This year of contemplation led to greater temptation for lead singer Rob Halford. Already struggling with increased substance and alcohol abuse, the year off performing saw his life spiralling, with increasing violent feuds and altercations with his partner at the time, which then led to him going even harder with his addictions. The suicide of his partner late in 1985 not only brought him heartache but the realisation that if he continued in the direction he was heading, he would soon probably die of his own addictions. This led him to resolve to get clean, and he went into rehab where he spent a month in December 1985 and January 1986, coming out with a clear head and a new determination. Halford has since said in interviews that his struggle with the secrecy of his sexuality was affecting him, causing him to fall into depression and fuelling his addictions. Since this time, Halford has been clean and sober.
When it came time to begin writing for the new album, the band had decided that on the back of the success of their previous two albums, that this follow up would be a double album titled “Twin Turbos”, half of which would be of a more commercial sound, and the other half which would be more aggressive in their traditional heavy metal style. Eventually, this idea was scrapped, whether due to the demands of their record label or the decision of the band itself. Several stories and sources through the years have suggested both sides. The material that was written was split up, notionally seeing the more commercial songs appearing on what would become “Turbo”, and the other becoming the starting point for the following album which would become “Ram it Down”. Other songs from this writing period eventually turned up on CD reissues of earlier albums, which not only makes it difficult to judge those songs of that time period, but realistically has missed a trick in reissuing them as a single bonus CD.
It is somewhat remarkable just how maligned this album is in the core of the Judas Priest discography. Trying to follow up the brilliant “Defenders of the Faith” album would be no mean feat. And It was another of those defining times in the history of the metal genre, with a split between the fast and raucous thrash metal element that had begun its climb into the persona, and the glam and hair metal element that was not only drawing in the makeup and fashion styles but bringing that 1980's staple, the keyboard synthesiser, into many bands' curricular as a progression in their music. Any change to a band’s output was often confused for being a sell out. Glenn Tipton and K.K. Downing both use guitar synthesisers on this album, a move that has been debated furiously on the album’s release and in the years since, and was followed by Dave Murray, Adrian Smith and Steve Harris on Iron Maiden’s 1986 album “Somewhere in Time”. It was a changing world, and experimentation was coming from those bands who had previously steadfastly stuck to their twin guitar expressions. And it was within these changes that Judas Priest put their foot forward and came out swinging with their own advances on their traditional style of metal with the release of the album “Turbo”.
While on the surface there may appear to be a change in the style of the heavy metal genre played here, the usual Judas Priest elements are all to the fore - the solid rhythm section of Dave Holland on drums and Ian Hill on bass guitar, the twin guitar attack of K.K. Downing and Glenn Tipton, and the vocal talents of Rob Halford. You can agreeably argue that the immediate heaviness of the music is not as prevalent as it had been on recent albums, and that the songs have a more mainstream feel about them partially due to the synths being used, but also due to the style these songs were being composed as a part of the initial “Twin Turbos” package. All of those things are accurate. One of the best examples of this change is for the song "Parental Guidance". It can be debated that its simplicity in structure both musically and lyrically is a come down from what truly set Judas Priest apart from the pack. In many ways “Parental Guidance” can be compared to the song “Breaking the Law”. Both songs are similarly structured with their simple verses and singalong choruses, the addition of a guitar solo to match, and looking for an anthemic quality to the song overall. And yet the difference between the two is significant. Because “Breaking the Law”, for all of the fatigue fans may have of it over its 45 year history, is still one that every fan loves and sings along to and plays air guitar to every time they hear it. It HAS that anthemic quality. And it speaks to the kids, who are down and are looking to rebel. “Parental Guidance”, which lyrically references the PMRC and their placing of the band’s song “Eat Me Alive” on their ‘Filthy 15’ list, doesn’t have the same great energy and fist pumping qualities of the other track. The rhythm and tempo are dialled back and sung in a much less frantic way. The solos from both Tipton and Downing are great, but the rest of the track is just a steady unchanging rhythm, and easy listening protest song that doesn’t raise to any great heights. The topic could easily have engendered a fiercer output of the topic, which would probably have improved the song no end.
The sister track to “Parental Guidance” is “Private Property”, a song that travels a similar track and trap musically, while being up front lyrically about the antagonist of the song keeping their distance in trying to move in forcefully on the protagonist. It’s a simple base rhythm line, settled in that mid-tempo that doesn’t engender any great passion from the chest. With the excess speed ripped out of the songs, it needs something to really bring it to your notice and draw a response from the listener. Once again, the solo from Tipton adds a small slice of something, but it is very little. The addition of the backing vocals in the chorus to try and make it an anthemic line really doesn’t work. At least, not in the studio setting.
