Def Leppard 'Hysteria': C/D?

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13) the way "pour some sugar on me" was kept outta the number one spot by a power ballad (cheap trick's "the flame") so the lep went "oh, so it's like that huh? DEPLOY POWER BALLAD" and next thing you know "love bites" is the number one single.

cinniblount (James Blount), Wednesday, 19 May 2004 02:26 (nineteen years ago) link

14) Mutt Lange. I mean, that goes without saying.

Ned Raggett (Ned), Wednesday, 19 May 2004 02:27 (nineteen years ago) link

15. Great liner notes.

Barry Bruner (Barry Bruner), Wednesday, 19 May 2004 02:28 (nineteen years ago) link

16) ARMAGEDDON IT.. ARE YOU GETTING IT?

cutty (mcutt), Wednesday, 19 May 2004 02:29 (nineteen years ago) link

17) "ARE YOU EXCITABLE...ARE YOU EXCITABLE...AREYOUEXCITABLEAREYOUEXCITAREYOUAREYAREARAAAAAA..."

Ned Raggett (Ned), Wednesday, 19 May 2004 02:29 (nineteen years ago) link

17) All the saccharine-dripping fruitcake call-and-response pre-chorus shit in "Hysteria": the "I gotta know tonight/It's been a lonely night/ . . ." stuff as well as the "I'm just another guy/You're just another girl/It's just another night" stuff, always punctuated by Elliot's post-Alvin "Ooooh"s.

sundar subramanian (sundar), Wednesday, 19 May 2004 02:29 (nineteen years ago) link

Actually we're up to number 19 with that last one, next one needs to be 20!

Ned Raggett (Ned), Wednesday, 19 May 2004 02:29 (nineteen years ago) link

TS: Lep's "Rocket" vs Smashing Pumpkins' "Rocket".
I know this is a Def Leppard appreciation thread, but I've got to side with Billy & Co. It's close, though.

Barry Bruner (Barry Bruner), Wednesday, 19 May 2004 02:31 (nineteen years ago) link

they're closer than you think!

cinniblount (James Blount), Wednesday, 19 May 2004 02:31 (nineteen years ago) link

20) Speaking of "Rocket," how great is the video midsong break to T. Rex? Now that's a goddamn homage worthy of the name.

Ned Raggett (Ned), Wednesday, 19 May 2004 02:31 (nineteen years ago) link

AH NOOOOOOO FLASHBACKS FROM MIDDLE SCHOOL


and i hated the drum sound.

Kingfish Disraeli (Kingfish), Wednesday, 19 May 2004 02:33 (nineteen years ago) link

21) The first low vocodered "She's so dangerous" in "Don't Shoot Shotgun".

TS: Lep's "Rocket" vs Smashing Pumpkins' "Rocket"

DON'T MAKE ME CHOOSE

sundar subramanian (sundar), Wednesday, 19 May 2004 02:34 (nineteen years ago) link

22) YAY THAT DRUM SOUND! Rick Allen loses an arm, Lange gets millions in digital drum technology to fool around with = echoing domination from the heights.

Ned Raggett (Ned), Wednesday, 19 May 2004 02:34 (nineteen years ago) link

22) oh god that weird ass 'rooowww, Rooooow, ROOOOOW' backward (?) part of the guitar solo, such awesomeness

cinniblount (James Blount), Wednesday, 19 May 2004 02:35 (nineteen years ago) link

23) might be one of the most over-produced albums EVERRR

cutty (mcutt), Wednesday, 19 May 2004 02:36 (nineteen years ago) link

"I'm just another guy/You're just another girl/It's just another night" stuff

Oh wait, this one is actually in "Love and Affection".

24) "Hysteria" and "L&A" blend into one giant smeared-out falsetto ballad epic.

sundar subramanian (sundar), Wednesday, 19 May 2004 02:39 (nineteen years ago) link

It's taken 20 years for me to discern any melodies at all in the oceanic whooshing and wind-whipping of this record. As a Def Leppard album I dud it, but as a triumph of production over band it's classic.

High N' Dry for this teenybopper.

Ian Christe (Ian Christe), Wednesday, 19 May 2004 02:51 (nineteen years ago) link

25) Hysteria:Ian::Loveless:Dr C

sundar subramanian (sundar), Wednesday, 19 May 2004 02:56 (nineteen years ago) link

26) haha better drum sound than Loveless

sundar subramanian (sundar), Wednesday, 19 May 2004 02:58 (nineteen years ago) link

"All the saccharine-dripping fruitcake call-and-response pre-chorus shit in "Hysteria": the "I gotta know tonight/It's been a lonely night..."

