are a lot of fans who'll defend those.

totally great deal...wish I hadn't bought all the albums already.

Now I need to find a good home for my 70s Priest collection. Not worth selling for $2 each.

It's funny how they're practically disowning the Ripper albums. Not exactly fair though, there are a lot of fans who'll defend those.

I discussed this on Twitter. Those albums weren't on Sony/Columbia; they were on SPV, and Sony probably didn't feel like licensing them for what honestly amounts to a budget reissue.

That makes sense, but I doubt there making any other money off them. Might as well squeeze what they can out of this box.

Okay, that makes sense. Personally I act as if those records never existed anyway, I can't stand them.

"Your head/You will lose it"

don't know where to put this so I'm etc

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xm8M2SFfO90

love halford's how ya like me now expression at the end

Got my shipping notice! The set should be here Friday afternoon. I'm pumped.

Cool, I'm looking forward to hearing what you think of those remasters.

I will report in, don't worry.

damn I want this pretty bad

You'll be 45 minutes from my house in a month or so. You could swing by and oggle it.

It is now in my hands. The awesomeness shall soon commence.

I've had a chance to listen to both Rocka Rolla and Sad Wings Of Destiny and, in my opinion, they are worth the price of admission alone. What surprised me was not that they were louder (they are) but how much spatial sense and clarity it brings to each instrument. The drums finally sound like they move a volume of air, the guitars attack when called, punching in hard and clear.

Besides the Koch/Gull cd releases and these new remaster, I have a third, different mastering of a few of the tracks: "Victim of Changes" and "The Ripper" are also on The Essential Judas Priest, while "Never Satisfied", "Deceiver" and "Tyrant" also appear on Metalogy. I'm guessing that Jon Astley, who remastered all the Columbia JP records and the Metalogy box did the two tracks on Essential, likely at the same time and they were left off for other reasons (EJP gives no credits). Regardless of that, the EJP and MTGY remasters are closer in sound to the later Columbia records, which means louder and clearer than the shoddy Koch/Gull ones; however, they don't seem to have the same feel of the room that is so present in these new masters, and have a flatter sharper punch like the 80s Priest recordings.

Vic Anesini, who did the the work for these two records on the Complete box, did a wonderful job making these sound like the band they were and not the band they would become.

Short version: BUY IT NOW WHILE IT'S CHEAP

Did they include the awesome Gull era version of "Diamonds and Rust?" Are the masters of the CBS albums the same as the remasters from a few years ago, or were they mastered anew for this set?

No Gull "diamonds and Rust". CBS records are the same as before. No frills, no bonuses on either of the Gull albums.

I kept Hero, Hero for that reason.

So the CBS ones still have the bonus tracks from the last round, correct?

Exact same discs that have been around for years except for the first two albums (so bonus tracks on all 77-90 albums). Nice cardboard reproductions of original LP sleeves instead of jewel cases.

Thanks for all the info!

You're welcome! I'm loving this set and freely evangelizing.

Yep, you can't go wrong with this set at all, but the two remasters make this a must-own. Plus it's nice to have CDs that don't have that awful silver border on the most recent remasters.

Couple of things:

first, I took a look at the waveforms for the Sad Wings remaster and they're beautiful. No brick walling, no absurd compression/normalization (the Columbia albums all have some major compression/normalization, even if they don't brick wall), and they sound spectacular with great presence, as I said above.

secondly, I've never owned anything after British Steel on cd, and I definitely underrated Point Of Entry while slightly overrating the two that followed it. Turbo is pretty tough to listen to, but has some great songs that work with the weird production instead of against it. Listening to Priest...Live! for the first time in at least 20 years (my truck ate the cassette around 1990) and I'm enjoying it. Not sure why it is so consistently slagged off; obviously, not as good as Unleashed In The East, but the 80s material isn't as good as the 70s stuff in the first place. I think if you whittled it down to a single disc it'd be great. At worst it ties the Turbo songs into the Screaming For Vengeance and Defenders Of The Faith lineage by removing some of the sheen. Whether anything will redeem Ram It Down remains to be seen.

"Blood Red Skies" is absolutely all time, not only one of my favorite Priest jams but one of my favorite jams, period. The title track is great. Fantastic cover art as well… Other than that, though, yeah, that record is pretty dire.

Ram It Down has at least three or four good songs - and I'll even rep for the "Johnny B. Goode" cover because it's just so ludicrous and overblown.

I've had to take a break before diving into RID. Priest...Live! is far too long and draining. After finishing a listen I definitely believe a single disc edit could make it rip.

I'm in the minority, but I greatly prefer Turbo to Ram it Down. Two decent songs on RID, that's it. If Turbo was a letdown for us teens in 1986, RID was even more deflating two years later. Priest seemed lost then.

Hoping to post my review & box set giveaway at MSN Friday...

I prefer Turbo as well, it isn't great but at least it's catchy.

courtesy of EZ I have also had a chance to compare the 2 remasters to the originals and holy shit yeah its quite a difference. also, i prefer turbo

I mean, that's kind of like saying that we prefer scabies to whatever flesh eating bacteria Jeff Hannemann had eating his arm, but I guess it's an important distinction.

Okay, I got through Ram It Down and the problem I hear is the songs just aren't there. There are catchy songs on Turbo, riffs that hold in the mind after they're done, but RID is severely lacking in hooks. The drums certainly don't help, and the record as a whole is a chore. The expanded reissue with the old live tracks tacked onto the end only serves to cement the fact that their attempt to recapture the Screaming/Defenders vibe was an abject failure. Turbo has serious issues but it is a much more interesting record than Ram It Down.

But J3ff is right that "Blood Red Skies" is pretty terrific. Plus, half of it isn't devoted to repeating the title ad nauseam like "Heavy Metal", "Love Zone", "Monsters Of Rock" etc. Trim those up and maybe it wouldn't be such a wearisome listen.

Nice moment on the Nu-Metal edition of Metal Evolution, when Kerry King was shaking his head at the fact Slayer recorded Diabolus in Musica. "It's our Turbo," he said, then guffawed.

Omg the 50th box arrived and it is glorious

Autographed photos of the band. A huge book. Posters. Tons of boots that sound great.

A huge commemorative metal razor

First unreleased live cd I listened to was the one from 90. Great sound quality, but Rob is off his game completely.

Now listening to 1991 and this is not only great sound quality, but this might be the greatest Halford live performance I've heard

The Houston '86 set is pretty incredible. As much as I dislike Turbo, the live recordings from that tour are pretty much peak Priest.

I'm still listening to the live CDs that came with this. Often with these sets you get some good live sets, some poorly recorded ones, but most of these are immaculate.

I can only live vicariously through these fans who were lucky enough to see these boys in their prime.

It's also interesting to hear how in the 80s, they started to change how they performed the 70s material a bit, adding a little more octane.

19th studio album in the can, pretty excited