“If I had a world of my own, everything would be nonsense”: this phrase from a certain Disney film perfectly summarizes the gist of pairing JUDAS PRIEST and Alice Cooper, two purveyors of bitter pills and sweet riffs. The former always seemed to embody no-nonsense heavy metal while preparing fantasies frilly enough to make multitudes embrace the freewheel-burning philosophy; the latter welcomed millions into his dungeon of nightmares while regularly discarding absurdity in favor of reality-haunted truth. The last time the listeners enjoyed this coupling onstage during “Operation Rock & Roll Tour” back in 1991, but about three decades further on down the line, a lot of things changed – yet a lot stayed the same, too.

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There are just a few recording studios in the world that changed that same world by determining the course of popular music, and two of those based in the States were Stax and Muscle Shoals, the latter a home not only to such classics by the likes of Aretha Franklin and Wilson Pickett as, respectively, “I Never Loved A Man (The Way I Love You)” and “Land Of A Thousand Dances” but also “Brown Sugar” by THE ROLLING STONES and “Sailing” by Rod Stewart. So it’s about time the Alabama haunt’s tale to be dug into and explored in detail.

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How THE DARKNESS became so popular remains a mystery to this scribe who watched the British band, two weeks prior to the release of their debut, at Wembley, struggling, and failing, to deliver swagger they wanted to show when opening for LYNYRD SKYNYRD and DEEP PURPLE. Still, it’s easy to see the young group’s appeal, and there should be great interest for the 20th Anniversary Edition of their sophomore album, the Roy Thomas Baker-produced “One Way Ticket To Hell… And Back”: an expanded variant of it that takes four CDs now.

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