![]() ![]() 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. 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. Rex, particularly on the playfully silly anthem "Pour Some Sugar on Me," and the British glam rock tribute "Rocket," while power ballads like "Love Bites" and the title track lack the histrionics or gooey sentimentality of many similar offerings. Joe Elliott's lyrics owe an obvious debt to his obsession with T. But Def Leppard's music had always employed big, anthemic hooks, and few of the pop-metal bands who had hit the charts in the wake of Pyromania could compete with Leppard's sense of craft certainly none had the pop songwriting savvy to produce seven chart singles from the same album, as the stunningly consistent Hysteria did. Pyromania's slick, layered Mutt Lange production turned into a painstaking obsession with dense sonic detail on Hysteria, with the result that some critics dismissed the record as a stiff, mechanized pop sellout (perhaps due in part to Rick Allen's new, partially electronic drum kit). Animal simply reached out of the sound system and pulled you in head-first, sonically pure, as slick as anything written by Journey but with claws of its own, it was a summation of both band and the age it emerged into.Where Pyromania had set the standard for polished, catchy pop-metal, Hysteria only upped the ante. Written in 1984, tortuously assembled over the next two and half years, it’s a tribute to the band and Lange’s never-say-die perfectionism. If a single tune encompassed both the difficulty and the glory of making Hysteria, it was its breakout song. Hysteria is the moment that Def Leppard made their bones as classic writers. Here is a simply magnificent piece of work, smoky, sultry, full of grown-up yearning. HysteriaĪs the decades have passed, it has become apparent that Hysteria’s lowest-key and least bombastic song has given the record its timeless edge. Dressed to perfection by Lange, it was impossible to live through the late 1980s without having this chorus in your head for days on end. That riff has earned its corn ever since: Pour Some Sugar… is reputed to be the hit that finally enabled Leppard to recoup the cost of four years in the studio. The legend goes that Joe Elliott teased the riff for ‘Pour Some Sugar…’ out of an old acoustic guitar during a production break very near the completion of Hysteria. It was a definite twist, with an acid-tongued lyric playing against the immaculate soundscape, and built for night-time radio. Lange was a maestro of the power ballad (what else would you expect from a man who’d steered the immaculate sounds of The Cars and Foreigner) and here he took the essential formula and constructed Def Leppard’s edgier version. That gloriously memorable ascent from verse (‘Hey, but are you getting it…’) to bridge (‘gimme all of your lovin’) to punning chorus line (‘Armageddon it’) is pure gold, a synthesis of all that Leppard were about, from shimmering guitar arpeggios to flat-out bludgeon riffola. The chorus is supreme, easily an equal melodically to Armageddon It or Pour Some Sugar…, yet Lange, perhaps conscious of the overall dynamic of the record, chooses to accent it differently, a tonal change that adds a classic, cooler touch. Strange that a song of such quality sits only in the middle of the pack, but such are the delights remaining that Gods Of War often gets lost in the shuffle. Led Zeppelin IV: every song ranked from worst to best.The Thursday Death Match: Pyromania versus Hysteria.He told them that too many bands were copying their sound and they needed to set themselves apart from the pack. Every song on Queen's Greatest Hits, ranked from worst to best.1987 Preview When Def Leppard arrived at the follow-up to their mega-selling third album, 1983’s Pyromania, producer Mutt Lange shared his vision with the Sheffield heavy metal crew. ![]() Hysteria began to head into stone-cold classic territory with ‘Rocket’, a song designed for radio with its giant gang-vocal chorus, made superior by the beauty of the sound – everything from Rick Allen’s drums on the intro to the multi-tracked vocal that renders the line ‘I’ll be your satellite of love’ as a single mellifluous word, is chillingly perfect. That objection aside, as a sonic statement of intent Lange throws everything at the album’s first minute or so, the digital crunch of the guitars harmonised perfectly with deep, subtle synths and layer upon layer of back-notes. Some of the record’s punning and wordplay works terrifically well, but ‘women, women, lots of pretty women/men, men we can’t live without them’ is more Dana Strum than Def Leppard. What’s wrong with being sexy? The aforementioned Nigel Tufnel’s immortal question haunts Women, Hysteria’s opener. ![]()
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