Def Leppard shall always reign supreme

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Def Leppard was, is, and always will be bad ass. i have every cd and music video, my fav tune and video shall always be "bringin on the heartbreak" . it was me and my fiance's song, not for the words, but we loved the powerful emotion it conveyed. my fiance was killed in an auto accident, decapitated by a drunk driver. my friend and i busted our guitars out and played "bringin on the heartbreak" and "in time" by robbie robb(our other fav song) in her honor, but noone except her and my parents understood what i was doing, thought i was damning her. any way, def leppard is totally bodacious, i pray they don't sell out like most of the 80's bands these days

― ME, Thursday, 11 September 2003 15:47 (twenty-two years ago)

― Coat Hanger (c_hanger), Thursday, 11 September 2003 17:04 (twenty-two years ago)

http://www.defleppard.com/news/emm_gryner_sugar.mp3

Doh!!

― Coat Hanger (c_hanger), Thursday, 11 September 2003 17:05 (twenty-two years ago)

The notion of Def Leppard "selling out" is the most profound koan I have heard in ages

― J0hn Darn1elle (J0hn Darn1elle), Thursday, 11 September 2003 17:07 (twenty-two years ago)

i pray they don't sell out like most of the 80's bands these days

Is this to imply that Def Leppard have been decidedly against the mainstream all this time? Yes, what maverick visionaries they indeed are....pushing the veritable envelope of the avant-garde.

I don't mean to detract from your enjoyment of Def Leppard, but let's not try to dress them up like some sort've NWOBHM John Zorn or something.

― Alex in NYC (vassifer), Thursday, 11 September 2003 17:10 (twenty-two years ago)

...considering they were the blueprint for Shania Twain

― Horace Mann (Horace Mann), Thursday, 11 September 2003 17:12 (twenty-two years ago)

But Alex they were one of the first great NWOBHM bands!

― Mr. Diamond (diamond), Thursday, 11 September 2003 17:12 (twenty-two years ago)

Which 80's band has sold out these days? I'd say Bon Jovi, for recording new material that actually did well (the bastards).

― Vinnie (vprabhu), Thursday, 11 September 2003 17:19 (twenty-two years ago)

whats NWOBHM?

― ryan hoffman, Thursday, 11 September 2003 17:48 (twenty-two years ago)

Not WithOut Brian H. Mulroney

― Horace Mann (Horace Mann), Thursday, 11 September 2003 17:50 (twenty-two years ago)

I always liked "Photograph" the best.

plus, the album cover has this cool operation mindcrime vibe to it:
http://image.allmusic.com/00/amg/cov200/drc300/c335/c33511kk8d2.jpg

― Kingfish (Kingfish), Thursday, 11 September 2003 17:53 (twenty-two years ago)

One of the greatest album covers ever. Even after the context of history.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Thursday, 11 September 2003 17:57 (twenty-two years ago)

Mutt Lange is a genius, that is all

― stevem (blueski), Thursday, 11 September 2003 18:02 (twenty-two years ago)

But Alex they were one of the first great NWOBHM bands!

True, but I'd also say they were swiftest of all of them TO sell out.

New Wave Of British Heavy Metal.

― Alex in NYC (vassifer), Thursday, 11 September 2003 18:06 (twenty-two years ago)

This thread is whoa. I'm seriously going to have nightmares.

(I like Def Leppard.)

― Tom Breihan (Tom Breihan), Thursday, 11 September 2003 18:08 (twenty-two years ago)

what stevem said.

― The Lady Ms Lurex (lucylurex), Thursday, 11 September 2003 22:46 (twenty-two years ago)

If I had to hear Hair Metal (and in the 80's, who didn't?), Def Leppard were actually fun to turn up and annoy the neighbours.

― Nichole Graham (Nichole Graham), Thursday, 11 September 2003 23:31 (twenty-two years ago)

I've always been embarassed by how the second after Mutt left, Def Lep just sucked total ass. Every song I can remember off Adrenalize and then on is horrible.

― Anthony Miccio (Anthony Miccio), Thursday, 11 September 2003 23:57 (twenty-two years ago)

"selling out" as a put-down = the all-time USE OTHER ARGUMENTS PLZ champion.

― Justyn Dillingham (Justyn Dillingham), Friday, 12 September 2003 05:02 (twenty-two years ago)

I think in this particular case, "selling out" would essentially mean Def Leppard had somehow forsaken their po-faced heavy metal roots and streamlined their music to appeal to a wider pop audience. That said, Def Leppard themselves were huge fans of Bowie, T.Rex and Queen...and, like their heroes, they had every intention from the get-go of having their music heard by as many people as possible. If that meant augmenting their football-terrace chants and power-chords with Mutt Lange's spit'n'polish, then so be it. Bottom line: DEF LEPPARD WERE BORN TO SELL OUT. 'SELLING OUT' was their primary objective, and not seen as a comprimise in the slightest.

