Judas Priest

There are few heavy metal bands that have managed to scale the heights that Judas Priest have during their nearly 50-year career. Their presence and influence remains at an all­-time high as evidenced by 2018's 'Firepower' being the highest ­charting album of their career, a 2010 Grammy Award win for 'Best Metal Performance', plus being a 2006 VH1 Rock Honors recipient and a 2017 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame nomination.

Judas Priest originally formed in 1969 in Birmingham, England (an area that many feel birthed heavy metal). Rob Halford, Glenn Tipton, K.K. Downing and Ian Hill would be the nucleus of musicians (along with several different drummers over the years) that would go on to change the face of heavy metal. After a 'feeling out' period of a couple of albums, 1974's 'Rocka Rolla' and 1976's 'Sad Wings of Destiny' this line­-up truly hit their stride. The result was a quartet of albums that separated Priest from the rest of the hard rock pack ­- 1977's 'Sin After Sin', 1978's 'Stained Class' and 'Hell Bent for Leather', and 1979's 'Unleashed in the East', which spawned such metal anthems as 'Sinner', 'Diamonds and Rust', 'Hell Bent for Leather', and 'The Green Manalishi (With the Two-Pronged Crown)'. Also, Priest were one of the first metal bands to exclusively wear leather and studs – a look that began during this era and would eventually be embraced by metal heads throughout the world.