Judas Priest - "Painkiller" - FM Version

In honour of recently rediscovering that I own a copy of Judas Priest's "Painkiller" album on vinyl (must have bought it during an"eBay blitz" campaign), I made a FM version of the title track.

I first heard Painkiller back in 1991. Strangely enough, that was on vinyl too. All that screaming and screeching though, Christ, I thought it was horrendous! It took me a while to get used to it, and some months later, after repeated listening to a cassette copy (yes, a "pirated" copy of that vinyl) the album took root, and became one of my 10 "dessert island" albums. And it didn't stop there. As the years passed, I collected all of Judas Priest's albums (except for the non-Halford ones). It's amazing what a little bit of piracy can do.



Not sure who sequenced the midi file, it's the normal one you'll find if you Google for "Painkiller.mid". Some of the guitar solos fall a bit flat in places when they were played with the FM chip, and I was too lazy to try and correct them. The vocal track comes from samples, which I believe, were ripped from the version included on one of the Guitar Hero games.

• An unedited FM instrumental recording of the midi file... http://soundcloud.com/ymf262/jppk-ins

As with all these FM cover versions, it's more for the novelty than any real musical value, but the strength of the original track still shines through. The song is a classic... that whole Painkiller album is a classic... the entire Judas Priest back catalogue is a classic!

Finally, no Judas Priest "Painkiller" post could be complete without the "Alf Stewart suffers heart attack" video.