In their forty-three year (!) recording career, it isn’t unfair to say UK rock stalwarts Def Leppard are known for a pretty steady formula and approach of, in the main, pristine, polished hard rock songs, centred in an eighties sheen. Most of us could recognise a Def Leppard-style song without too much difficulty, and they aren’t (a few deviations – RetroActive, Slang, Taylor Swift, and Ghostly interactions – aside) known for their musical risk-taking or surprises.
Def Leppard will celebrate the 33rd anniversary of its mega-selling album “Hysteria” with a week of special events. Kicking things off will be a listening party and live chat with guitarist Phil Collen today (Monday, August 3) at 9 a.m. PST, as well as a 33% off discount store-wide for the whole week.Def Leppard says: “Follow along with the Def Leppard social channels all week long as we celebrate the album anniversary with ‘Hysteria’ artifacts, commentary, music videos, merch, a contest giveaway, and more!”
After many years of eligibility, Def Leppard was inducted into The Rock N Roll Hall of Fame last night. Inducted by their friend and peer, Dr. Brian May of Queen, the band was gracious and overcome with happiness. Band members entering the Rock Hall include the current lineup — Joe Elliott, guitarists Phil Collen and Vivian Campbell, bassist Rick Savage and drummer Rick Allen along with founding guitarist Pete Willis and late guitarist Steve Clark. For the performance part of the evening, the band played four of its biggest hits: ‘Hysteria’, ‘Rock Of Ages’, ‘Photograph’ and ‘Pour Some Sugar On Me’. The 2019 Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame concluded with an all-star performance of David Bowie’s “All The Young Dudes”, featuring Def Leppard, Ian Hunter, May, Steve Van Zandt, The Bangles’ Susanna Hoffs, and The Zombies’ Rod Argent. HBO will broadcast a truncated version of the ceremony on Saturday, April 27 at 8 p.m. EST.Continue reading
Def Leppard are riding high on their nomination to the Rock And Roll Hall of Fame, will release The Story So Far – The Best Of and Hysteria: The Singles on November 30th. The band will also release a special custom colored vinyl of their other hit album Pyromania in December to coincide with their UK tour with Cheap Trick. You can pre-order The Story So Far – The Best Of right now and get their recent cover of Depeche Mode’s ‘Personal Jesus’ and their Christmas song ‘We All Need Christmas’ right now. Continue reading
One of the long grave omissions of the DSP music streaming experience, Def Leppard have resolved a dispute with their record label Universal Records and their entire catalog of classic and recent albums have hit all streaming services today. One of the most iconic and commercially popular heavy metal bands ever, selling over 100 million albums in their storied career, and their albums are now available on all services worldwide. Continue reading
Riding the crest of the wave of positivity that 2015’s self-titled album (earMUSIC) garnered, Def Leppard’s subsequent tour was equally well received. To celebrate and mark the occasion And There Will Be A Next Time (Eagle Rock Entertainment) was conceived – a double CD live album accompanied by a DVD of the same performance.Continue reading
Unmistakeable. Distinctive from the very outset, Def Leppard’s eponymous new release (earMUSIC) starts off with Joe Elliott’s unambiguous voice asking “Do you really want to do this now?” over a quiet build before a slick guitar lick leads us into some stabbed power chords and album eleven is up and running in their own inimitable style.
Let’s get the obvious bits and bobs out the way first… No, it’s not as classic as Pyromania or Hysteria (Vertigo/Mercury) – it was never, ever going to be; that’s like expecting Metallica to hit the stardust and repeat Master of Puppets (Electra/Vertigo) – but, no, it’s not as saccharine as Adrenalize (Mercury/Bludgeon Riffola), and no, it’s certainly not boring, staid or irrelevant. In fact, it’s interesting how the electricity and energy courses through, with ‘Energized’ lyrically appropriate about how the band seem to have taken a shot in the arm.
Freed from the confines of pressures imposed by others, and without the pressure of writing to appease a label, the Leps got together to jam songs for an EP and ended with their walls down, letting the tide of creativity flow around them, and a whole album in their laps, with songs ‘We Belong’, ‘Let’s Go’ and in particular the excellent ‘Dangerous’ pure top grade Leppard. On top of the traditional Leppard fare that litters the album, ‘Sea of Love’ brings some playful blues, ‘Man Enough’ grooves in with a huge finger-clicking, neck-bobbing funking bass guurrrroove, ‘All Time High’ runs with the Boss and ‘Battle of my Own’ borrows from acoustic Zeppelin .
Relevance has become a redundant concept for bands and that Def Leppard are still going strong a full 35 years after their inception is testament to the fact that, even during creative lulls there is sufficient quality in the band to keep hundreds of thousands of fans engaged and along for the ride; this is a band that give lessons in every song in how to write hooks and, in their sleep, knock out better choruses than most other bands can dream of.
Yes, to a large extent, you know what you’re going to get, but in this case that’s not a bad thing. There will be detractors, and the album does, in true Leps style, tail off a bit towards the end before ‘Blind Faith’ closes things off with class and nods to The Beatles. But, hey facts, kids… Def Leppard is an hour of quality classic hard rock tunes, and the fact that you’re listening to the best Def Leppard album since their heyday nigh on thirty years ago, is more than enough.
8.0/10
STEVE TOVEY