Ram It Down
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| Studio album by Judas Priest | ||||
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Publication |
May 17, 1988 |
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| Label (s) | Columbia Records | |||
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Format (s) |
CD, LP |
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Title (number) |
10 |
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running time |
49:32 |
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Studio (s) |
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Ram It Down (English for: " Ramm it down ") is the eleventh studio album by the British heavy metal band Judas Priest . Some of the songs used came from the sessions on the previous album Turbo , which was originally planned as a double album ("Twin Turbos") and had failed the critics mainly because of its commercial orientation.
background
After the release of the album Turbo (1986), which had caused negative reactions from the critics ("directionless", "uncertain", "over-polished production", "composed and revised") through the use of guitar synthesizers and a highly radio-friendly production the band at the beginning of work for Ram It Down tried to write new music with the British production team Stock Aitken Waterman .
Stock Aitken Waterman were extremely successful in the mid-1980s and had written and produced numerous top ten hits, albeit almost exclusively for pop musicians (including Bananarama , Rick Astley , Kylie Minogue , Sigue Sigue Sputnik or Dead or Alive ). The collaboration with Judas Priest produced three tracks ( Runaround, I Will Return and You Are Everything ), but they were never released because the band decided to use the less commercial material that had been sorted out during the turbo sessions and write some new titles.
The only released single from the album was a cover version of the Chuck Berry song Johnny B. Goode . In the version by Judas Priest, the title was also part of the soundtrack for the film of the same name.
As part of the series "Judas Priest - The Remasters", Ram It Down was re-released on CD in 2001 and also contained the two live recordings Night Comes Down and Bloodstone .
Track list
All tracks written and arranged by Glenn Tipton , Rob Halford and KK Downing .
- Ram It Down - 4:48
- Heavy Metal - 4:58
- Love Zone - 3:58
- Come and Get It - 4:06
- Hard as Iron - 4:08
- Blood Red Skies - 7:51
- I'm a Rocker - 3:58
- Johnny B. Goode - 4:38
- Love You to Death - 4:36
- Monsters of Rock - 5:32
Bonus tracks (re-release 2001)
- Night Comes Down (Live at Long Beach Arena, May 5, 1984) - 4:32
- Bloodstone (Live at Mid-South Coliseum, Memphis, Tennessee, December 2, 1982) - 4:03
reception
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Commercially, Ram It Down was a successful album, which was expressed by chart positions in the USA , Great Britain and especially in Germany (Top Ten). In the US, the album was also awarded a gold record on July 18, 1988 .
The reviewer Michael Rensen ( Rock Hard ) wrote about Ram it Down that the group "fortunately" decided " to let the guitar riffs reign again on Ram It Down and to really give it a boost." Stylistically, the group orientates itself " again more of early eighties pearls such as British Steel or Screaming for Vengeance , "but the quality level of these classic discs" was not quite achieved. Ram It Down go through as a "good Priest album that is absolutely worth the money".
Metal Hammer wrote in his review of the album that the joy was “initially great.” Priest had “overcome their pop phase” and had “returned to what made them one of the best rock bands ever”: “to the unsophisticated, uncompromising HM, how it could hardly sound more British ”. Ram it Down picks up "exactly where Halford & Co. with Screaming for Vengeance and Defenders of the Faith so gloriously left off". But that also means "that Ram it Down has to be compared with these two classics" - and here "the newcomer draws the short straw."
Web links
- Official website
- Ram It Down at Allmusic (English). Retrieved October 14, 2011.
Individual evidence
- ↑ Steve Huey on allmusic.com ; Retrieved October 14, 2011
- ↑ Booklet for the CD
- ↑ Charts DE Charts UK Charts US
- ^ RIAA gold and platinum database
- ↑ Critique by Michael Rensen for amazon.de ; Retrieved October 14, 2011
- ↑ Metal Hammer, No. 6/1988, page 60