It's actually, "I gotta know tonight/If your alone tonight"...;)

I memorized the lyrics from my brother's Hit Parader when I was in junior high. It doesn't get much better than "Hysteria" for power ballad goodness.

kickitcricket, Wednesday, 19 May 2004 03:44 (nineteen years ago) link

"If you're alone tonight"

kickitcricket, Wednesday, 19 May 2004 03:45 (nineteen years ago) link

Mutt Lange is a genius as I only recently realised/appreciated properly

stevem (blueski), Wednesday, 19 May 2004 09:12 (nineteen years ago) link

Dud. I'm as big a Chuck Eddy (and Ned Raggett!) fan as you'll find, but I just can't imagine why Chuck felt it deserved an entire book, because 90% of it absolutely refused to imprint itself on my memory. (Any one of their previous three, particularly Pyromania, is more worthy of praise.) Simply inferior to all its obvious sources of influence, and probably the single most lifeless "heavy metal" artifact I've ever tried to listen to (and once owned). Goes in one ear, and...nothing. I just don't get it.

Myonga Von Bontee (Myonga Von Bontee), Wednesday, 19 May 2004 11:00 (nineteen years ago) link

27) *Weird guitar noises* "AN-I-MAL"

Vinnie (vprabhu), Wednesday, 19 May 2004 12:48 (nineteen years ago) link

28) I need to go buy this album on my lunch break now.

VengaDan Perry (Dan Perry), Wednesday, 19 May 2004 12:52 (nineteen years ago) link

28) "Skin on skin ... let the love begin!"

Conor (Conor), Wednesday, 19 May 2004 12:52 (nineteen years ago) link

I'm as big a Chuck Eddy (and Ned Raggett!) fan

! Why I'm flattered, but I don't think I've quite deserved to be spoken of in the same breath. ;-)

30) To perhaps answer Myonga's point -- as I said it's an industrial-pop album in ways, but more to the point it's a pop album straight up. A huge over-the-top one of course, but that's precisely its appeal for me at least, it's a place where x ALWAYS equals x. Literally half the album became singles that charted, and while that doesn't rival all but two songs off Thriller going top ten, say, it's still something. So it CAN catch, but I think thinking of it as a heavy metal album, quotes or no quotes, actually isn't the best or only way to regard it.

Ned Raggett (Ned), Wednesday, 19 May 2004 13:16 (nineteen years ago) link

pour some sugar on me didn't go to number one??

Tracer Hand (tracerhand), Wednesday, 19 May 2004 13:49 (nineteen years ago) link

cuz it did at MY house!! i CAN'T see the flame, MFers

Tracer Hand (tracerhand), Wednesday, 19 May 2004 13:52 (nineteen years ago) link

so classic it bites

57 7th (calstars), Wednesday, 19 May 2004 15:24 (nineteen years ago) link

so classic it bites

no.. love bites.

cutty (mcutt), Wednesday, 19 May 2004 15:27 (nineteen years ago) link

C'MON STEVE

57 7th (calstars), Wednesday, 19 May 2004 15:29 (nineteen years ago) link

31) Simply the fact that the drummer had one arm and that he stayed the drummer. What utter dedication. Give the finger to the god of fate.

Gilles Meloche (Gilles Meloche), Wednesday, 19 May 2004 15:32 (nineteen years ago) link

I don't know if this has been mentioned but the SINISTER REAGAN SAMPLES are what inch it even more towards classic

this will be played heavily at my delusions of grandeur party, even though this album's grandeur is earned!

Gear! (Gear!), Wednesday, 19 May 2004 15:52 (nineteen years ago) link

I don't know if this has been mentioned but the SINISTER REAGAN SAMPLES are what inch it even more towards classic

There's number 32!

"THEY COUNTED WRONG."

Ned Raggett (Ned), Wednesday, 19 May 2004 15:53 (nineteen years ago) link

*missile sounds*

Gear! (Gear!), Wednesday, 19 May 2004 15:55 (nineteen years ago) link

28) I need to go buy this album on my lunch break now.

Dammit I do too. In late middle school, I worked for a landscaping company raking leaves in the huge rich-people yards in the neighborhood where the governor's mansion is located in Nashville. I'm pretty sure Hysteria was the only thing I ever listened to on my walkman while doing that... It used to take me an entire 6-8 hour day to rake one of those yards, and I'd listen on repeat/auto-reverse the whole time.

