Metal Gods : Judas Priest

This'll be Judas Priest's second feature on 101 Songs About Robots... but this time it's proper 'Priest' with Rob 'bike shop' Halford on lead vocals. Taken from their iconic 1980 LP, 'British Steel' is Metal Gods: a dystopic nightmare scenario in which man's technological advances evolve into conscious beings, intent on enslaving and/or destroying mankind. You'd think the robots we create would show us a bit of gratitude... but a song about robots being humble and helpful and living harmoniously with their human creators isn't really the stuff of heavy metal. No... it's the music of death, destruction and terror, and that what we've got right here.

Machine Man : Judas Priest

Are you ready to rock!? Are you ready to robot rock?!?  No it's not Daft Punk with their repetitive two word ode to robots, it's the devil worshipping, middle America bothering Judas Priest with Machine Man featuring Tim 'Ripper' Owens on vocals.



The Judas Priest track I really really wanted to post is Electric Eye from 1982 and featuring the far superior Rob Halford on vocals (who apparently left the band to start a chain of shops selling car parts and cheap bicycles). But the question of 'what exactly constitutes a robot' had to be asked and since Electric Eye is actually about a spy satellite, admittedly a self conscious one, I'm not sure whether it belongs on 101 Songs About Robots or not... so would a self aware satellite with an unblinking eye, armed with lasers and orbiting the earth be classed as a robot?

Robot: [rəʊbɒt]

1. A machine capable of carrying out a complex series of actions automatically, especially one programmable by a computer: "half of all American robots are making cars or trucks"
2. (Especially in science fiction) a machine resembling a human being and able to replicate certain human movements and functions automatically: "the robot closed the door behind us"
3. A person who behaves in a mechanical or unemotional manner: "public servants are not expected to be mindless robots"

Well there's three definitions from the OED... and after a quick look at the lyrics for Machine Man, I reckon Electric Eye is more on topic than today's post, even if it is about a satellite (most of which look like R2-D2 with additional solar wings anyway)... so I guess I'll have to include it at some point soon.