Ram It Down | ||||
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Studio album by | ||||
Released | 13 May 1988 [1] | |||
Recorded | December 1987 – March 1988 | |||
Studio |
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Genre | Heavy metal [2] | |||
Length | 49:33 | |||
Label | Columbia | |||
Producer | ||||
Judas Priest chronology | ||||
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Singles from Ram It Down | ||||
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Review scores | |
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Source | Rating |
AllMusic | [5] |
PopMatters | (poor) [6] |
Martin Popoff | [7] |
Sputnikmusic |
Ram It Down is the eleventh studio album by English heavy metal band Judas Priest, released on 13 May 1988 by Columbia Records. It was the band's last album to feature longtime drummer Dave Holland, and was promoted in Europe and North America with the Mercenaries of Metal Tour.
On 18 July 1988, the album earned gold certification for shipments of over 500,000 copies. [1] In 2001, it was remastered and reissued with two bonus tracks.
In 1986, Judas Priest intended to release a double album entitled Twin Turbos, of which half would consist of melodic, more commercial hard rock, and the other half would be heavier and less synth-driven. Columbia Records objected to the double album concept, and the project was ultimately split into two separate releases, 1986's Turbo , and 1988's Ram It Down. At least four songs, "Ram it Down", "Hard as Iron", "Love You to Death" and "Monsters of Rock", were written for the Twin Turbos project.
Ram It Down would be the final Judas Priest album for 30 years recorded with producer Tom Allom. Allom would later return as co-producer to the 2009 live release A Touch of Evil: Live . He would not produce another Judas Priest studio album until 2018's Firepower .
The band recorded a rendition of Chuck Berry's "Johnny B. Goode", intended for inclusion on the soundtrack for the 1988 Anthony Michael Hall comedy film Johnny Be Good ; the song found its way onto Ram It Down and was the album's first single. Although the song is credited as written by Berry and arranged by the band, only the lyrics remain from Berry's version, the music being entirely new. It was played during the first few concerts of the band's 1988 tour, along with the title track and three other songs from the album, namely "Heavy Metal", "Come And Get It" and "I'm a Rocker". [8] The only Ram It Down songs to have ever been played on later tours are "I'm a Rocker", during the 2005 Retribution Tour; and "Blood Red Skies" during the 2011-2012 Epitaph World Tour [9] and the 2021-2022 50 Heavy Metal Years Tour.
Originally, the song "Thunder Road" was to be put on the album; however, after the album producers were asked to do the cover of "Johnny B. Goode", "Thunder Road" was replaced. Some of the parts from the song made it into the cover of "Johnny B. Goode". "Thunder Road" was released as a bonus track on the 2001 remaster of Point of Entry .
Although Judas Priest's fanbase was big enough to push the album to gold status in North America, [10] critical reaction was fairly negative, arguing that the band failed to produce any new creative ideas, and the songwriting was inferior to their past efforts.
Halford's take on the rest of the album is that it was "a very heavy record", with Glenn Tipton and K. K. Downing "really rip[ping] it up on a lot of those riffs". Halford said the band recorded a cover of the Rolling Stones' "Play with Fire"; he said it was "a shame" that the song did not make the album. [11]
All tracks are written by Glenn Tipton, Rob Halford and K. K. Downing, except where noted
No. | Title | Length |
---|---|---|
1. | "Ram It Down" | 4:48 |
2. | "Heavy Metal" | 5:58 |
3. | "Love Zone" | 3:58 |
4. | "Come and Get It" | 4:07 |
5. | "Hard as Iron" | 4:09 |
No. | Title | Length |
---|---|---|
6. | "Blood Red Skies" | 7:50 |
7. | "I'm a Rocker" | 3:58 |
8. | "Johnny B. Goode" (Chuck Berry) | 4:39 |
9. | "Love You to Death" | 4:36 |
10. | "Monsters of Rock" | 5:30 |
Total length: | 49:33 |
No. | Title | Length |
---|---|---|
11. | "Night Comes Down" (Live at Long Beach Arena, Long Beach, California, 5 May 1984) | 4:33 |
12. | "Bloodstone" (Live at Mid-South Coliseum, Memphis, Tennessee, 12 December 1982) | 4:05 |
Total length: | 58:11 |
No. | Title | Length |
---|---|---|
1. | "Thunder Road" (Bonus track on Point of Entry ) | 5:12 |
2. | "Fire Burns Below" (Bonus track on Stained Class ) | 6:58 |
3. | "My Design" (Remains unreleased) | |
Total length: | 70:21 |
Chart (1988) | Peak position |
---|---|
Australian Albums (ARIA) [13] | 43 |
Austrian Albums (Ö3 Austria) [14] | 14 |
Canada Top Albums/CDs ( RPM ) [15] | 30 |
Dutch Albums (Album Top 100) [16] | 25 |
Finnish Albums (The Official Finnish Charts) [17] | 3 |
German Albums (Offizielle Top 100) [18] | 9 |
Japanese Albums (Oricon) [19] | 34 |
Norwegian Albums (VG-lista) [20] | 5 |
Swedish Albums (Sverigetopplistan) [21] | 5 |
Swiss Albums (Schweizer Hitparade) [22] | 8 |
UK Albums (OCC) [23] | 24 |
US Billboard 200 [24] | 31 |
Region | Certification | Certified units/sales |
---|---|---|
Canada (Music Canada) [25] | Gold | 50,000^ |
United States (RIAA) [26] | Gold | 500,000^ |
^ Shipments figures based on certification alone. |
Judas Priest are an English heavy metal band formed in Birmingham in 1969. They have sold over 50 million albums and are frequently ranked as one of the greatest metal bands of all time. Despite an innovative and pioneering body of work in the latter half of the 1970s, the band struggled with indifferent record production and a lack of major commercial success until 1980, when the album British Steel brought them notable mainstream attention.
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