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Forty years after its release, Judas Priest's 'Screaming For Vengeance' remains one of the definitive heavy metal albums of the '80s. Singer Rob Halford, bassist Ian Hill, guitarist Glenn Tipton and producer Tom Allom discuss their milestone album.

In 1982, heavy metal was losing steam, leaving the genre in a state of limbo: Ronnie James Dio would depart Black Sabbath by year’s end, although former frontman Ozzy Osbourne ’s career was flourishing. The diverse sounds and styles of the New Wave of British Heavy Metal — a musical movement that saw acts such as Motorhead, Diamond Head and Saxon achieve cult status, while Iron Maiden and Def Leppard rocked on the cusp of greater popularity — made noise in the U.K. and Europe, but it was underground in the U.S.

Yet a massive transformation took place that July, following the arrival of Judas Priest ’s eighth studio album, Screaming For Vengeance . Unleashed into the world with the deadly Hellion tearing across its cover, Screaming was chock full of intense anthems fueled by Rob Halford’s soaring screams, the twin guitar attack of Glenn Tipton and K.K. Downing, and the pummeling rhythm section of bassist Ian Hill and drummer Dave Holland. In In his third effort with the band, producer Tom Allom captured the heaviness of Priest's live act, imbuing the album with a futurism that still sounds fresh today.

Screaming produced the song that changed the band’s destiny forever: "You’ve Got Another Thing Comin’" was a thundering anthem of empowerment, its catchy chorus and blistering guitar solo caught fire on AM radio and on MTV. The single reached No. 67 on the Hot 100 singles chart and the album peaked at No.17 on Billboard’s Top 200 Albums, eventually going double platinum.

Eight years into their recording career, the band’s macho image — now defined by the leather and studs look they first cultivated on 1978’s Hell Bent For Leather — grew stronger. The video for "Another Thing" featured the band performing under blue lasers within an industrial backdrop. When Halford pointed towards a nearby inspector measuring their decibel levels, his head blew off. It was the right type of rebellious imagery to capture the attention of heavy rock fans within the burgeoning MTV generation.

"[Some people] didn’t know they were metalheads until they heard Priest," Halford tells GRAMMY.com.

The floodgates had opened in the American metal landscape by 1983. MTV became more open to heavy rock — thanks in great part to Priest, whose videos and tour footage dominated MTV from mid-1982 into early 1983 — while specialty metal radio shows proliferated at stations across the country.

Judas Priest were one of the top draws for the heavy metal day at the U.S. Festival in May 1983 — an event organized by Apple's Steve Wozniak that reportedly attracted 375,000 people for that one day alone, a record at the time and the highest for the four-day event. Classic Rock magazine later declared the concert to be "the historic day heavy metal killed new wave."

The band also sowed seeds for the next generation of rockers, taking future hard rock and metal stars Iron Maiden and Krokus on the road during their 6-month U.S. tour. Subsequently, Iron Maiden and Def Leppard broke out in 1983, while Quiet Riot’s third album Metal Health became the first metal album to hit No.1 on the Billboard Top 200 albums chart.

By 1984, the hard rock and heavy metal revolution was in full swing as bands like Motley Crue , Ratt, Scorpions and Accept made a commercial impact. By 1985, thrash began storming the mainstream via Metallica and Anthrax.

While a variety of musical forces helped launch the metal paradigm that dominated a lot of ‘80s music, Priest spearheaded this shift with Screaming .

GRAMMY.com spoke with singer Rob Halford, bassist Ian Hill, producer Tom Allom, and guitarist Glenn Tipton about their milestone album. The band are still out on their 50th anniversary tour which returns to the U.S. in October, and a Screaming For Vengeance graphic novel will be coming out later this year through Z2 Comics.

I was listening to the album again fully, and the lyrics are very relevant today. I listen to "Electric Eye" and "Screaming For Vengeance" and that dark vision resonates with modern events.

GLENN TIPTON: Yes, that's true. It wasn't done intentionally. A lot of what we play is very current.

ROB HALFORD: I remember when I was writing the lyrics for "Electric Eye." And, of course, this was before the internet. I was reading about spy satellites and the way that our privacy was going to be more and more difficult to hold on to. That was enough for me to get my brain cells going for a lyric that is so appropriate 40 years later, more so than ever.

