Hysteria |
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Released: August 3, 1987 Peak: 16 US, 11 UK, 15 CN, 13 AU Sales (in millions): 12.0 US, 0.6 UK, 22.0 world (includes US and UK) Genre: rock/hair band |
Tracks:Song Title (date of single release, chart peaks) Click for codes to charts.
Total Running Time: 62:32 The Players:
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Rating: 4.344 out of 5.00 (average of 23 ratings)
Quotable:“Arguably the best pop-metal ever recorded.” – Steve Huey, AllMusic.comAwards:(Click on award to learn more).
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Def Leppard’s Early DaysDef Leppard formed in 1976 in Sheffield, England. They were part of a new wave of British heavy metal in the early 1980s. Their first album, On Through the Night, reached #15 in the UK and #51 in the United States, where it went platinum. The follow-up, 1981’s High ‘n’ Dry, peaked at #26 in the UK and #38 in the United States. It bested its predecessor in sales by going double platinum.Their third album, 1983’s Pyromania, proved to be a commercial juggernaut. It “introduced a new form of highly polished, melodic heavy rock.” TB. It got to #18 in the UK and #2 in the United States where it went ten times platinum, thanks to heavy exposure on MTV with videos for “Photograph and “Rock of Ages.” Delays in Making the Fourth AlbumDef Leppard began work on an intended quick follow-up in late ’84, TB but were derailed on New Year’s Eve when drummer Rick Allen lost his arm in a car accident. To their credit, the group “stuck by their old mate,” 500 going on hiatus for most of 1985 TB and waiting for him to learn to play drums with a customized drum set built which allowed him to trigger fills with his feet. PRDuring that time, they started producing an album with “Mutt” Lange, who’d produced Pyromania, which was to be named Animal Instinct. After Lange dropped out, the band enlisted Meat Loaf songwriter Jim Steinman. He, however, was more interested in a raw rock record while the band wanted a more pristine sound. The band then tried unsuccessfully to self-produce the album. WK After Allen’s accident, work slowed, but the band stuck by their drummer’s plan “to return to the drum kit despite his disability, using a combination electronic/acoustic kit with a set of foot pedals that triggered…the hits he would have played with his left arm.” WK Eventually, Lange returned, but sessions were delayed again when he suffered injuries from a car accident and then once more when singer Joe Elliott was hit with the mumps in 1986. WK The Making of HysteriaLange was dissatisfied with what the band had done so far so they scrapped nearly all the oringla recordings and started again almost from scratch. AB They had a new name for the album suggested by Allen – Hysteria. RD Reportedly, Lange’s goal was to make the album “a hard rock version of Michael Jackson’s Thriller, in that every track was a potential hit single.” WK Like Pyromania, the members of the band were brought in separately to record. WK “The multiple vocal harmonies were enhanced by Lange’s techniques…[and] guitar parts were now focused more on emphasising melody than hard rock’s more basic and cliched riffs.” WKThe eventual release was “three years in the making at a cost of a cool million.” PR The Album’s ReceptionThe bar had been set impossibly high with the success of Pyromania. The long delay also created some nervousness about whether the public would have moved on and not be interested in Def Leppard anymore. However, instead of flopping, the resulting album was “probably Def Leppard’s best album, and certainly their most successful.” AZ Not only that, “Hysteria pretty much sums up 80s hard rock: catchy, tuneful, and fun.” AZ “Where Pyromania had set the standard for polished, catchy pop-metal, Hysteria only upped the ante.” AM “It’s also one of the few albums from the period that doesn’t sound dated now.” AZ“The strong pop hooks and ‘perfect’-sounding production of Hysteria may not appeal to die-hard heavy metal fans, but it isn’t heavy metal – it’s pop-metal, and arguably the best pop-metal ever recorded. Its blockbuster success helped pave the way for a whole new second wave of hair metal bands, while proving that the late-‘80s musical climate could also be very friendly to veteran hard rock acts, a lead many would follow in the next few years.” AM “Def Leppard may be remembered more for their hair than their music these days, but that’s more due to changing tastes than anything else. It’s still good.” AZ Not surprisingly, “some critics dismissed the record as a stiff, mechanized pop sell-out.” AM While the album had “production value bleeding from its pores” ZG and was “dripping in clichés,” ZG its “unavoidably addictive hits” ZG showed that “few…pop-metal bands…could compete with Leppard’s sense of craft; certainly none had the pop songwriting savvy to produce seven chart singles from the same album.” AM The SongsHere are thoughts on individual songs.“Women” “Animal”
“Hysteria”
“Pour Some Sugar on Me”
“Love Bites”
“Armageddon It”
“Rocket”
Notes:A 2006 deluxe edition of the album added a second CD with the original B-sides and bonus tracks from the same era. |
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First posted 3/6/2008; last updated 12/9/2024. |
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