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''Stained Class'' is the fourth album by British heavy metal group Judas Priest, released in February 1978. It is the first of two albums to feature drummer Les Binks. It gained notoriety for its dark lyrics and themes, as well as 1990 civil action trial where the band were accused of backmasking that led to the suicide attempts of two teenagers. Stained Class was ranked as the greatest Judas Priest album on Stereogum.com, and was described by Steve Huey on Allmusic.com as “Judas Priest’s greatest achievement.” ==Overview== ''Stained Class'' is the only Judas Priest album to feature songwriting by all five members of the band. It was at this point, however, where Glenn Tipton became the band’s primary lead guitarist; from this point forward, he would mostly share songwriting duties with Rob Halford. K.K. Downing’s only standalone performances on ''Stained Class'' are “Savage” and the second solo on “Beyond the Realms of Death” and "Heroes End", with the rest of the album either featuring Tipton exclusively or duets between the two. Newly added drummer Les Binks earned a songwriting credit on “Beyond The Realms Of Death” for composing the acoustic intro. The sleeve artwork, by Rosław Szaybo at CBS Records, introduced the now-classic Judas Priest logo, replacing the Gothic Script logo which appeared on all of the band's prior albums. ''Stained Class'' was the first Judas Priest album to dent the ''Billboard'' 200 chart and was eventually certified gold in the U.S. Dennis MacKay was brought in by CBS Records to produce the album. His résumé at the time consisted mainly of jazz fusion artists, plus David Bowie, Supertramp, and others. He set himself to the task of cleaning up the band’s unwieldy songwriting style and making their material shorter, tighter, and more direct. The recording sessions for ''Stained Class'' took place in October and November 1977 at Chipping Norton Recording Studios in London. The album was the heaviest the band had released up to that point — with the lyrics often dark and violent — with only slight instances of progressive rock; hereafter, the progressive influences that characterised the band’s first few albums would be completely eliminated so that Judas Priest completely embraced heavy metal as their sound. “Better By You, Better Than Me” was a last-minute addition to the album when CBS Records insisted on including another more commercial track to liven up a record with which a majority of the songs have a very dark and sinister undertone. It was recorded in a separate session with James Guthrie, as Dennis MacKay had moved on to other projects and was no longer available. The band was reportedly impressed with the production Guthrie did on “Better By You, Better Than Me”, as it stood out in comparison to the overly thin, flat sound that had plagued their albums up to this point, and they would ask him to produce their next album, ''Killing Machine''. “Beyond The Realms Of Death” was the only song from ''Stained Class'' to become a live staple, with 492 performances through 2012. Although performed relatively often by Halford away from Priest, Judas Priest themselves have played the title track live only thrice – twice during 1978 and once in 2005〔(‘Stained Class’ in Judas Priest setlists )〕 – whilst after 1979 “Exciter” disappeared until 2002.〔(‘Exciter’ in Judas Priest setlists )〕 “White Heat, Red Hot” was frequently performed between 1978 and 1980 but never since,〔(‘White Heat, Red Hot’ in Judas Priest setlists )〕 whilst “Invader”, “Saints In Hell”, and “Heroes’ End” have never been played live. The notorious (see below) “Better By You, Better Than Me” was played only eleven times, and the obscure “Savage” eight times in early 1978.〔(‘Savage’ in Judas Priest setlists )〕 ''Stained Class'' was remastered in 2001, with two bonus tracks added. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Stained Class」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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