Accusing Def Leppard of selling out is to some degree the equivalent of accusing Kiss of selling out (albeit on a much finer scale). At no point was either band ever committed to some purist, underground aesthetic that adhered to certain convictions and ideals over the drive for fame and success. Def Leppard -- like Kiss before them (and countles others) actively strove to be successful rock stars (and that goal was realized). Lambasting them for selling out is like scolding a fish for swimming.

― Alex in NYC (vassifer), Friday, 12 September 2003 05:41 (twenty-two years ago)

one year passes...

On Through the Night! who's hip?

"Answer to the Master" is kind of blowing me away right now. The drum break is totally samplable -- aspiring DJs get on this!!

Also, when the guitars come back in after said drum break, that repeating pentatonic run sounds totally old school metal -- like Motorhead or Uriah Heep or Thin Lizzy or something. And then of course side 2 winds up with "OVERTURE" !!! What a fuckin tune. These guys were total scholars of great hard rock. good stuff.

― Stormy Davis (diamond), Saturday, 30 April 2005 03:52 (twenty-one years ago)

anyone at all interested in classic era NWOBHM really does need to seek out that BBC 'live in concert' Lep session circa On Through the Night. Has it been officially released yet? Maybe it has, I dunno. It's fuckin amazing, it really is.

― Stormy Davis (diamond), Saturday, 30 April 2005 03:56 (twenty-one years ago)

it's great -- you listen to something like "Hello America" from
On Through the Night, the way the the whole thing modulates down in a kinda ABA blues progression -- straight out of what Motorhead always useta do .. but of course, Joe Elliott's voice totally differentiates from the Motorhead stuff becuz, well, he's Joe Elliott. "Hello America" slayz. The break with the flanged voice totally sounds like Foghat's "Slow Ride". Which makes "Hello America" even more brilliant.

― Stormy Davis (diamond), Saturday, 30 April 2005 04:12 (twenty-one years ago)

Yeah, I was a pre-teen living in an American bubble in Germany when "Hello America" and Motorhead's "America" were contemporary. The vectors were flying faster than a high level of Tempest: US teens digging Euro metal about the US that wasn't remotely popular in the US but should have been and later was. Def Leppard copped about zilch from Motorhead though, they both took their cues from Thin Lizzy.

― Ian Christe (Ian Christe), Saturday, 30 April 2005 04:46 (twenty-one years ago)

The last coupla songs on Side One never did much for me, but as a whole On Thru The Night is probably my favourite Lep album, goofy LP cover art and all. (Honestly never noticed the band-name redundancy till Stormy pointed it out HERE Album Covers that beg the Question: What the Hell were You THINKING? , thanks!) Great convoluted guitar riffs on "Wasted" and "Rocks Off" and elsewhere.

And as always, whenever Def Leppard is the subject, I sincerely regret my inability to appreciate Hysteria as the masterpiece everyone insists it is. Honest, I want to like it, but aside from "Love Bites" and the occasional harmony, it mostly leaves me cold.

― Myonga Von Bontee (Myonga Von Bontee), Saturday, 30 April 2005 07:30 (twenty-one years ago)

I still remember vividly the night that my brother brought home on thru the night and the first marseille album from his job at record world. those were exciting times. he would bring home all the first Iron Maiden import 12 inches too! And Motorhead of course.

― scott seward (scott seward), Saturday, 30 April 2005 10:11 (twenty-one years ago)

Hysteria was the very first tape
I put in my very first new car stereo (an audiovox)
in my very first car (Ford Escort)
back in 1987.
It passed the test.

I never got On through the night...is it rockin?

― p.j. (Henry), Saturday, 30 April 2005 14:51 (twenty-one years ago)

I think there might be a theorem behind this arrangement of shapes:

def lep
led zep

― 57 7th (calstars), Saturday, 30 April 2005 16:28 (twenty-one years ago)

Gawrsh! Ya think?

― Alex in NYC (vassifer), Sunday, 1 May 2005 14:58 (twenty-one years ago)

two years pass...

I just saw the DEF LEPPARD biopic. Goddamn, that was good. I especially liked the part where Anthony Michael Hall plays Mutt Lange.

― Richard Wood Johnson, Saturday, 11 August 2007 02:21 (eighteen years ago)

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