And equally with all of the suppression and repression that's going on in the world today — whether it's freedom of speech or people invading other people's countries — there's the title track, "Screaming For Vengeance." I feel like I'm not making statements, but obviously I am. It seems like a good conduit for the music. The feeling about writing lyrics that have more to them than just tits and ass has always been a thrill for me. I've always enjoyed marrying up the words to these brilliant instrumentational sounds.  I just listen to the start of "Riding On The Wind," for example, and the way that begins with very dramatic percussive work. Equally, the time signatures in the title track are really unusual. So I'm stimulated lyrically by the music, or the way the music is pushing me.

To me, "Bloodstone" always sounded like it was about nuclear war even though it didn't say it overtly.

ROB HALFORD: I suppose there is that possibility, and again, unless it's written in stone a lot of our lyrics can be interpreted in the way that you want to interpret them. But there's no doubt that "The Hellion/Electric Eye" and "Screaming For Vengeance" are so potent in their messages.

"Screaming" still has my favorite lyric of yours: "Everyone who makes it to the great escape, leaves a thousand more who suffer in their wake."

ROB HALFORD: [ Chuckles ] Where do these things come from? You're a writer. It’s just stream of conscious thought, you know?  I rarely go back and look at stuff. Because I do it and then I let it go, and then I'm excited about the next opportunity. But I'm proud of the lyrics on that album.

Combined with all the booze and drugs and partying, it's an absolute miracle that I was able to pick up the pencil to start, in a haze of being partying all night. That's my job as a lyricist — to engage you and take us on these journeys together.

This album was really cinematic, and Tom, you later took that approach on Defenders Of The Faith, Turbo and Ram It Down . You married the sound design to the song, so when you think of the song you think of certain sound effects. Were you conscious of what you were doing?

TOM ALLOM: That was very deliberate actually. I've always liked sound effects, and I was drawn to them from the moment I started producing as opposed to just engineering. And the good thing about working with Priest is that there were no limits. There were no constraints. If you had an idea to do something that made it more interesting or heavier or whatever, then do it. There's no such thing as too big, there's no such thing as too loud. They’ve always been fun to work with.

IAN HILL: Tom was one of the first to start using, shall I say, unique sounds. Up until then, you’d get the BBC recording of sound effects. A police car or railway engine. Tom said, "This is no good." So we started to invent our own, especially on British Steel , [using] trays of cutlery, golf clubs and milk bottles. And that continues today.

Rob's vocals change during "Electric Eye" — he’s portraying a sentient spy satellite or camera. It starts off with this cold human voice in the verse, and by the time we get to the chorus he has this maniacal electronic quality.

TOM ALLOM: That was very deliberate. I remember there were three different sections to each verse and chorus. I wanted to treat each one slightly differently. Because it is about an electric eye, I used a harmonized version of a voice in with it…but heavily harmonized. Sort of pitched a third down, mixed in a bit. 

I heard that "You’ve Got Another Thing Comin’" was assembled rather quickly and was possibly the last song recorded?

TOM ALLOM: They had this idea with the riff and everything, which I think Glenn mostly came up with. "Let's try and run it through" and I was in the process [of mixing]. It wasn't the last song [to be done] because I was checking out the drum sound. I had the drums all miked up ready to go, and they wanted to run through the track. So they set the guitars and the bass up in front of the drums and they ran it through without headphones. The guitars were turned down with the overdrive turned on quite high for the crunch.

I recorded this run through, and I said, "Well, you're not gonna get a better take on that." And they wanted to redo all the guitars and do the usual stuff and have the big ambient side on the guitars. I think I let Glenn overdub one other rhythm guitar a little. I remember it as clear as daylight. They might remember it differently. Then Rob went through two or three lyric changes and melody changes. I have to say, I’m not always right, but I bloody well was on that occasion.

ROB HALFORD: It was a cool track, but we had no idea that it was going to blow the doors off of rock 'n' roll radio in America.

Priest previously had dueling guitars and big guitar harmonies in the ‘70s, but this was the first album that they noted who did what solo in the liner notes. And Glenn and K.K.’s signature interplay really gelled here.