Slipping into the following phase of the album, we have the songs that come out of the speakers more energetically, more fully charged in tempo and in output, that give you a better taste of the old Judas Priest with an updated modern sound. “Rock You All Around the World” which closes out the first side of the album and “Wild Nights, Hot & Crazy Days” which is the second song of the B side, both have similar lyrical output and subject matter. “Rock You All Around the World” is the band’s war cry, the advertisement of their music and their drawing power, and the anthemic cry of the title of the song. Halford has written lyrics like this before, but perhaps not as straight forward as these ones are. Meanwhile “Wild Nights, Hot & Crazy Days” lyrically follows similar themes but tends towards the desire to put work behind and head off to wild times as portrayed in teenage holiday films everywhere. It should be noted that in later years, Halford admitted that his lyric writing on the “Turbo” album was ‘subpar’. These two songs are simplistic in the lyrical content, but musically at least are a bit more entertaining. They attempt to be anthemic in the style of “Living After Midnight”, and for some perhaps they are much like that.
The opening song of the album, the more-or-less title track “Turbo Lover”, was the first single from the album, and had the video of the song played everywhere on its release. It offered up the first taste of the band’s synth use for this album, one that brought about an engaging and separating force upon the song and album. Not only that, it did set the tempo for the new opus. The synth mirroring the motorcycle sound, the fabulous building of the song from its beginnings with Halford’s vocals soft and low, the rhythm of drums and bass, with slight interjection of the synth. Then Rob goes louder and harder, and the guitar riff arrives, and the final burst into the chorus. And then, better yet, the rush and ride into the second phase, crashing out of the chorus with that hard drum beat and guitar, and Halford rises further again. Hey – you know the song, everybody does. It is the standout song from the album. And even on a polarising album it stands tall in the Judas Priest song catalogue. “Locked In” is a great follow up, once again maximising the guitar synths to obliterate thoughts of previously heavy metal Priest albums. But Halford’s vocals rise to a higher tier and drive the song through the barriers presented. The lyrics – yeah, okay, a bit naff really, trying to be the hard rock love song – do really stretch the ability of the fan to stick with them, and sing along. The pre-chorus into the chorus of: “You've got the key, the key to my heart, go ahead and use it, Drag me in—slam the door, Then I'll be yours, for evermore, You've got me locked in, Locked inside your love”. I mean, that’s pretty hard to get on board with when it comes to singing the song. But yeah, I still do it. And musically it is a great tempo and the guitars from Tipton and Downing and terrific.
As for the other end of the album, both tracks are solid enough. "Hot For Love" sounds great, the underlying guitar riff itself drives the song along nicely but just tends to get a bit repetitive in the chorus line to fully enjoy it more than the average. The opening stanza of guitar riff mood is fabulous, and the great dual guitar solo section through the middle is also terrific. Musically? Great. But those lyrics again. Really. It’s like having a bad hair day listening to some of these. Take just the first verse. “Twenty-four hours of the day, You're on my trail, and I can't get away, I can't shake you off, you're a wolf on the prowl, You got my scent and I can hear you howl”. Oh my. That is some D-Grade Motley Crue or Poison level stuff right there. Musically it’s fine, but lyrically it is a tough ride. And the concluding song of the album, “Reckless”, is a bit better – but only because I can’t really tell exactly what it is the lyrics are invoking. “I’m feeling reckless, way out of hand, real survivor, reckless, Coming at gale force ten”. I mean, I could take a guess at what is being suggested here, but I think perhaps it is better if I don’t think about it. Again, musically it is okay, and the guitars and solo pieces showcase the fact it is Judas Priest.
That leaves the opening track of the B side to discuss. The mood setting of “Out in the Cold” is exceptional. It builds in the same way as “Turbo Lover” does, the opening synth bringing in the drums until the 1.30 minute mark where it climbs into its work. The subtle pulling back as Halford’s vocals begin, and then the wonderful dropping of tone as Halford sings ‘Where are you now, the fears are coming back to me once again”, rising into the chorus. This is another of the very heavy guitar synth songs on the album, the ones that offer a major turning point that this album offers. But here on “Out in the Cold” the atmosphere that it creates makes for that creepy moody track that actually creates something truly special. Lyrically it feels very much sounds like it is Rob talking about his relationship at the time through the song, and that slight stretch of emotion adds to the whole theatre of the track.
