Def Leppard 'Hysteria': C/D?

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

I loved it at the time, but now I have to mentally separate it from what came before in order to appreciate it. I love, love, love High 'N' Dry (the best 80s AC/DC album they never made), and this has nothing from that band - even the singer has lost some power in the intervening years. As its own thing, however, it's a monumental beast.

Eh, even as a kid this one disappointed me. It's not all band, but it's SUCH a letdown after what came before.

"Pour Some Sugar On Me" has a great chorus. That's about all I can really say for it. They only got wimpier and more out of touch from here.

I read that the clean chords in "Hysteria" were recorded one note at a time, just layered brick by brick. What insane attention to detail on this album.

Probably mentioned already on this thread but well worth the viewing:

http://www.amazon.com/Classic-Albums-Def-Leppard-Hysteria/dp/B0000649L7

^^^ still my favorite episode

EZ otm - High N Dry is badass, Pyromania is killer too...Hysteria's nothing really close to those, but yeah, as its own album it's pretty great.

It's funny - I"m listening to "Don't Shoot Shotgun" at the moment and there are enough different sections, hooks and sounds to build a competent pop/rock album from it's disparate parts. And that's one of the songs most people consider filler! Truly is a crazy amount of work and detail in every song.

I lack the imagination to imagine a world without "Animal" in it.

That Classic Albums documentary of Hysteria might just be my favourite Classic Albums documentary of them all; the amount of effort put into the making of that album was beyond incredible, not to mention they come across as incredibly down-to-earth during the interviews.

i don't get the complaints about 'hysteria', it's a masterpiece. it made everything after look worse than it already was. though i mean adrenalize looked bad in any context i guess.

Oh god, Adrenalize is a terrible album. In my humble opinion, anyway!

adrenalize was probably the most disappointing album of my youth, it's like the ghostbusters 2 of pop metal.

adrenalize is worse than terrible. AWFUL

adrenalize was probably the most disappointing album of my youth, it's like the ghostbusters 2 of pop metal.
--omar little

booming post

adrenalize was probably the most disappointing album of my youth

appreciate this but wd remind the jury this is a board where people rep for the Smiths

There are some songs I like on Adrenalize, but I'm willing to admit they sound like Hysteria rejects.

MOW THE LAWN!
WALK THE DOG!
TAKE OUT THE TRASH!

Not that one! That song is criminally bad. (And its video is even worse.)

It strikes me as weird that this multi-platinum album that was almost inescapable in pop culture for over a calendar year now has sort of a cult following.

MOW THE LAWN!
WALK THE DOG!
TAKE OUT THE TRASH!

― set the controls for the heart of the sun (VegemiteGrrl), Saturday, August 4, 2012 4:30 AM (5 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

LET'S GET THE ROCK OUTTA HERE!!!

...I suppose a rock's outta the question?

Please, no more ipecacs.

My brothers and I sang "Let's Get Rocked" as "Lesbian Rock" (including the obligatory "lesbo all the way"), so I don't think I ever paid much attention to whether the original song was as awesome as our version.

One of my brothers also thought "Pour Some Sugar On Me" was called "Awesome Shoot Hombre".

"Awesome shoot, hombre, in the name of love."

Hmm...could work.

there was that dumb commercial where the guy sings 'Pour Some Shook Up Ramen"

Okay this was fun to write:

http://thequietus.com/articles/09833-def-leppard-hysteria

:D

Love the idea of this album, but the non-single tracks are almost all dogs, which was a drag when I had it on cassette. Perfect disc for the MP3 era, however, when I can cull it down to its hits, which are so monolithically hit-like they totally make up for the dross.

Huge as this album was, lotta people forget that "Pyromania" was the second highest selling album of 1983 after "Thriller."

but the non-single tracks are almost all dogs

I'm willing to meet you half way on this, but then there's the fact that "Gods of War" might be the best track on the whole album and it wasn't a single.

More than the other also-rans, at least I can hum that one, but I guess the lyrics sink it for me.

Marvelous fun, Ned. Unfortunately we still get comments like this:

This was rock/metal for people who didn’t like the aforementioned. Massively over-produced, polished, and made for FM radio mass appeal. Perhaps the nadir of stadium poodle-permed rock. However, the reaction against this record was seismic – the Seattle bands, Faith No More, Jane’s Addiction, Pixies… Hysteria should be celebrated as the catalyst for bringing about something far more interesting that was about to happen in rock music…

My second to last paragraph in particular was JUST for them. As well as the earlier one about the continued complaining of 'true metal' types.

Nice read! ANd if your second to last paragraph was aimed at them, you and Def Leppard both have a slightly warmer place in my heart now.

:-)

After reading your piece, I think maybe Def Leppard is about two degrees away from something I would totally dig – not metal but more something like two degrees away from The Buggles? All the glam influence/expensive production/cyberpunk underpinnings, looks like something I would dig! IDK maybe I should listen to it again. I just hate Pour Some Sugar On Me so much.

I don't totally hate it for how it SOUNDS, well I do, but it's also anti-nostalgia of having to hear it every night when I worked graveyard shift making donuts with a bunch of gnarly bros.

Eurgh. Yeah I wouldn't blame you for that. Try maybe a one/two of the songs "Hysteria" and "Love and Affection" when it's late afternoon/early evening, you're feeling relaxed and the sun's hitting magic hour glow.

"Hysteria" is a wonderful, wonderful song

It takes genius to mix a song so that it sparkles as brightly as "Hysteria."

Is that the track where they recorded each string individually to make chords?

Thanks Ned, that was great!

Mr Veg & I listened to Hysteria on a recent car trip too, and we were both grinning & singing the whole way. There's a heck of a lot of fun at the heart of that album, for sure.

Hysteria's the best. Def my favorite track.

"Hysteria," the song, is I think the one that cribs from "Every Breath You Take."

There's a great bit in the Classic Albums documentary where Phil Collen talked how he, Steve Clark and Lange worked on breaking down all the guitar parts so it was much more textured than simply a straightforward riff ever would be, and I think "Hysteria" was the song used as an example. Certainly would make sense!