When Priest's Turbo came out in '86

[Rocker4Real]

Here's a question to those who remember when Turbo first came out. Were you disappointed? Was it Rockin' enough? Did you want more Metal?

[FreddyFender]

Total sell-out record. None of the singles even had guitar riffs. Parental Guidance sounded like Quiet Riot - and I liked Quiet Riot, but it was pretty weak stuff coming from Judas Priest.

Title track grew on me over time. Great song.

[Wiseacre]

Every Priest fan I knew (a LOT) hated it and it was 100% considered an obvious sellout. I see a lot of love for it on this board, but it was the END of the road for many of us, who completely ignored them until Painkiller. It was their “Dynasty” moment. Even though Painkiller was a different kind of “sellout”, at least they didn’t look and sound like a total joke.

[Dyslexicheart]

It didn't sound like Priest to me, mainly the drums - I didn't like it and moved on to other non-metal music.

[tooth]

Me & all my friends loved it, I still do, bands wish they wrote Out in the Cold. Every Judas Priest record is good on some level up to & including Painkiller.

[Wild Obsession]

"Parental Guidance" was/is totally "ghey"...... sounds like something Paul Stanley would have written for the Crazy Nights album........

[Black Stuff]

definitely a disappointment

[HueyRamone]

Major letdown from Defenders but I did like it, at least a little. However I didnt buy RID for a few years after it's release, so their sheen of invincibility had worn off a bit.

[daveg]

Unless you were a complete diehard fan, don't think most people cared. I don't remember anyone of my metalhead friends being overly angry.. I wasn't... That was just the times, almost everyone had their "sellout album" over that 2/3 year span. As sellout albums go, this was pretty good.

I think more people were mad at the Ram it down album, cause that was terrible.

[keyofgee]

it was half freakin killer with the synch guitars like turbo and OITC, then is was PMRC stupid with Parental guidance songs

[Ryan81]

Me & all my friends loved it, I still do, bands wish they wrote Out in the Cold. Every Judas Priest record is good on some level up to & including Painkiller.

A very solid and accurate statement tooth!

[Sleek]

I liked it, but then I was always into the kinda-sissy-hard-rock-anthem side of Priest as much as the more metal side, so songs like Turbo Lover, Rock You All around the world, Locked in or Parental Guidance just sounded like modern updates of British Steel or Point of Entry tracks.

...also in '86, I was VERY into music sounding MODERN, and didn't want any of that sludgey sounding seventies shit, and Turbo fit right in with that year's Billy Idol, Sigue Sigue Sputnik or Ratt productions. State-of-the-art stuff.

Of course it sounds dated now, but I still like it better than anything that came after.

...except Loch Ness, of course.

[Gibsonite]

Here's a question to those who remember when Turbo first came out. Were you disappointed? Was it Rockin' enough? Did you want more Metal?

I thought it was absolute shite. I loved the run up to Defenders but I didn't buy Turbo and haven't taken them seriously since. They're a as much a metal parody band as Steel Panther now, but they're not in on the joke

[El Vampiro Blanco]

I remember either Kerrang or Aardschok writing it was a good album, but they could no longer lay claim to the defenders of the faith title.

Personally I liked Turbo Lover and Out in the Cold, but the rest seemed like childish shit like Private Property and Parental Guidance..... And I was only 16 years old.
It certainly couldn't hold a candle to Screaming for Vengeance

[the_man_incognito]

I was let down, but not from the point of thinking they were selling out.
It just sucked...
It was that time period when some bands either tried to have a futuristic/scifi image or really glammy (like Ulitmate Sin Ozzy)
What lost me is the overuse of synths/keyboards in the music...they just overdid it..
Maiden's Somewhere in Time came out a few months later and while they also went futuristic and used synths, they did used them correctly (fattening up the sounds; not a main instrument)
Out in the Cold is a killer sound though..just wish it wasn't a Priest song..

[HoldenSSV]

Probably in the minority here, but I was actually more disappointed by Defenders than I was Turbo. Defenders is mostly filler.

