Judas Priest: ‘Turbo 30 (Remastered 30th Anniversary Edition)’
JUDAS PRIEST
TURBO 30 (REMASTERED 30TH ANNIVERSARY EDITION)
To be released on February 3, 2017 (Sony Music)
Review:
Judas Priest’s 1986 album Turbo has often been looked at as the ‘black eye’ of the Rob Halford era. If you read some of the posts online; keyboard warriors are calling foul with comments like “Poor Judas Priest are having to push Turbo [Anniversary Edition] on us again, the worst album in their catalog.” While Turbo was ‘hard’ to digest the first time around; it’s gotten better with age. If you can believe this; this recording session was supposed to be a double album with the working title ‘Twin Turbos.’ Turbo was the first Priest album I ever bought with my own money. Fuel For Life was the first tour I saw Priest on; so there’s a little bit of a ‘love/hate’ kind of relationship that I have with Turbo.
In 1986, vinyl was still selling reasonably well but close to being phased out by the garbage cassette format. In those days, eight to nine song albums were the norm unlike the present day when bands feel the need to release 12 to 14 song albums. In retrospect, the traditional formula is not a lot of music; but there was less tendency for ‘filler.’
Judas Priest’s Turbo has synthesized guitars all over it (and likely all drum machines) — pulsating ‘dance beats.’ Turbo depicts what was going on in hard rock music at the time. That same year, Iron Maiden toyed with guitar synthesizers on Somewhere In Time and they too were criticized; however not to the extent as Priest as they were pandering to a ‘hair band’ or ‘glam’ audience.
Turbo featured excellent moments like “Turbo Lover,” “Locked In” and “Out In The Cold” with the latter being the gem and a deep cut of the Priest back catalog. Then there’s the middle of the road tracks like “Rock You All Around The World” with its cheesy chorus, “Private Property” and the ‘synthesized swing’ at the PMRC with “Parental Guidance” which is as irrelevant today as Sebastian Bach belting out “Youth Gone Wild.” Turbo ends with a trifecta of ‘meh’ with “Wild Nights, Hot & Crazy Days,” “Hot for Love” and “Reckless.” “All Fired Up” — a ‘so so’ track from the Turbo sessions previously featured on the 2011 remastered version — is absent for some reason.
Sony missed an opportunity to really enhance the Turbo anniversary edition liners with some band input or the inclusion of producer Tom Allom. The bonus content feature two discs from a Kansas City performance from that tour. The lack of liners, band input, and attention to detail reeks of a cash grab by Sony Music. If you don’t own Turbo or if you missed out on this album the first time around, it’s certainly worth doing so now. The addition of the Kansas City show adds some value and overall is superior to the Priest…Live! album, which followed Turbo.
I’m curious what Sony Music will do with Ram It Down, which will celebrating an anniversary next year. What I’m chomping at the bit for is the 2020 anniversary edition of Painkiller — bar none the last great Priest record to date but for now, fire up your Turbo.
Track List:
Disc One — Turbo: Remastered:
01. Turbo Lover
02. Locked In
03. Private Property
04. Parental Guidance
05. Rock You All Around The World
06. Out In The Cold
07. Wild Nights, Hot & Crazy Days
08. Hot For Love
09. Reckless
Disc Two — Live At The Kemper Arena, Kansas City:
01. Out In the Cold
02. Locked In
03. Heading Out To The Highway
04. Metal Gods
05. Breaking The Law
06. Love Bites
07. Some Heads Are Gonna Roll
08. The Sentinel
09. Private Property
10. Desert Plains
11. Rock You All Around The World
Disc Three — Live At The Kemper Arena, Kansas City:
12. The Hellion
13. Electric Eye
14. Turbo Lover
15. Freewheel Burning
16. Victim Of Changes
17. The Green Manalishi (With The Two -Pronged Crown)
18. Living After Midnight
19. You’ve Got Another Thing Coming
20. Hell Bent For Leather
Band Members:
Rob Halford – lead vocals
Glenn Tipton – lead and synthesized guitars
K.K. Downing – lead and synthesized guitars
Ian Hill – bass
Dave Holland – drums
Production:
Produced by Tom Allom
Engineered by Bill Dooley
Mixed by Glenn Tipton, K.K. Downing, Tom Allom and Bill Dooley
Assistant Engineers: Paul Wertheimer and Sean Burrows
Remastered in 2001 by Jon Astley
Remastered in 2017 by Mandy Parnell
Kansas City performance recorded by Tom Allom and Jack Rushton
Band Websites:
Official Website
Facebook
Twitter
Reviewed by Ruben Mosqueda for Sleaze Roxx, January 2017
Judas Priest‘s “Out in The Cold” song live at Kemper Arena in Kansas City, Kansas, USA in 1986:
Judas Priest – Out in the Cold (Recorded at Kemper Arena in Kansas City) (Audio)
Get Turbo 30: http://smarturl.it/Turbo30RT?iqid=vevo About the album:Originally released in 1986, Turbo features all the hallmarks of classic Priest on trac…
Judas Priest‘s “Locked In” song live at Kemper Arena in Kansas City, Kansas, USA in 1986:
Judas Priest – Locked In (Recorded at Kemper Arena in Kansas City) [Audio]
Get Turbo 30: http://smarturl.it/Turbo30RT?iqid=vevo About the album:Originally released in 1986, Turbo features all the hallmarks of classic Priest on trac…
Judas Priest‘s “Rock You All Around The World” song live at Kemper Arena in Kansas City, Kansas, USA in 1986:
Rock You All Around the World (Recorded at Kemper Arena in Kansas City) [Audio]
Get Turbo 30: http://smarturl.it/Turbo30RT?iqid=vevo About the album:Originally released in 1986, Turbo features all the hallmarks of classic Priest on trac…