The Unexpected Success Story Behind Judas Priest’s “You’ve Got Another Thing Comin’”

Even before Judas Priest released “You’ve Got Another Thing Comin’” in August 1982, they had already built a reputation as one of the world’s premier heavy metal bands. Their 1980 album British Steel went a long way toward establishing their heavy metal credentials in the U.S. and Europe. Still, they were more of a cult phenomenon than a mainstream band, but with “You’ve Got Another Thing Comin’,” Judas Priest found a broader audience for their loud, hard-driving sound.

Though they did not intend for “You’ve Got Another Thing Comin’” to become a breakthrough hit, that’s precisely what Judas Priest had on their hands. The song provides a great example of how a band can sometimes forge a strong connection with an audience when they’re not expecting it.

Seizing the Moment

Judas Priest laid the groundwork for the massive success of “You’ve Got Another Thing Comin’” and their 1982 album Screaming for Vengeance with British Steel. That album produced two songs—”Living After Midnight” and “Breaking the Law”—that received some airplay on mainstream rock stations and MTV once the network launched in 1981. With that commercial leap forward, Judas Priest’s label, Columbia Records, wanted their next album to have even greater mass appeal. Despite the increased commercial focus, the 1981 release Point of Entry failed to eclipse the popularity of British Steel. However, with the single “Heading Out to the Highway,” Judas Priest had another popular clip for MTV, as well as a Top-10 Mainstream Rock track.

As with Point of Entry, Judas Priest went to Ibiza, an island in the Mediterranean Sea, to record Screaming for Vengeance. Though the setting was a familiar one, the band’s attitude was a little different this time around. With Screaming for Vengeance, Judas Priest was determined to make an album that put the “heavy” in heavy metal. In a 2022 interview, frontman Rob Halford told The Arizona Republic, “The label was insistent that we kept the foot on the gas pedal and really kept the metal roaring, because they knew—they could sense—that the moment where you’ve taken off but suddenly the boosters kick in, that was coming.”

An Unintended Hit Single

This is not to say that neither Columbia nor Judas Priest gave any consideration to putting a radio-friendly single on Screaming for Vengeance. They recorded the Bob Halligen Jr.-penned song, “(Take These) Chains,” thinking it gave the album a potential hit. The quintet left Ibiza and regrouped in Orlando, Florida, to mix Screaming for Vengeance. Even though its track list included a potential lead single, at least some of the band’s members thought the album needed another song. Guitarist K.K. Downing has noted the band wasn’t looking for another single, but rather a song that would rock in a different way from the existing tracks. As he put it in an interview for Louder, “We wanted something that would do a completely different job to the blood and thunder of tracks like ‘Screaming for Vengeance’ and ‘Electric Eye.’”

Downing, Halford, and guitarist Glenn Tipton wrote “You’ve Got Another Thing Comin’” in Orlando, and the band recorded it at Beejay Studios, where they had been mixing and recording overdubs for Screaming for Vengeance. Though Judas Priest made the song the third-to-last track on the album, the label saw its hit potential. As Halford put it, “The people who worked at Columbia knew exactly the song that was gonna put this band to that next level. And there it was.”

Sticking It to “The Man”

Columbia released “You’ve Got Another Thing Comin’” as the lead single from Screaming for Vengeance, and the song received a boost from its popular official music video. Directed by Julien Temple, the clip begins with a shot of a highway sign that reads “Noise Pollution Test Zone.” In the background, Judas Priest is performing the song in front of a water pumping station. Throughout the video are shots of a serious-looking man in a bowler hat monitoring Judas Priest’s decibel levels. By the time the band gets to playing the final chorus, Halford has had enough. He swings his arms together and points his hands towards the band’s nemesis, the mere force of which causes the man’s head to explode.

The explosion also causes the man’s pants to fall down. Halford told Songfacts that having the pants fall off the man’s mannequin stand-in was an accident. Though it was the result of having more explosives than necessary to do the job, Halford thought it was a fitting way to end the video. In his Songfacts interview, he said, “From a sociological point of view, the people that don’t like metal—this is your payback. We’re going to blow your head up and let your pants fall down.”

The Impact of “You’ve Got Another Thing Comin’”

The band and their label were right to think “You’ve Got Another Thing Comin’” would be an important song for them. It is Judas Priest’s only Hot 100 hit (peaking at No. 67) and their only Top-5 song on the Mainstream Rock chart (No. 4), where it spent 37 weeks. It continues to be among Judas Priest’s most popular tracks, as evidenced by its more than 130 million streams on Spotify.

The song also helped to keep Screaming for Vengeance in the spotlight for roughly a year. The album spent 55 weeks on the Billboard 200, topping out at No. 17. It is Judas Priest’s best-selling album in the U.S. and was certified Double Platinum in 2001. The popularity of Screaming for Vengeance set the wheels in motion for several of Judas Priest’s earlier albums to receive Gold or Platinum certification later in the ‘80s.

Judging by the success of “You’ve Got Another Thing Comin’,” the man in the bowler hat appeared to have been in the minority in thinking that Judas Priest was too loud. The band found a way to make heavy metal accessible to hardcore fans and new converts alike, making it possible for bands like Iron Maiden, Mötley Crüe, Slayer, and Metallica to have their own commercial success in the ‘80s. As Halford once said of Judas Priest’s commercial peak, “It’s just that magic metal moment in time when all the pieces seem to fit.”

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