Ram It Down
Ram It Down is the eleventh studio album by English heavy metal band Judas Priest, released on 17 May 1988 by Columbia Records. It was the band's last album to feature longtime drummer Dave Holland, and was promoted in Europe and North America with the Mercenaries of Metal Tour. In July 1988, the album earned gold certification for shipments of over 500,000 copies. In 2001, it was remastered and reissued with two bonus tracks. Background. In 1986, Judas Priest intended to release a double album entitled "Twin Turbos", of which half would consist of melodic, more  commercial hard rock, and the other half would be heavier and less synth-driven. Columbia Records objected to the double album concept, and the project was ultimately split into two separate releases, 1986's "Turbo", and 1988's "Ram It Down". At least four songs, "Ram it Down", "Hard as Iron", "Love You to Death" and "Monsters of Rock", were written for the "Twin Turbos" project. "Ram It Down" would be the final Judas Priest album for 30 years recorded with producer Tom Allom. Allom would later return as co-producer to the 2009 live release "". He would not produce  another Judas Priest studio album until 2018's "Firepower". The band recorded a rendition of Chuck Berry's "Johnny B. Goode", intended for inclusion on the soundtrack for the 1988 Anthony Michael Hall comedy film "Johnny Be Good"; the song found its way onto "Ram It Down" and was the album's first single. Although the song is credited as written by Berry and arranged by the band, only the lyrics remain from Berry's version, the music being entirely new. It was played during the first few concerts of the band's 1988 tour, along with the title track  and three other songs from the album, namely "Heavy Metal", "Come And Get It" and "I'm a Rocker". The only "Ram It Down" songs to have ever been played on later tours are "I'm a Rocker", during the 2005 Retribution Tour; and "Blood Red Skies" during the 2011-2012 Epitaph World Tour and the 2021-2022 50 Heavy Metal Years Tour. Originally, the song "Thunder Road" was to be put on the album; however, after the album producers were asked to do the cover of "Johnny B. Goode", "Thunder Road" was replaced. Some of the parts from the  song made it into the cover of "Johnny B. Goode". "Thunder Road" was released as a bonus track on the 2001 remaster of "Point of Entry". Although Judas Priest's fanbase was big enough to push the album to gold status in North America, critical reaction was fairly negative, arguing that the band failed to produce any new creative ideas, and the songwriting was inferior to their past efforts. Halford's take on the rest of the album is that it was "a very heavy record", with Glenn Tipton and K. K. Downing "really rip[ping] it up on a lot  of those riffs". Halford said the band recorded a cover of the Rolling Stones' "Play with Fire"; he said it was "a shame" that the song did not make the album.