Best Of: Living After Midnight

Best Of: Living After Midnight

Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com
An excellent collection of the best moments from one of the most influential heavy metal bands, this is a welcome alternative to the more complete Metal Works, for the fan who doesn't require quite so exhaustive a collection. This one has everything you'd expect, including the classics "Living After Midnight," "Breaking the Law," "You've Got Another Thing Comin'," "Ram It Down," and more. There are also some choice live tracks, including "Victims of Changes" and "Heading Out to the Highway." Not necessarily the best choice for the hardcore fan--who probably already has Metal Works and most (if not all) of the original albums anyway--but a fine greatest-hits collection. --Genevieve Williams

Tracks:

The Green Manalishi
Living After Midnight
Breaking The Law ( Live)
Hot Rockin'
Heading Out To The Highway ( Live)
The Hellion
Electric Eye
You've Got Another Thing Comin'
Turbo Lover
Freewheel Burning
Some Heads Are Gonna Roll
Metal Meltdown
Ram It Down
Diamonds And Rust ( Live)
Victim Of Changes ( Live)
Tyrant ( Live)

Amazon.com

An excellent collection of the best moments from one of the most influential heavy metal bands, this is a welcome alternative to the more complete Metal Works, for the fan who doesn't require quite so exhaustive a collection. This one has everything you'd expect, including the classics "Living After Midnight," "Breaking the Law," "You've Got Another Thing Comin'," "Ram It Down," and more. There are also some choice live tracks, including "Victims of Changes" and "Heading Out to the Highway." Not necessarily the best choice for the hardcore fan--who probably already has Metal Works and most (if not all) of the original albums anyway--but a fine greatest-hits collection. --Genevieve Williams

Customer Reviews:

Weird compilation from metal's best band.......2007-07-31

Okay, first thing is first I HATE "best of" albums. I think honestly if you're going to do a best of to do a live album instead. You get more passion in it and if you want studio tracks, just get the albums by themselves. However, I understand people wanting best of albums because they are only casual fans or just wanting to get into the band.

Now, with this said, I will repeat my headline and say that this is a weird compilation. While they are right on with some of their best songs such as "breaking the law", "Green Manalishi" and "Hellion/Electric Eye" they are WAY off in other track selections. No "Exciter", "Sinner", "Screaming for Vengeance" or "Riding on the Wind"? Huh? What were these people on? What puzzles me even more is why in the world would you put "Metal Meltdown" on here and not put on "Painkiller" or "Touch of Evil" for that matter. Those two tracks were the best from the Painkiller album. And, while I actually do like "Turbo Lover" it doesn't belong because it is not as good as countless other tracks. It is the best off of the Turbo album but let's be honest here, that album only had "Turbo Lover" and "Out in the Cold" while the rest of the album was just plain bad.

If you seriously want a taste of Judas Priest I've got three better suggestions for you. 1. Metalworks. Metalworks is the best Priest compilation; it honestly has ALL of their best for the most part and isn't short changing you and in fact puts some underrated stuff on there as well. So my suggestion is to get that. 2. Unleashed in the East. Like I said, I don't like "best of" albums and instead think if you want something like that, to buy a live album instead. If you want the best live performance out of the Priest I would suggest this album. Yes, it is early in their career but you get the idea of who they are at this point. 3. Metalogy. For this you either have to have a steady income or you are fairly comfortable that you like Priest but you don't want to shell out all the cash for the albums. This has 4 lengthy discs of music by Priest plus a DVD and this you for sure get everything you want.

However, at the end of the day my true recommendation is to acquire all of Priest's albums because they are the best metal band out there. Period. But, I understand financially this may be difficult since they do have a lot of albums. So, I honestly say stick with Metal Works to start. For albums to start, I would do Screaming for Vengeance, Sad Wings of Destiny, British Steel and Painkiller to get a good diversity of their sound. I would definitely recommend though to get Turbo and Ram it Down last because they are their only weak albums but they do have some classic stuff on each.

Bottom line though, get some Priest. If you love metal or good music in general, you can't go wrong. They are the best metal has to offer with only Sabbath and maybe Maiden coming close.

Too Short!!!.......2006-09-08

Forget this skimpy set and buy "Sad Wings Of Destiny", "Screaming For Vengeance", and "Painkiller", their three best albums!!

Judas Priest - The Best of Judas Priest: Living After Midnight.......2006-05-27

When I bought this album I was a little disappointed that there are no hits on this album past 1988 but the hits that are on this album are great. It has the original studio recordings and some live tracks.

O.k. to be frank, I'm not a fan of live tracks on an album. To me, live performances are more visual and it's not the same for me to hear it but the live versions of "Breaking the Law" and Heading out to the Highway" make up for it all because both of these tracks are superb. The audio is great on all of the live tracks (no shorting out, no poorly faded vocals and an equal balance of instrumentation and vocals together).

And of course great hits like "Living After Midnight", "You've Got Another Thing Coming" and "Green Manilishi" make up for a decent starting point for Judas Priest. I will say that the better option (if you're looking for a compilation) is Metal Works because that goes from like 1977 to 1993. Or you could just do the right thing and get each and every Preist album. It may be spendy but the only 2 truly influential British bands were Iron Maiden and Judas Priest so it's worth it. And of course, all of their classic albums are just that classic. Not many bands' older music is relevent over time but I'd be lying if I said that Judas Priest's music didn't still stand the test of time after all these years. 3 stars for this CD, sorry but when you cut out so much not much more I can do for you.

BARGAIN BIN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!.......2005-12-08

A good friend had this one back in high school. It was a favorite to bring out when we partied out in the woods. When you are good and sloshed you will enjoy this mix of music. I personally was usually trying to hard to get into this chicks pants (no luck) to notice that the disc is LACKING very much. This is one of those bargain bin collections that you can find at the counter at CVS for $5.99. If you are looking for just some major hits this may be for you, but be aware that BREAKING THE LAW is a live version (not so great either) and a good chunk of other songs are also sub par live versions, (I have a REAL problem listening to live VICTIM OF CHANGES, because I like the studio v. so much.) Also, a lot of these songs are poppish 80's tracks. Green Mananlishi is cool, but TURBO LOVER is only cool when you are hammered, and singing it to some chick who is PAINFULLY uninterested in you. I would skip this bit and find a better hits package (2 disc METAL WORKS is good), I'm sure there are better bargain bin packs... or why don't you just buy either BRITISH STEEL (1980), SAD WINGS OF DESTINY (1977) or STAINED CLASS (1978) these are all very complete albums stocked with killer tunes.

Missing WAY too much.......2005-12-04

I am giving this compilation two stars because it was the album that got me into Priest. There are so many great songs missing from here, it really should have been a two disc set. First off, including a live version of Victim of Changes was a stupid idea. I like the studio version much better. Second, I don't know how the could make a compilation without "Beyond the Realms of Death". That is one of their best songs. Here are some great songs not included on the compilation -

1. Beyond the Realms of Death
2. Exciter
3. Stained Class
4. The Ripper
5. Dreamer Deceiver
6. Island of Domination
7. Sinner
8. Hell Bent for Leather
9. United
10. Metal Gods
11. Rapid Fire
12. Screaming for Vengeance
13. Painkiller
14. A Touch of Evil
15. Night Crawler
16. Between the Hammer and the Anvil
17. Hell Patrol
18. All Guns Blazing
19. One Shot at Glory
20. Rocka Rolla

"Metal Meltdown" is a good song, but I don't see why they picked it instead of "Painkiller" or "A Touch of Evil".