Simply the fact that the drummer had one arm and that he stayed the drummer. What utter dedication

Rick Allen also managed to get arrested for assaulting his wife with only one arm. I tell ya the guy just never gave up in the face of tragedy.

martin m. (mushrush), Wednesday, 19 May 2004 16:04 (nineteen years ago) link

Um, I think I've already written enough about this album. (= my whole second book, more or less.) That said, I haven't listened to it for years. (maybe because i wrote a whole book about it?) also, when i first heard it, i didn't like it at all. then i named the title (easybeats/raspberries/cheap trick as, er, muzak) ballad as a top ten single, and then the red light yellow light green light go crazy little woman in the one man show rap kicked in, then g.g. killer queen dizzy lizzy benny and the jets and all of "rocket"'s dub-metal, and then the rhinoceros in that one video and the t. rex riffs and everything. right now, i'd say i probably prefer pyromania, and if forced i'd maybe even be more likely to listen to either of the first two albums, just 'cause the songs are shorter (maybe punchier too?). but i'm still not martin popoff, who in HIS metal book loved the first three records and then gave hysteria 0.0 out of 10.0. Part of what makes the album so great, i think, is that metal guys DO hate it.
Plus it totally invented Shania Twain (among lots of other things).

chuck, Wednesday, 19 May 2004 16:34 (nineteen years ago) link

Shania Twain was born when Rick Allen's lost arm was zapped with radiocativity!

Gilles Meloche (Gilles Meloche), Wednesday, 19 May 2004 17:07 (nineteen years ago) link

There's good discussion on this thread:

The decline and fall of Mutt Lange

including mention of British tv documentary about making the album, which I wouldn't mind seeing.

I like it, but Pyromania will always mean more to me, even as I recognize Hysteria is certainly the more strange record, a singular document. I just like the tunes better on the earlier record.

Broheems (diamond), Wednesday, 19 May 2004 17:15 (nineteen years ago) link

Supa-Classic.

Andrzej B. (Andrzej B.), Wednesday, 19 May 2004 18:52 (nineteen years ago) link

Well, I'm wicked late to this thread, but to answer the question:

DUDD!!!!

Def Leppard officially stopped mattering after the last note strcuk on Pyromania. After said album, the boys ditched all their sonic ties to the NWOBHM that spawned them and basically attempted to become a vaguely metallic version of Wham! I, for one, have never forgiven them.

Alex in NYC (vassifer), Wednesday, 19 May 2004 18:55 (nineteen years ago) link

a vaguely metallic version of Wham

But that's brilliant!

Ned Raggett (Ned), Wednesday, 19 May 2004 18:59 (nineteen years ago) link

ha ha

The Huckle-Buck (Horace Mann), Wednesday, 19 May 2004 19:07 (nineteen years ago) link

Alex NYC in hating fun shocker!

Ricardo (RickyT), Wednesday, 19 May 2004 21:01 (nineteen years ago) link

There's only 92 albums that I know I like more!

Anthony Miccio (Anthony Miccio), Wednesday, 19 May 2004 21:04 (nineteen years ago) link

Wham! were never nearly so prog; Human League makes WAY more sense:

http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&uid=UIDSUB020405181212270411&sql=A8isxlfde5cqq

chuck, Wednesday, 19 May 2004 21:07 (nineteen years ago) link

Heh, nice. You included the quote about how Phil Oakey said that Def Leppard were a Sheffield synth group like the HL in one of the books, didn't you? Or so I recall.

Ned Raggett (Ned), Wednesday, 19 May 2004 21:09 (nineteen years ago) link

"Fun" is a relative term. If you consider "fun" to be defanged, sugar-coated soylent green, then you just go right on ahead and choke yourself down some, Rickyboy.

Alex in NYC (vassifer), Wednesday, 19 May 2004 22:28 (nineteen years ago) link

Soylent Green is made of Leppard!

Anthony Miccio (Anthony Miccio), Wednesday, 19 May 2004 22:29 (nineteen years ago) link

these songs were incredibly fun live last year too, even without the insane layered vocals that you get on the album

Neanderthal, Monday, 4 September 2017 22:44 (six years ago) link

xp 3rd Grade me needed "Excitable."

billstevejim, Tuesday, 5 September 2017 03:22 (six years ago) link

although outside of nostalgic context I guess I can hear it possessing some annoying qualities (foreshadowing "Let's Get Rocked")

billstevejim, Tuesday, 5 September 2017 03:25 (six years ago) link

AAAH AAAH!
OOOH OOOH!

more Allegro-like (Turrican), Tuesday, 5 September 2017 06:11 (six years ago) link

Easily my favourite band to come out of Sheffield, America.

more Allegro-like (Turrican), Tuesday, 5 September 2017 06:13 (six years ago) link

if "excitable" was just the intro stretch out to 5 minutes that would be a good song

billstevejim, Tuesday, 5 September 2017 07:15 (six years ago) link

The Killers nicked the guitar part from 'Women' and used it as the synth part in 'Smile Like You Mean It'

more Allegro-like (Turrican), Tuesday, 5 September 2017 18:01 (six years ago) link

four months pass...

