Album · Judas Priest
Stained Class by Judas Priest
Stained Class is an album by Judas Priest, released in 1978. 3 songs from it have charted on rock radio countdowns, with 3 countdown appearances in total. The biggest is “Beyond the Realms of Death”, on 1 list with a best position of #361.
Stained Class, Judas Priest's fourth studio album, hit the racks on Columbia on 10 February 1978, and this is where the Birmingham band stripped away the progressive frills, the bluesy detours and the soft ballads and found the hard, gleaming attack that would define them. Rob Halford's voice goes from a sneer to an air-raid siren, K. K. Downing and Glenn Tipton trade guitar parts sharp enough to shave with, Ian Hill holds the bottom end, and Les Binks makes the first of his three Priest albums behind the kit. It's also the first record to carry the band's now-famous logo.
"Exciter" charges like a runaway locomotive, an early whiff of the speed and thrash metal to come, while "Beyond the Realms of Death" became a fan favorite and a live staple. There's even a cover of Spooky Tooth's "Better by You, Better Than Me". It made number 27 in the UK, gave them their first entry on the Billboard 200 and eventually went gold in America.
Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.
Songs from Stained Class on radio countdowns
| # | Song | Strength | Lists | Best | #1s | Years |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Beyond the Realms of Death | 1 | #361 | – | 1990 | |
| 2 | Exciter | 1 | #490 | – | 1990 | |
| 3 | Better By You, Better Than Me | 1 | #998 | – | 1990 |
Only songs that appear on at least one countdown are listed. Release data from MusicBrainz.