I do love the “Twin Turbos” idea, the concept of the two halves of the double album, and the ability to explore two styles of the metal genre that were butting against each other back in 1986. I liked the idea so much that eventually I burned myself a second disc (remember the days of doing that?) for my “Turbo” album that includes all of the songs written for that original idea that have since been released on other albums. Would it have worked at the time? It is difficult to judge from this far in the future, because four of those songs - “Ram it Down”, “Hard as Iron”, “Love You to Death” and “Monsters of Rock” - all appeared on the following album “Ram it Down”, and no doubt a couple of the songs on this album would have switched sides.
Apart from seeing “Turbo Lover” and “Locked In” on the music video shows of the day and age, my first experience of many of the songs off this album came via the following live album “Priest... Live” which was released the following year in 1987. On that double live album, I heard “Out in the Cold”, “Private Property”, “Turbo Lover”, “Rock You All Around the World” and “Parental Guidance” before I knew the studio versions. And those songs all sound better on that album in the live environment than they do on the studio album – which, as I do say on every live album I review on this podcast, they SHOULD! Because that is their natural environment. So much so that when I first heard this album it was a slight disappointment, mainly I would suggest because of the slightly dropped tempo compared to the live versions, and the slightly lowered energy levels of the tracks listed.
Looking back at the time I first got a copy of this album, I in no way had any thoughts about the ... lack of quality... of the lyrics. Didn’t really give a rat's arse about them to be honest. I was fully focused on the songs as music and how much I enjoyed that aspect, while still singing the songs at the top of my voice as words and not as lyrics written for a purpose (or lack thereof). The album was of its time both musically and lyrically, and for me suited my love of the heavy metal genre and its assorted offshoots. I just... loved... the album!
The question you may be asking yourself now is has that love changed over the years? Look, I won’t lie to you. I have a bias to Judas Priest and their music, and more than anything else the Judas Priest albums of the 1980’s, because that was where ALL of my teenage years were lived out, and where the music tended to merge with memories of my life such that a memory will trigger a song or album, and the reverse is true as well. This album came out in my final two years of high school, a time where apart from hopefully working scholastically hard enough to get through our final exams, we had a lot of get togethers and overnight parties and all the things 17 and 18 year old kids did together. And to me at least, the one thing that “Turbo” is... is a party album. Great fun tunes with upbeat musical qualities, some great solos to air guitar along to, easy to learn lyrics to sing along to with choruses meant to be sung in a group of like minded kids, all at high velocity volume while drinking beer and laughing and having a great time. That is what “Turbo” is to me.
In listening to the album this week for this episode, it is another one where I needed to get my thoughts in order and hopefully offer the two sides of what makes music so important. Firstly the honest appraisal of what I hear on the album, and be able to express that for what it is. In the case of this album, the gamble the band has taken musically, and also the overall massive fail when it comes to the lyrical content of the majority of the songs, the almost slight immaturity of it all. The walk down the path of the sleaze rock bands and their song lyrics compared to what they had produced in the past. And secondly, how I feel about the album both on its release and now, in how I enjoy the album despite what I may also think about it when breaking it down to its core pieces. And in the case of this album today – I still love it. And yes, I can hear our good friends Jeff and Jay from the amazing and brilliant Judas Priestcast screaming at me in cyberspace as I speak – screaming for vengeance, if you will – but there you have it. I still love listening to this album. It will never stop me remembering those days at the end of high school, those Wild Nights and Hot & Crazy Days, being Reckless, getting Locked In, trespassing on Private Property and rebelling against Parental Guidance, and feeling like I’m Out in the Cold. Fun times. But more importantly, songs that I still love to listen to and sing along to.
Yes. I love “Turbo Lover” and “Locked In” as the opening two tracks. Superb. “Rock You All Around the World” is just a great anthemic quality. “Out in the Cold” is mesmerising, the forerunner to “A Touch of Evil” a few years later. And the whole mood and bassline and guitar riffs of “Hot for Love” ... awful lyrics, but musically just a fabulous song.
“Turbo” is where Judas Priest decided to mix things up a little. Retrospectively it has been criticised and somewhat pummelled in some quarters, and if you shine a light on certain aspects of the album that can be seen to be justified. For me, as has been the case for most of my music loving and listening life, I can accept some form of mediocrity if the other pieces stand up. For me, that’s where I stand with “Turbo”. It might not be groundbreaking in the way some of their earlier albums – and as it turns out, some of their latter albums – happened to be so, but for me, I will always be Hot for Love for this album.