Now available on all your favourite streaming services

http://teamrock.com/news/2018-01-19/def-leppard-now-on-streaming-services-announce-hysteria-uk-and-ireland-tour

groovypanda, Friday, 19 January 2018 10:48 (six years ago) link

!

Johnny Fever, Friday, 19 January 2018 12:58 (six years ago) link

Great that finally worked out for them. (The band obv, screw the label.)

Ned Raggett, Friday, 19 January 2018 14:59 (six years ago) link

yessssssssss

Spottie, Friday, 19 January 2018 16:39 (six years ago) link

I'm a HUGE Def Leppard fan ("Hysteria" is my favorite album), and I'm so glad their catalog is finally available digitally.

With that said, I've got to say the recent Rock & Roll Hall of Fame induction news for Bon Jovi kinda bugged me, so I put together a detailed "face-off" comparing the 2 bands to show which one is REALLY more "worthy" of the honor.

I think you'll find it interesting...Feel free to share it!

"Bon Jovi, but not Def Leppard? For Shame Rock & Roll Hall of Fame!"
https://www.nostalgiclogic.com/bon-jovi-not-def-leppard-shame/

Nostalgic Logic, Saturday, 20 January 2018 23:17 (six years ago) link

posting the same post on two different threads is about as necessary as a drummer having two arms

del griffith, Sunday, 21 January 2018 00:12 (six years ago) link

MEAN

Squeaky Fromage (VegemiteGrrl), Sunday, 21 January 2018 01:27 (six years ago) link

it can be frustrating dealing with dismissive co-workers, those who are very comfortable routinely doing the same inefficient thing over and over. These folks have simply “accepted” the way things are done, and the most effort you’ll get from them is when they challenge your new ideas.

i am a skinematographer (Noodle Vague), Sunday, 21 January 2018 01:31 (six years ago) link

Promo photo for the forthcoming tour is textbook 'men who look like old lesbians' tbh.

Bimlo Horsewagon became Wheelbarrow Horseflesh (aldo), Sunday, 21 January 2018 13:09 (six years ago) link

Love bites, Animal & Hysteria are all still 10/10

i know kore-eda (or something), Sunday, 21 January 2018 15:53 (six years ago) link

Here in Greenville, as the second year of Trump dawned, Stormy Daniels spread out a taupe fleece blanket on stage, dropped to her knees, arched her back and began to squirt a bottle of lotion onto her chest to the sound of “Animal” by Def Leppard, as the president’s face flashed on video screens behind her.

Josh in Chicago, Sunday, 21 January 2018 18:12 (six years ago) link

Love bites, Animal & Hysteria are all still 10/10

And Armageddon It too surely

groovypanda, Monday, 22 January 2018 09:13 (six years ago) link

two years pass...

Euphoria hitting the spot this morning. Not as familiar with this album but it seems more of a successor to Hysteria than Adrenalize was

chonky floof (groovypanda), Friday, 7 August 2020 10:41 (three years ago) link

two years pass...

The way the first verse of Sugar is just these massive Tackhead Test Dept jackhammer beats and nothing else for 11 seconds

you can see me from westbury white horse, Thursday, 24 November 2022 17:58 (one year ago) link

I remember reading that the snare sound is this pile of sampled hand claps and just about everything but acoustic snare.

Josh in Chicago, Thursday, 24 November 2022 18:00 (one year ago) link

Probably why it sounds like tissue paper

a blunt toothcomb (Matt #2), Thursday, 24 November 2022 18:20 (one year ago) link

The way the first verse of Sugar is just these massive Tackhead Test Dept jackhammer beats and nothing else for 11 seconds


Yes. This album is incredible, I really fell for it hard the last couple of years.

lets hear some blues on those synths (brimstead), Thursday, 24 November 2022 18:52 (one year ago) link

I think if this album had failed commercially it would have inspired a hipster hair metal reevaluation in the 2010s

The album that came after Pyromania. Nothing else.

Part of this is personal; Pyromania was the soundtrack to my 8th Grade, the album that burned the brightest as I tried to learn about hard rock music without the benefit of a Kiss-loving older brother or sister, the biggest gateway for all that came afterwards.

But the thing about gateways is that you move onto other things from them, and by the time Hysteria came out I was past radio fare (actually was probably dealing with that familiar stupid adolescent rebellion towards what I once loved) and was into underground stuff and the burgeoning thrash scene was as "mainstream" as I was willing to go with. Hysteria was a blip on my radar.

But part of this is more objective, since Pyromania shits over Hysteria no matter what criteria one wishes to employ.

Loud guitars shit all over "Bette Davis Eyes" (NYCNative), Friday, 25 November 2022 20:20 (one year ago) link

"number of songs with puns in the lyrics"?

Vance Vance Devolution (sic), Friday, 25 November 2022 20:23 (one year ago) link


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