TOM ALLOM: I felt like it was great rivalry between them to outdo each other. They both were trying to play things that they couldn't play, and they went on working on them until they could. It was that rivalry that made the guitars so bloody brilliant. I can particularly remember Glenn starting to come up with a solo and he was struggling with it. He would work on it for days, if necessary, until he could play it.

Obviously, we were able to punch in mistakes and all that, but these were the analog years. By the time they perfected it, they would go out and play that track live, no trouble at all. That was very good to see.

There's just something about that interplay that was unique. Sometimes their styles would meld together and mirror each other a bit.

TOM ALLOM: When they were both playing rhythm guitar on a track and they were essentially playing the same thing, because their styles were different it made the sound really big. The intonation was different from each of them, and that difference made it bigger than if one of them was playing the part and then double tracking it. They each created a different vibe off their instrument.

Ian, "Pain and Pleasure" feels more like your '70s bass work with less of the '80s chug that came later. The bass is sparing in parts and even the simpler stuff during the solo break stands out.

IAN HILL: Yeah, there are chords in there as well which doesn’t happen very often, even today. And that's fine. Listen to Weather Report and [bassist] Jaco Pastorius; he wouldn't play anything that didn't need it. But when he came in and did that part, it made all that much more of an impression, much more of an impact. And "Pain and Pleasure" is one of those songs.

As far as drummers, the late Dave Holland had a more basic approach than Les Binks or Scott Travis who can handle the double kicks. But on this album, a lot of his drum fills are very specific and hard hitting. He made it count. It felt like his playing was heavier on this record too.

IAN HILL: I was just gonna say that what Dave brought to the band was power. Les still is a great drummer, but you can tell by the way he plays he doesn’t hit them [as hard]. Dave came along and started beating the hell out of the skins, and that's what he brought to the band was that power. Obviously, the bass fitted together with that. He wasn't capable, God bless him, of doing the sort of stuff that Les and Scott are capable of. He just wasn't that kind of player. But in all other respects, he was a very good drummer.

GLENN TIPTON: Dave was a good drummer. He could get a good sound. With the exception of the very fast numbers, he was good at getting the appropriate sounds where needed. He never did too much and never too little.

Screaming was the second album that the group recorded in Ibiza, along with the previous Point Of Entry and subsequent Defenders Of The Faith . You guys were this dark, gritty band from Birmingham and here you were having fun in the sun. Why did that work for you?

IAN HILL: Multiple distractions [ laughs ]. It fitted perfectly with Tom Allom's style, the laid back, take your time over it, patience with it — all of that. If you were in the studio, and you'd been at something all day, there's no point in continuing to try and do it. Go off and play a round of golf, go swim in the pools, and then come back to it. You'll come back with a different attitude. It was perfect for Tom and for ourselves really. You've got to be in the right frame of mind. Ibiza is one of those places….Around the edges, it's very commercialized, but you get to the interior of the island, it's like stepping back 200 years, you know? He just gave us that little bit of leeway. A little bit of leisure, if you like. It put us in a great frame of mind.

GLENN TIPTON: It worked because we never record in the metropolis [for any album]. We can write anywhere. It felt relaxed there. We were left alone so we just got on with the album, and that brought us back again.

ROB HALFORD: There were a number of things that took us there. But it's magical. We still have this beautiful relationship with everything Spanish. It's very much like a Shangri-La, you know? For artistic purposes, it can be just a fantastic place to generate ideas, whether you're a musician or a painter, or whatever it might be. For creative people, there's just something magical about the island.

TOM ALLOM: We behaved ourselves in the studio. Pretty much. [ Laughs ] Ibiza has always been a party island. Orlando wasn't a party place.

You recorded in Ibiza and then mixed in Florida, correct?

TOM ALLOM: We did that album in two halves. We did the first half in Ibiza. Then there was a management split and a lot of angst going on on the management front. We actually didn't reconnect for about three months and we finished off tracking the album at Bee Jay Studios in Orlando. And then we mixed it all in Bayshore Studio in Miami, which was where I was living by that time. And I liked the studio. We mixed it down there. So we recorded it in two different places, in two different eras almost. When I listen to it, I still can't quite remember which tracks were recorded in Ibiza and which were recorded in Florida.

