10 Hard Rock Music Artists Who Released Two Great Albums In The Same Year

10. Judas Priest - Stained Class & Killing Machine

The album that most critics describe as Judas Priest's breakthrough is 1980's British Steel. To be fair, that record opens with Breaking The Law, so it's kinda hard to argue against that statement.

Before they became megastars though, the band from Birmingham were beavering away trying to make a name for themselves. Said beavering included not one, but two major releases in the year 1978.

First came Stained Class from February, which not only bore a very punny name, but also gave the world the mammoth track Exciter. The song is widely considered to be a precursor to the speed metal genre and, even without historical context, it's a banger.

Eight months later, fans of the group were treated to Killing Machine, another beast of a record that saw Priest adopt their famous leather look for the first time. In fact, the album was actually renamed Hell Bent for Leather in America, but mainly because the US gets a little sensitive about aggressive album titles.

Neither album set the world on fire, but they were both essential in laying the groundwork for the monumental success that was to come.