The sister track to “Parental Guidance” is “Private Property”, a song that travels a similar track and trap musically, while being up front lyrically about the antagonist of the song keeping their distance in trying to move in forcefully on the protagonist. It’s a simple base rhythm line, settled in that mid-tempo that doesn’t engender any great passion from the chest. With the excess speed ripped out of the songs, it needs something to really bring it to your notice and draw a response from the listener. Once again, the solo from Tipton adds a small slice of something, but it is very little. The addition of the backing vocals in the chorus to try and make it an anthemic line really doesn’t work. At least, not in the studio setting.
Slipping into the following phase of the album, we have the songs that come out of the speakers more energetically, more fully charged in tempo and in output, that give you a better taste of the old Judas Priest with an updated modern sound. “Rock You All Around the World” which closes out the first side of the album and “Wild Nights, Hot & Crazy Days” which is the second song of the B side, both have similar lyrical output and subject matter. “Rock You All Around the World” is the band’s war cry, the advertisement of their music and their drawing power, and the anthemic cry of the title of the song. Halford has written lyrics like this before, but perhaps not as straight forward as these ones are. Meanwhile “Wild Nights, Hot & Crazy Days” lyrically follows similar themes but tends towards the desire to put work behind and head off to wild times as portrayed in teenage holiday films everywhere. It should be noted that in later years, Halford admitted that his lyric writing on the “Turbo” album was ‘subpar’. These two songs are simplistic in the lyrical content, but musically at least are a bit more entertaining. They attempt to be anthemic in the style of “Living After Midnight”, and for some perhaps they are much like that.
The opening song of the album, the more-or-less title track “Turbo Lover”, was the first single from the album, and had the video of the song played everywhere on its release. It offered up the first taste of the band’s synth use for this album, one that brought about an engaging and separating force upon the song and album. Not only that, it did set the tempo for the new opus. The synth mirroring the motorcycle sound, the fabulous building of the song from its beginnings with Halford’s vocals soft and low, the rhythm of drums and bass, with slight interjection of the synth. Then Rob goes louder and harder, and the guitar riff arrives, and the final burst into the chorus. And then, better yet, the rush and ride into the second phase, crashing out of the chorus with that hard drum beat and guitar, and Halford rises further again. Hey – you know the song, everybody does. It is the standout song from the album. And even on a polarising album it stands tall in the Judas Priest song catalogue. “Locked In” is a great follow up, once again maximising the guitar synths to obliterate thoughts of previously heavy metal Priest albums. But Halford’s vocals rise to a higher tier and drive the song through the barriers presented. The lyrics – yeah, okay, a bit naff really, trying to be the hard rock love song – do really stretch the ability of the fan to stick with them, and sing along. The pre-chorus into the chorus of: “You've got the key, the key to my heart, go ahead and use it, Drag me in—slam the door, Then I'll be yours, for evermore, You've got me locked in, Locked inside your love”. I mean, that’s pretty hard to get on board with when it comes to singing the song. But yeah, I still do it. And musically it is a great tempo and the guitars from Tipton and Downing and terrific.
As for the other end of the album, both tracks are solid enough. "Hot For Love" sounds great, the underlying guitar riff itself drives the song along nicely but just tends to get a bit repetitive in the chorus line to fully enjoy it more than the average. The opening stanza of guitar riff mood is fabulous, and the great dual guitar solo section through the middle is also terrific. Musically? Great. But those lyrics again. Really. It’s like having a bad hair day listening to some of these. Take just the first verse. “Twenty-four hours of the day, You're on my trail, and I can't get away, I can't shake you off, you're a wolf on the prowl, You got my scent and I can hear you howl”. Oh my. That is some D-Grade Motley Crue or Poison level stuff right there. Musically it’s fine, but lyrically it is a tough ride. And the concluding song of the album, “Reckless”, is a bit better – but only because I can’t really tell exactly what it is the lyrics are invoking. “I’m feeling reckless, way out of hand, real survivor, reckless, Coming at gale force ten”. I mean, I could take a guess at what is being suggested here, but I think perhaps it is better if I don’t think about it. Again, musically it is okay, and the guitars and solo pieces showcase the fact it is Judas Priest.
That leaves the opening track of the B side to discuss. The mood setting of “Out in the Cold” is exceptional. It builds in the same way as “Turbo Lover” does, the opening synth bringing in the drums until the 1.30 minute mark where it climbs into its work. The subtle pulling back as Halford’s vocals begin, and then the wonderful dropping of tone as Halford sings ‘Where are you now, the fears are coming back to me once again”, rising into the chorus. This is another of the very heavy guitar synth songs on the album, the ones that offer a major turning point that this album offers. But here on “Out in the Cold” the atmosphere that it creates makes for that creepy moody track that actually creates something truly special. Lyrically it feels very much sounds like it is Rob talking about his relationship at the time through the song, and that slight stretch of emotion adds to the whole theatre of the track.