We left Ibiza not quite knowing when we were going to reconvene. It was a bit of a strange time. I just moved to Florida shortly before I went back to London. My mother died. Their managers split up. Then we reconvened in Florida. It's actually extraordinary that it turned out as well as it did really because it was a bit fragmented.

Tom came from a totally different social background than you guys did. What is it about him that you worked with him for a decade? He wasn't a working class guy from the Midlands, he was a little more "posh."

ROB HALFORD: He’s just a beautiful guy. He's a wizard in the control room. He knows what he's talking about. He gave us and still gives us confidence when we work together. We will listen to what he has to say, and he was always full of great ideas. He was an accomplished musician himself as far as being able to play the piano and pick up the notes. All of the great things that producers should be able to do.

IAN HILL: He's got a great feel for music, Tom. He's probably the best in the business. Tom is a beautiful man at heart, he really is. Although we come from different ends of the social spectrum, we did gel with him pretty quickly. The first time we met him [in 1979], we were all thinking who the hell is this? He was this very plummy-voiced, obviously upper middle class lad who didn’t know anything about heavy metal. About an hour later in the pub, we've had a few drinks and were getting on like a bonfire. And it went from there. The first thing he did was mixed the Unleashed In The East live album. He did a tremendous job on that, and then we carried on from there [for nearly a decade].

GLENN TIPTON: When we first met him it gelled straight away. The formula worked instantly. His talent shone through. When we've worked on box sets [and other releases] since I'm amazed at how much Tom did do for us.

TOM ALLOM: I'll tell you, I went to a posh school, a private school. And then somehow I got a place at university. I wasn't that academic. But I ended up at the University of St. Andrews except it wasn't in St. Andrews. I went for engineering, and the engineering faculty was in Dundee, Scotland. And Dundee, Scotland is and was a very rough town, really rough. I lived there for three years. Then I got a job in a recording studio when I finished university proper.

I don't think I could’ve done that job if I had come straight from school. I had learned some rough edges, and I was confident [with Priest] because I could think, "Okay, you guys are from Birmingham, but I have lived three years in Dundee which makes Birmingham look like bloody Bond Street in London." And it didn’t bother me that they thought I was posh. By the time we'd finished doing the Unleashed album [in 1979], we were getting along really well. Rob liked working with me, and I think they all did really. That's why they asked me to do British Steel . And by then they got over the fact that I was posh.

Do you remember the inspiration for Doug Johnson’s striking cover image of The Hellion? Did you guys have a lot of input into it?

ROB HALFORD: Yeah, I said to Doug, "We have this song called 'Screaming For Vengeance.'" Just in my mind, I didn't know what it was. Because I was talking to an American guy and I was thinking about America, I was thinking about the national bird, the bald eagle. And I said, "I just have this vision in my mind of this screaming eagle that’s coming down to attack. It's full of vengeance. I don't know what it wants to avenge, but it’s in the mood for some mayhem and vengeance and all of those other emotions." That was all he needed.

Was World Vengeance the longest tour you guys had done at that point?

IAN HILL: I don't know. We worked very hard in those days. I look back at some of the old itineraries — how the hell did we do this? Five, six, even seven shows [in a row]. Of course, production wasn't as big as it is now. And the concentration of dates and the distances weren't as far either. We could do about 15 shows in Texas. We do all little places like Abilene and Amarillo. Everything in between. You only had a couple hundred miles to drive. But these days, for some unknown reason, the smaller markets have faded away, and all the major markets tend to be 300, 400, 500 miles away from one another. But back then, it was very intensive. We were younger as well.

Were you surprised by how MTV embraced the band at the time?

GLENN TIPTON: Yes, a bit. Bands like Judas Priest were not usually featured on MTV, but I think our music crossed the point and was acceptable for MTV. [At a later point] we even knocked Madonna off the No. 1 spot!

Are you still cool with the fact that Screaming is considered to be the definitive Priest album?

IAN HILL: Oh, yeah, I do. It was the ultimate seller. I don’t think we've sold more of any other album, and it was a step in the right direction. After Point Of Entry being panned a little bit, we came roaring back with that one. Then, like I say, Defenders was Screaming on steroids. It took us to that peak. We could have carried on making that kind of album, but they wouldn't have made any more progress from Defenders . Loads of other bands do that. They find their formula and they stick to it and people them for it. But like I say, we're always trying to take that step forward.

