I have a live performance of Judas Priest performing Grinder. At the start, Rob Halford begins by stating that there are “13,000 Heavy Metal Maniacs” in the audience. You would have never in the past and never will in the future find me in such an audience. In fact, I didn’t even get into heavy metal till around the mid-2000s. That being said, it’s a little difficult to be 32 years-old, and to have not heard Breaking The Law as a kid.

You know the deal with Judas Priest by now. They were second wave British Heavy Metal as noticeable by their speed and the absence of the blues in their sound. You all know that Rob Halford is gay, and probably could write a better review of The Submission of Emma Marx (2013) than the one I did. Finally, the date on this implies it was shown for the first time in 1980. Both IMVDb and mvdbase agree on that date. In fact, mvdbase says that it aired in June of 1980. That makes it the first pre-MTV music video I have spotlighted so far.

The music video is so simple that if you go to it on Wikipedia it’s simply a description of the plot as if there is no other content. Well…um…to be fair, there isn’t much other content. Everyone probably knows the story of the origin of Black Sabbath, but I’ll recap. They weren’t necessarily anti-hippie, but where they lived was in stark contrast to the images they saw of them on TV. The group co-opted the title of an Italian anthology horror film and decided to play dark music to scare the hippies.

This Judas Priest music video plays to harsh beginnings as they break into the bank, not to steal money, but to take their gold record for British Steel. That is the album, which includes not only Breaking The Law, but other great songs like Living After Midnight and The Rage. Then Halford holds it to the security camera and screams “YOU DON’T KNOW WHAT IT’S LIKE!” before an explosion is set off, and they are back in the car where they began their one bank crime spree. Like most heavy metal, once you think about it, you realize it isn’t what your knee jerk reaction told you it is about. The music video is about coming from a difficult place. It expresses the difficultly of reaching a place where you have a gold record, but then it is locked away from you in the hands of someone else such as a record company. I’ve always loved that record companies would do such things, and still let the group make such songs as Breaking The Law.

Notice that the group had two guitarists. Having two meant they could do things groups with a single guitar couldn’t do. You can hear this prominently at the beginning of the song The Rage. I’ve included the song below.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YTWlVL9aS6c

If you haven’t seen this music video, then watch it. It’s not really for people that already know and love the music video that I write for, but for those who have never heard it.

Enjoy it, and check out the British Steel album. It’s a helluva a heavy metal album.