“Breaking the Law” by Judas Priest

"Breaking the Law" is the sound of Judas Priest cutting the fat. It came off British Steel in 1980, the album where the English metal band stripped their attack down to something simpler and less fussed-over, and this is the proof: a sour, minor-key riff from K. K. Downing and Glenn Tipton that you know inside two bars, a chorus built to be chanted, and Rob Halford barking over the top like a man with nothing left to lose.

Tom Allom produced it and Louis Austin engineered, with Ian Hill on bass and Dave Holland on drums holding the whole thing to a marching stomp. Downing, Tipton and Halford wrote it together, and they dressed it up with a little street theatre: smashing glass, and a police siren wailing through the bridge before the riff comes crashing back.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.