I do love the “Twin Turbos” idea, the concept of the two halves of the double album, and the ability to explore two styles of the metal genre that were butting against each other back in 1986. I liked the idea so much that eventually I burned myself a second disc (remember the days of doing that?) for my “Turbo” album that includes all of the songs written for that original idea that have since been released on other albums. Would it have worked at the time? It is difficult to judge from this far in the future, because four of those songs - “Ram it Down”, “Hard as Iron”, “Love You to Death” and “Monsters of Rock” - all appeared on the following album “Ram it Down”, and no doubt a couple of the songs on this album would have switched sides.
Apart from seeing “Turbo Lover” and “Locked In” on the music video shows of the day and age, my first experience of many of the songs off this album came via the following live album “Priest... Live” which was released the following year in 1987. On that double live album, I heard “Out in the Cold”, “Private Property”, “Turbo Lover”, “Rock You All Around the World” and “Parental Guidance” before I knew the studio versions. And those songs all sound better on that album in the live environment than they do on the studio album – which, as I do say on every live album I review on this podcast, they SHOULD! Because that is their natural environment. So much so that when I first heard this album it was a slight disappointment, mainly I would suggest because of the slightly dropped tempo compared to the live versions, and the slightly lowered energy levels of the tracks listed.
Looking back at the time I first got a copy of this album, I in no way had any thoughts about the ... lack of quality... of the lyrics. Didn’t really give a rat's arse about them to be honest. I was fully focused on the songs as music and how much I enjoyed that aspect, while still singing the songs at the top of my voice as words and not as lyrics written for a purpose (or lack thereof). The album was of its time both musically and lyrically, and for me suited my love of the heavy metal genre and its assorted offshoots. I just... loved... the album!
The question you may be asking yourself now is has that love changed over the years? Look, I won’t lie to you. I have a bias to Judas Priest and their music, and more than anything else the Judas Priest albums of the 1980’s, because that was where ALL of my teenage years were lived out, and where the music tended to merge with memories of my life such that a memory will trigger a song or album, and the reverse is true as well. This album came out in my final two years of high school, a time where apart from hopefully working scholastically hard enough to get through our final exams, we had a lot of get togethers and overnight parties and all the things 17 and 18 year old kids did together. And to me at least, the one thing that “Turbo” is... is a party album. Great fun tunes with upbeat musical qualities, some great solos to air guitar along to, easy to learn lyrics to sing along to with choruses meant to be sung in a group of like minded kids, all at high velocity volume while drinking beer and laughing and having a great time. That is what “Turbo” is to me.
In listening to the album this week for this episode, it is another one where I needed to get my thoughts in order and hopefully offer the two sides of what makes music so important. Firstly the honest appraisal of what I hear on the album, and be able to express that for what it is. In the case of this album, the gamble the band has taken musically, and also the overall massive fail when it comes to the lyrical content of the majority of the songs, the almost slight immaturity of it all. The walk down the path of the sleaze rock bands and their song lyrics compared to what they had produced in the past. And secondly, how I feel about the album both on its release and now, in how I enjoy the album despite what I may also think about it when breaking it down to its core pieces. And in the case of this album today – I still love it. And yes, I can hear our good friends Jeff and Jay from the amazing and brilliant Judas Priestcast screaming at me in cyberspace as I speak – screaming for vengeance, if you will – but there you have it. I still love listening to this album. It will never stop me remembering those days at the end of high school, those Wild Nights and Hot & Crazy Days, being Reckless, getting Locked In, trespassing on Private Property and rebelling against Parental Guidance, and feeling like I’m Out in the Cold. Fun times. But more importantly, songs that I still love to listen to and sing along to.
Yes. I love “Turbo Lover” and “Locked In” as the opening two tracks. Superb. “Rock You All Around the World” is just a great anthemic quality. “Out in the Cold” is mesmerising, the forerunner to “A Touch of Evil” a few years later. And the whole mood and bassline and guitar riffs of “Hot for Love” ... awful lyrics, but musically just a fabulous song.
“Turbo” is where Judas Priest decided to mix things up a little. Retrospectively it has been criticised and somewhat pummelled in some quarters, and if you shine a light on certain aspects of the album that can be seen to be justified. For me, as has been the case for most of my music loving and listening life, I can accept some form of mediocrity if the other pieces stand up. For me, that’s where I stand with “Turbo”. It might not be groundbreaking in the way some of their earlier albums – and as it turns out, some of their latter albums – happened to be so, but for me, I will always be Hot for Love for this album.
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