GLENN TIPTON: It's not everybody’s No. 1, but I would think its direction comes very close to what most people consider the best Judas Priest album. It is a milestone album.

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Photo: Pier Marco Tacca/WireImage

The three-day fest will take place in May and will feature some of your all-time favorite rock and metal groups

Hard rock and heavy metal take over Jacksonville, Fla., for three days when Welcome To Rockville comes to town. The 2019 offering brings GRAMMY winners Tool, Korn, Evanescence and GRAMMY nominees the Prodigy and Incubus as some of the top acts to hit the stage.

Florida's biggest rock n roll party just got bigger! Welcome to Rockville lineup features @Tool @Korn @RobZombie @the_prodigy @Shinedown @IncubusBand @evanescence @bmthofficial and MANY more. Tickets on sale Friday 12/7 @ 12pm ET.https://t.co/Yf8DWnM6be pic.twitter.com/dMiPQnoQD4— WelcomeToRockville (@RockvilleFest) December 3, 2018

Florida's biggest rock n roll party just got bigger! Welcome to Rockville lineup features @Tool @Korn @RobZombie @the_prodigy @Shinedown @IncubusBand @evanescence @bmthofficial and MANY more. Tickets on sale Friday 12/7 @ 12pm ET.https://t.co/Yf8DWnM6be pic.twitter.com/dMiPQnoQD4

The fest's lineup will also include GRAMMY nominee Rob Zombie and GRAMMY winning group Judas Priest, which celebrates their 50th anniversary this year and recently announced a tour, as well as Chevelle, among others. Catch the full lineup above.

Bands have taken to social media to announce their performances. "Time to knock the rock dust off. We just signed on to do a few U.S. festival dates in May so look out for show announcements!" Evanescence tweeted out.

When it comes to anticipated performances, Tool is no doubt one of the big ones, as fans continue to wait for their first album release in 12 years. As no official North American tour dates have been announced, their performance at the fest has gotten their fans speculating of an official tour announcement dropping soon. 

You can catch the acts May 3-5 at Metropolitan Park. For more information on how to get tickets go here. Tickets go on sale Dec. 7.

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GRAMMY-winning metal band open up about their forthcoming album, Redeemer Of Souls, and future Broadway aspirations

On July 8 GRAMMY-winning metal legends Judas Priest will return with Redeemer Of Souls, their 17th studio album and first in six years. In contrast to the British quintet's all-encompassing 2008 metal opera Nostradamus, their latest offering roars back with a rawer, heavier collection of anthems, ballads and epic rockers that strongly tap into the melodic aggression that has characterized the band's diverse output for the past 40 years. And listening to the turbo-charged songs on Redeemer Of Souls, it's clear that their passion and enthusiasm remain strong.

On Oct. 1 Judas Priest will launch a U.S. tour in support of the album, with dates scheduled through November. Contrary to some reports, their 2011 farewell tour was not the end of their live performance endeavors, but marked the end of extensive world touring for the band.

Ahead of the album's release, frontman Rob Halford and guitarists Glenn Tipton and Richie Faulkner participated in an exclusive GRAMMY.com interview to discuss the new album, bringing Faulkner into the fold and the possibility of Priest on Broadway.

The new album has a very yin and yang feel to it, with half of the songs being stripped down and the other half sounding more epic. Was that intentional? Faulkner: I think the only thing that was intentional was to do what the band does and has been doing for 40 years, which is not have any sort of concept or rules. And if it sounds good, we'll go with it, [whether] it's an epic-sounding song or a straightforward song.

This is Richie Faulkner's first album with Judas Priest. What was the songwriting dynamic like this time? Halford: It's different but it's the same in the respect that it's always been two guitar players and a singer pitching in together. There's no doubt that Richie's input has been incredibly energizing. Just to have a different perspective from Richie's ability as a guitar player [as] well as a songwriter did bring some very unique and exciting moments to the writing sessions.