Yes, Turbo has the synths, but Out In The Cold and Private Property are better than most of the songs on Defenders and they weren't even singles.

[greengoblinrulz]

Dont remember one person in our group saying anything about it, we played the hell out of it

[dmbrocker]

I was only about three or four years old when it first came out, but I liked it when I first heard it. Sure, it's a cheesy left turn into keyboardland, but I've always enjoyed cheesy keyboard hard rock as much as I do the heavier stuff, so it was kind of the best of both for me.

[LurkingAtWork]

Loved it then, love it now.

[pieceofme]

It was my first Priest and my first glam/hair metal/whatever you want to call it album. I liked it a lot! Enough to get into other bands of the same ilk! This was in the late 90s so I didn't have the previous albums to compare it to. I still like it a lot and its better than anything they have released since.

[TommyBoy68]

I was definitely disappointed. I had probably only been a fan of the band really for a couple years at the time, but had already picked up every other previous album, and liked everything that I had heard up to that point. Did buy it soon after it was released, also. I would say that at the time Priest was probably the one band that I had really attached to, they were my first concert on the Defenders tour, and the first band I ever purchased a wall poster of.

I tried to get into it, but it stayed mostly untouched in my LP collection at the time. Marked the end of my buying any 'Priest releases for a long time. There's still many that have come out since, that I haven't bothered to pick up. Not that I expect any of them to resemble Turbo, but it just ended up being a turning-point and my tastes went in other directions. I have tried to re-visit over the years but it still ends up being something I just don't make it through.

[drumkey]

"Parental Guidance" was/is totally "ghey"...... sounds like something Paul Stanley would have written for the Crazy Nights album........

great video though!

[TREVERLAST]

I was only 12 when it came out and I knew they looked and sounded different from the Priest I knew and loved in the videos, but after seeing 'Parental Guidance' on MTV I bought the cassette. I used to play that and Priest...Live a lot back then, but I haven't listened to them in probably 25-30 years now.

[Wiseacre]

Loved it then, love it now.

Not that there’s anything wrong with that.

[Love_Industry]

Unless you were a complete diehard fan, don't think most people cared. I don't remember anyone of my metalhead friends being overly angry.. I wasn't... That was just the times, almost everyone had their "sellout album" over that 2/3 year span. As sellout albums go, this was pretty good.

I think more people were mad at the Ram it down album, cause that was terrible.

This. Priest may have been my favorite band back then, one of the first bands I got into and saw live and I remember going with two friends to listen to Turbo when it came out. I admit the start of Turbo Lover was not what I expected, but after three songs we all decided to buy the album. Parental and RYAATW were disappointing but flipping the vinyl we then got the brillant side 2. Loved the album, the stage and the clothes, it was 1986 after all and this showed that they were still a cool and current band. The 1986 show i saw (Gothenburg on Glenn's B'day) is still in my all time top 5.

Ram It Down was when they lost popularity, we also got the album on day one, but went home and played it and were massively disappointed. You know an album blows if a cover of JBG is the 2nd or 3rd best track.

[Bono Nettencourt]

Their f@g singer tried to turn them into a pop band. It sucked. The albums after it sucked worse. They wee never the same again. The end.

[Dyslexicheart]

deleted post

[Indy_Rob]

I was only 12 when it came out and I knew they looked and sounded different from the Priest I knew and loved in the videos, but after seeing 'Parental Guidance' on MTV I bought the cassette. I used to play that and Priest...Live a lot back then, but I haven't listened to them in probably 25-30 years now.

I could have written this verbatim. Even down to being age 12 when it came out.

[Love_Industry]

Their f@g singer tried to turn them into a pop band.

Halford is the extreme metal guy in Priest. If anyone had pop leanings it was Tipton who played on Sam Fox albums.

I still think they need to release the Stock-Aitken-Waterman songs. At least as bonus on the anniversary Ram It Down package in 2018.

[AlexVonHaig]

1986 Boner

2025 Boner