British Steel

Release type:What's this?
studio album
First released:
Apr 1980

Overview Edit

British Steel is the sixth album by British heavy metal band Judas Priest, released on 14 April 1980. British Steel was recorded at Tittenhurst Park, home of former Beatle John Lennon, after a false start at Startling Studios, a recording studio located on Tittenhurst's grounds. Sampling did not yet exist at the time of recording, so the band recorded the sounds of smashing milk bottles to be included in "Breaking the Law", as well as various sounds in "Metal Gods" produced by "trays of cutlery" and "billiard cues". It was released in the UK at a discount price of £3.99, with the advertisements in the music press bearing the legend, "British Steal". Songs "Breaking the Law", "United", and "Living After Midnight" were released as singles, while the track "Metal Gods" earned the band members their moniker.

The album was remastered in 2001, with two bonus tracks added. Bonus track "Red, White, and Blue" was written in the earlier years of Priest's career. It was recorded at Compass Point Studios in Nassau in July of 1985. The second bonus track, a live performance of "Grinder", was recorded on 5 May 1984, in Los Angeles during the Defenders of the Faith tour.

In 2009 Judas Priest kicked off the 30th anniversary tour in the US playing the entire album live for the first time.

Anthrax guitar player Scott Ian said in an interview in the documentary Heavy Metal: Louder than Life that British Steel was probably the album that really defined heavy metal, because it, according to him, did away with the "last shards of blues" that had otherwise been characteristic of the genre. He said, "Even the title... how does it get more metal than that?"

The 30th Anniversary release of the album, came with a Live DVD, and Live CD recorded on August 17th, 2009 at The Seminole Hard Rock Arena in Hollywood, Florida as part of the British Steel 30th Anniversary tour. The Live versions of all the British Steel tracks from this release were also made available as downloadable content for the Rock Band series beginning May 11th, 2010.

The Overview appearing in this section is attributed to Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Steel_(album). Portions of this Overview may be available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License, version 3.0 or any later version, available at: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/. Additional terms may apply. See Wikipedia Terms of Use for details.

This particular version Edit

Record label:
Catalog number:
85752
Release dates:
  • May 29 2001

Genres

Heavy Metal, Classic Rock, Metal, Rock. Vote on Genres

What do Amazon.com customers think?

4 stars One of the seminal heavy metal records
Reissued in the original non-U.S. running order, this record cemented Judas Priest as the preeminent heavy metal band. I say "heavy metal" because of the music and the themes. On its previous studio records, the band had intermixed Sabbath-type lyrical themes and plodding melodies with songs that could best be described as hard rock (a la AC/DC). They would return to the hard rock format on later (and lesser known) records like 1981's 'Point of Entry' and 1986's 'Turbo'. But 'British Steel' is t…
Written by S. Baker "sdbaker70"
3 stars Priest Enters The 80's With One Foot In The Door
British Steel was Judas Priest's first foray into the 80's, and it is a really good indicator of the sound of all the albums in the 80's up until their rebirth in 1990 with Painkiller. Each decade has yielded a vastly different sounding Priest. I would be apt to point out that the 70's remains their high water mark, but one can't deny that the 80's revealed a more "fun" version of the Judas Priest sound. They became more adept at writing radio hits that were still viable enough to be enjoyed by …
Written by Take No Prisoners

Track listing Edit

Credits Edit

  1. performer

    1. Dave Holland [drums]
    2. Glenn Tipton [lead guitars]
    3. Ian Hill [bass guitar]
    4. Kenneth Downing [lead guitars]
    5. Rob Halford [lead vocals]
  1. producer

Other versions Edit

British Steel 9 tracks format: 1 x CD
record label: Sony
catalog number: 85752
release dates: Apr 1980 in United Kingdom
view details
British Steel 11 tracks format: 1 x CD
record label: Columbia Records
catalog number: 502131 2
release dates: May 29 2001
view details
British Steel 9 tracks format: 1 x CD
record label: Sony
catalog number: 85752
release dates: Apr 1980 in United Kingdom
view details
British Steel 9 tracks format: 1 x CD
record label: Columbia Records
catalog number: COL 32412
release dates: Nov 13 1990 in United Kingdom
view details
British Steel 11 tracks format: 1 x CD
catalog number: 85752
release dates: May 29 2001
view details
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