Tipton: It was great. Richie was thrown in the deep end. The first show he did was "American Idol" [in 2011 in front of] 30 million people, then we went to a massive festival in Europe, so he had a lot of challenges initially on the live side of things. He came through with flying colors, but we never knew how [the] writing was going to work out. And it was like we've always been together. It was just a very natural thing. … He's put his own stamp on [the music]. That's the remarkable thing.

There are obviously the requisite Judas Priest fantasy lyrics on Redeemer …, but I'm very intrigued by "Cold Blooded" and "Crossfire." The former kind of makes me think of a serial killer, and I'm curious what inspired that? Halford: Glenn is responsible for the vast majority of lyrics on that song.

Tipton: It was a sinister subject — just cold blood that runs through me. Someone who's been beaten, battered, been through the mill, couldn't have had worse things happen. They've lost all feeling. It's a sinister thing that lends itself to a metal song.

Did it make you think back to Birmingham, England, where you grew up? Halford: Oh yeah. That's what I loved when I was noodling with the lyrics that Glenn put down. It's about isolation and it's about [how] you cannot connect to people. It has that angst in it, so I think from a metalhead's perspective, when they are listening to this track, they might [say,] "That used to be me," or "that's me now" or "I know somebody [who's] had that type of experience." That's the wonderful thing with nearly everything Priest [have] made over the years, the ability for our fans to feel as though we're touching them with the messages we have inside us.

The lyrics on "Crossfire" take on religion. Where did that come from? Halford: Again, you look through the history of Priest with songs like "Savage" from [1978's] Stained Class, where we talked about climate change before there was even climate change. "Electric Eye" [from 1982's Screaming For Vengeance] is about spy satellites. We've always had a great sense of adventure lyrically to blend reality and fantasy, so that's just a little dig at the way that all religion is supposed to preach love, peace and whatever, but there are extremists [who] just go out there and f* it all up.

"Never Forget" is a thank you to the fans, but it also sounds like goodbye. Is it goodbye? Halford: No, it's not. We've done that before with "United" [from 1980's British Steel] and tracks where we've talked about that special bond that not only Priest [have], but all metal bands have with the fans [who] support them, and we just wanted to go a little deeper in sentiment with this song. … We'll play until the end.

Rob, you've mentioned carrying around a Roget's Thesaurus to come up with new words for songs. Are there any words that you have been trying to get into a Judas Priest song that you haven't yet? Tipton: Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious.

Halford: Could you imagine? [Halford repeats the word in death metal growls.]

I was thinking of that. Halford: I've never said "crescent moon" before. [I] just [incorporated] a simple crescent moon in "Secrets Of The Dead" [on Redeemer Of Souls]. Much like Richie and Glenn are trying to find new riffs and notes, and bend the guitar strings [like] they've never done before, that's what I try to do as a lyricist. There are some staple words in metal that you have to use because there's nothing else that has the same value. You've got to say "pain," you've got to say "fear," because there is no comparative word that carries the same essence of message. Beyond that, I work really hard to try to pick words, ideas and phrases to bring something different and interesting.

How are you feeling lately, Rob? I recall you were in a wheelchair last year when you were promoting the live Epitaph DVD. Halford: It was a bit of a glitch. I had a back operation. It's fixed. I'm still not 1,000 percent, but I don't think I ever will be, quite frankly. At this point, who is? I went under the knife screaming in pain and woke up pain-free. I think whenever you're dealing with physical challenges, it really sorts out your personality and what you want out of life. I just wanted to get back to my job as a singer in a metal band as quickly as possible.

Have you ever considered doing Broadway? Halford: As musicians, it's really cool to contemplate every possibility, but again you have to be careful. We're so grateful for the treasures that we've got in Judas Priest and we understand the ramifications of going too far, too left field. That can lead to some negative response. First and foremost, I think for all of us, everything that's embodied in Judas Priest is how we want to represent ourselves. Probably as [we] move on in [our careers], [we] can take more steps into different rooms, so to speak. It's the timing. … I'd love to see Nostradamus on Broadway.

Tipton: With [co-manager] Bill [Curbishley's] connections in the movie and theatrical world, we actually wrote [Nostradamus] with the hopes that at some point either we could perform it on Broadway or it could be orchestrated. I think it's a great soundtrack and a great scene for a Broadway production.

