Def Leppard 'Hysteria': C/D?

1. photograph
2. animal
3. now
4. armageddon it
5. hysteria

all of those songs are catchy, melodic, and even get me nostalgic

Stumpus Maximus is, in fact, the band's tour manager Malvin Mortimer, and "The Good Ol' Boys" are Def Leppard. It's not a regular version of the old Engelbert Humperdinck song. With every verse, Stumpus is singing higher, until the end when he does nothing but screaming. It was meant as a joke, and was released as the B-side of the "Rocket" single and other singles.

Malvin became somewhat of a celebrity in '88 when some DJ's in Greece began playing the b-side instead of the usual A-side.

Yes. (Now that I finally have it too.)

I'm an idiot.

Whatever. Hysteria doesn't hold a candle to Pyromania. That is all.

So Hysteria: dud for production, classic for the actual songs, and doesn't vaguely measure up to the preceding two albums.

And all these weird CoolEdited, Pro-Tooled, compressed rock records from Nickelback and P.O.D. that get released these days can all trace their family tree back to this record. God bless Rick Allen for having heart in the face of adversity, but a one-armed man does not belong on the drummer's stool for a rock record. I've got factory preset drumtracks on my cheap four-track at home that have more soul than Rick Allen's drumming.

And keep in mind that I LIKE Def Leppard.

The fact that, as is noted above, the design theme of the album appears to have been Tron just makes it all the cooler.

alex totes OTM....pyromania is a better pop record AND a better hard rock record than hysteria. better singles, mo' rockin' jointz.

high n' dry is hella underrated too.

i've never heard on thru the night, but i'm afraid it can't live up to that huge guitar haulin' big rig cover.

Pyromania is the only good reason to love Def Leppard. Maybe High 'n' Dry. I can see the kitsch/horror appeal of Hysteria (and the appeal is VAST, don't get me wrong), but I'm perfectly happy to let other people enjoy those terrible laffs.

Plus the associations are bad. When people who annoy me sober get drunk, they seem to LOVE THE SHIT out of Hysteria. Bro slapping, titty-shaking purgatory. Makes it hard to join the hug circle.

rock of ages, photograph, foolin', too late for love, etc etc

Specifically addressing that, David Fricke's liner notes for the reissue indicate that nearly all the songs were not only written well in advance of the final recording but had been gone through live in studio at least a few times. (I have to say I actually think he did a great job on these liner notes in particular -- it's the best accounting of the album I've read yet.)

GOT THE REISSUE HOLY SHIT

Considering that myself. But the original sounded pretty good (was a digital recording after all) and they should have reissued "Pyromania" at first.

I heard...or, rather, saw the video, for "Animal" recently, and it completely cemented my argument. Hysteria is poop (and no amount of re-mastering/re-tweaking will save it).

"Animal" is nowhere near the best song on Hysteria, you madman.

It's my favorite, but "Gods of War" (which, holy christ, after the remix sounds like Front 242) and "Rocket" nip at its heels.

"Animal" is nowhere near the best song on Hysteria, you madman.

That's akin to saying that it's not the stinkiest turd in the septic tank. POOP IS POOP.

No it isn't!

Yes it is!

http://www1.istockphoto.com/file_thumbview_approve/1721346/2/istockphoto_1721346_kids_fighting.jpg

REVIVE:

Vindifuckincation: In John Sellers' new memoir, Perfect From Now On: How Indie Rock Saved My Life, the scribe says....

I'd deemed Hysteria the most disappointing album of all time, and it still might be: next to Pyromania it is an overproduced, castrated, one-armed bore.

Fuckin' AMEN!

The songs are strong, but it's all too glossy and sterile-sounding. It's too bad, because Def Leppard had a really good sense of melody among the hair-metal bands.

"C'mon, Steve!"

martin popoff famously rated this 0 out of 10 in his much esteemed guide to heavy metal!!!

Who the fuck is John Sellers?

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/7/74/JohnSellers-1961SICover.jpg/445px-JohnSellers-1961SICover.jpg
Gunter glieben glauchen globen!

I watched the Hysteria episode of Classic Albums last night and I've got even more respect for it now. The detail with which this thing was crafted is mindboggling. I never knew the cut up backwards vocal bits in "Rocket" were actually the choruses of "Gods of War" and "Love Bites".

Yeah, I need to watch that -- only just learned the whole series was on Netflix Instant, friend Stripey said it was a stellar episode.

There's a bit where Phil is talking about how Mutt brought the song "Love Bites" to the band as a country ballad he'd written, and proceeds to demonstrate the opening verse in that style. IT ALL CLICKS NOW. It really is a country song run through the Def Leppard machine.

yeah I really love that Classic Albums ep. the Love Bits cutups were a nice surprise.

BITES ragh

Happy 25th birthday! Released August 3, 1987.

Adrien wrote a great piece about it today:

http://social.entertainment.msn.com/music/blogs/headbang-blogpost.aspx?post=b9f0d5a5-25ec-4d1f-b9bc-c6e30e0ed424

Though it's not my favorite Def Leppard album, goddamn it's a a beauty.

There's not a bad song on it! Well, I mean 'Don't shoot shotgun' is kinda *shrug* but it's not horrible and all things considered it doesn't interrrupt the flow of the album at all. You can listen to this whole thing and rock out the whole time.

bless their poppy little hearts