CD Odyssey Disc 471: Judas Priest

The holidays have caused a slowdown in the album review stream, but I’m starting to get back into the swing of things.  I had planned to write this review on Friday afternoon, but I was deathly ill yesterday and am only now starting to feel like myself again.

This album is yet more Judas Priest.  There are only two left after this one though, so the Judas Priest part of the Odyssey is nearing an end.

Disc 471 is…Turbo

Artist: Judas Priest

Year of Release: 1986

What’s up with the Cover?  A hand with long nails on a joystick.  I assume the owner of the hand is shifting whatever machine the joystick controls into ‘turbo’.

How I Came To Know It:  I’ve known this albums since it came out when I was sixteen years old.  My brother worked on a fish boat back then, and when he’d get back from a trip he’d have a ton of cash, and he’d blow a considerable amount of it on records.  He bought “Turbo” and I taped my favourite songs off of it from him. After many years, I recently purchased it on CD because I was feeling nostalgic, and remember liking those four songs.

How It Stacks Up:  I have twelve Judas Priest albums, so after this one I’ll only have two more to review.  I have a soft spot for “Turbo” it probably doesn’t deserve, but you can’t choose who you love.  I’ll rate it 8^th out of 12.

Rating:  3 stars but I am probably being kind.

When I was sixteen years old I had this faded jean jacket I wore everywhere.  It had band pins on the collar depicting albums by Grim Reaper and Iron Maiden, and on the back I drew a big symbol of chaos in black felt pen.  I thought that jacket was pretty cool, and while I don’t wear it anymore, I still own it for sentimental reasons.  “Turbo” is a lot like that.

While I’ve always liked “Turbo,” it is not an album held in high regard by most Judas Priest fans.  It follows on the massively successful (and awesome) “Defenders of the Faith” but is a fairly significant departure in sound.

The Judas Priest quality guitar riffs are still there, but the big departure is in production decisions, where the band has opted for the rightly-maligned eighties fuzzy-synth sound.  This cuts way back on the visceral quality of K.K. Downing and Glen Tipton’s guitar work, and also cuts some power out of Rob Halford’s vocals at a point in his career where that voice is starting to lose power on its own.  I think there are even drum machines in there in places.  Yech.

We shouldn’t judge Judas Priest too harshly, though – Tom Petty’s 1985 “Southern Accents” and Bruce Springsteen’s 1987 “Tunnel of Love” show that many great seventies artists fell victim to the siren’s call of new technology.  Musicians are creative types, so it stands to reason they’d try new techniques as they came along.  Fortunately for “Turbo” the songs are still good, and for the most part they shine through the bad production.

In fact the opening track, “Turbo Lover” even manages to meld Priest’s style with the new sound.  The song is a chimera of metal, industrial and synth-pop that captures all of the sexy aggression that Judas Priest usually delivers, and wraps it up in a new format.  For lack of a better expression let’s call it Cyberdine Systems Rock.

My other two guilty pleasures are “Private Property” and “Parental Guidance” both songs that scream of youthful rebellion.  Realizing that the band members were over thirty-five when they sang these songs, it is surprising how honest they still sound.  I know that when I was a teenager these songs were like anthems to me.

The bridge of “Private Property” in particular, is seriously heavy, as the drums pound away and an ad-libbing Halford shrieks “keep your dirty hands off me!” (a line that always makes me think of Charlton Heston in Planet of the Apes).

“Parental Guidance” has atrociously bad lyrics:

“Every day you scream at me to turn the music low

Well if you keep on screaming you’ll make me deaf you know.”

And later when our parent’s generation is admonished for wearing “three-piece suits” (horrors) it gets even sillier.  Yet for all that, when Halford sings:

“Don’t you remember what it’s like to lose control

Put on my jacket ‘fore you get too old – let’s rock and roll.”

I find myself picking up what he’s putting down.  Instead of having a laugh, this song just reminds me of the glory of youth, when we think we know everything and are determined to prove it.  Putting this record on makes me chuckle a little at how much I used to like it. At the same time, it makes me feel like I’m able to put on that old jean jacket and rock and roll.  Fortunately, I’ve since upgraded the jean jacket with a very cool brown version, that features a big studded cross on the back (professionally done this time).  There’s no need to grow up too fast, people – I’m barely over forty!

Or put another way, we should never lose our youthful exuberance, and if that means I grade “Turbo” out at a star higher than it deserves, then so be it.

Best tracks:  Turbo Lover, Private Property, Parental Guidance