(Bryan Reesman is a New York-based freelance writer.)

(For a complete list of 53rd GRAMMY Awards nominees, click here.)

When a new decade is broached, anniversaries come to light. Last year marked significant birthdays for landmark albums in rock music. Forty years ago Led Zeppelin III, the Stooges' Funhouse and Black Sabbath's self-titled debut changed rock music — and music — forever. Thirty years ago Iron Maiden, Judas Priest's British Steel, Ted Nugent's Scream Dream, Devo's Freedom Of Choice, Joy Division's Closer, and Motörhead's Ace Of Spades took things even farther. Twenty years ago, Depeche Mode's Violator, Megadeth's Rust In Peace, Jane's Addiction's Ritual De Lo Habitual, Alice In Chains' Facelift, Pantera's Cowboys From Hell, and the Black Crowes' Shake Your Money Maker diversified the rock genre. And 10 years ago, Radiohead's Kid A, Deftones' White Pony, Queens Of The Stone Age's Rated R, and A Perfect Circle's Mer De Noms started off the new millennium right. While rock music has grown and changed throughout the decades, both the albums that celebrated their 40th anniversaries and those that were just born provide that spirit of rebellion that was the essence of rock music then, and continues to be now and forever.

Looking at album sales, one wouldn't think that 2010 was the best year for rock (or any genre). But there were many other ways that rock music prevailed. The Who — a classic rock giant — performed at halftime during Super Bowl XLIV, one the most-watched television broadcasts. On April 17 Record Store Day marked the largest number of vinyl purchases since 1991, and the genre that has been known to embrace the resurgence of vinyl most is rock and metal. In summer 2010 the "big four" of thrash metal — Anthrax, Megadeth, Metallica, and Slayer — performed together at a series of festivals in Europe for the first time. One performance was broadcast to theaters for metalheads all over the world to see.

The non-fiction bestsellers' lists were decorated with rock memoirs all year as I Am Ozzy, Mustaine: A Heavy Metal Memoir and Keith Richards' Life educated readers about what being a real rock star is like. And in looking back at concerts in 2010, the most successful tours were all rock bands: Bon Jovi, U2 and AC/DC. Rock also infiltrated Broadway with the continued success of the '80s-themed "Rock Of Ages" and Green Day's "American Idiot." The U2-scored "Spider-Man" production also hit the stage. There were also landmark tours in terms of production in rock concerts this year as Roger Waters built and destroyed The Wall for the first time in 30 years, and Rammstein lit Madison Square Garden on fire in their first U.S. show in 10 years.

However, as 2010 brought anniversaries, landmarks and reunions, many significant figures in rock, punk, industrial, and metal music left us. To Ronnie James Dio, Malcolm McLaren, Jay Reatard, Paul Gray, Alex Chilton, Peter Steele, Derf Scratch, Peter Christopherson, and Captain Beefheart: Your work will continue to live in our hearts, minds and ears, inspiring a new generation of rockers to come.

As we begin 2011, let's embrace that rebellious spirit of rock music again and see where it takes us.

Who will take home the GRAMMY gold in the Rock Field? Tune in to the 53rd Annual GRAMMY Awards live from Staples Center in Los Angeles on Sunday, Feb. 13 at 8 p.m. ET/PT on CBS. For updates and breaking news, please visit The Recording Academy's social networks on Twitter and Facebook.  

Photo: Steve Jennings/WireImage.com

GRAMMY winners plot arena tour in support of their forthcoming new album, 'Firepower'

Judas Priest are ready to bring plenty of firepower, literally, to concert stages in 2018.

The metal legends, who are up for a Rock and Roll Hall of Fame nomination, will embark on a 25-date North American arena tour in support of their new studio album, Firepower, due in early 2018. The trek will kick off March 13 in Wilkes Barre, Penn., and conclude May 1 in San Antonio.

Firepower will mark Judas Priest's first album since 2014's Redeemer Of Souls. The group's prior studio album, 2009's A Touch Of Evil: Live, spawned the group's first GRAMMY win for Best Metal Performance for "Dissident Aggressor," a track from 1977's Sin After Sin.

A fan presale will commence Oct. 25.

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