Note: my edition is not the 2006 Deluxe Edition.
Another pop metal home run from Def Leppard and Mutt Lange. All you really need to know is that this is the album that contains my pick for all-time top Def Leppard song, Pour Some Sugar On Me. When I bought this CD at a Walmart in north San Antonio around 1994, I immediately skipped to that song (track 5), rolled down the windows of my Ford Explorer and blasted the song as loud as I could. Yeah, I was that guy.
Much of the album's success can be attributed to MTV which, by 1987, had pretty much turned its back on New Wave/alternative and showed more metal than anything else. But don't discount the fact that it's a solid release. In fact, critic Steve Huey writes that the album is "arguably the best pop-metal ever recorded."
Clocking in at 62 and a half minutes, the album was one of the longest albums issued on a single vinyl record. By comparison, Sting's album released around the same time (...Nothing Like The Sun) was 55 minutes spread across a two album set.
Album chart peaks:
- US Billboard 200: #1 (5 weeks)
- Billboard Pop CD: #3
- CashBox CD: #1
- Rolling Stone: #3
Tracks:
Lots of hits on this one:
| U.S. charted singles: | Hot 100 | Rock |
| Women | 80 | 7 |
| Rocket | 12 | 5 |
| Animal | 19 | 5 |
| Love Bites | 1 | 3 |
| Pour Some Sugar On Me | 2 | 25 |
| Armageddon It | 3 | 3 |
| Hysteria | 10 | 9 |
To recap, 7 of the album's 12 tracks charted. I'll rank those 7 for ya:
- Pour Sugar On Me
- Animal
- Hysteria
- Armageddon It
- Rocket
- Women
- Love Bites
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| For more information on the brief life of the CD longbox, go visit The Legend of the Longbox. |
Personal Memory Associated with this CD: this is a "Lost Summer of Mark" album.
Previously revisited for the blog:
Adrenalize (1992)
Tales From The Sparkle Lounge (2008)
Pyromania (1983)
The Summer of 1980 was a magnificent one for HERC. He spent most of it in town with friends rather than with his grandparents and spent a great deal of time prepping for his freshman year of high school football. The rest of the time was spent listening to music and trying to get with the ladies. On the first day of school that fall as they waited at the bus stop, Robbie Rottet showed up with a black guitar case. Emblazoned on one side was the unmistakable logo of AC/DC. On the other side of the case was the new to HERC logo of Def Leppard. Becuase of their respective after-school activities, he and HERC couldn't get together until the weekend when HERC went to his house so they could listen to his older brother's albums. That afternoon they must have listend to a dozen rock albums, all of which were new to HERC, and one of them was Def Leppard's debut album On Through The Night. HERC was a fan from the needle dropping on "Rock Brigade". By the next Summer, HERC's family were moving and he lost touch with Robbie. Found out two years ago that had passed under mysterious circumstances leaving behind a legacy of his own poetry and music. (If you're interested search Robert Rottet) That sad day saw HERC listening to those 12 albums they had listened to back in August 1980:
ReplyDeleteOn Through The Night - Def Leppard
Crimes of Passion - Pat Benatar
Back In Black - AC/DC
Permanent Waves - Rush
Panorama - The Cars
Animal Magnetism - Scorpions
Freedom Of Choice - Devo
Love Stinks - J. Geils Band
Against The Wind - Bob Seger
Bebe Le Strange - Heart
Iron Maiden - Iron Maiden
Departure - Journey
When Leppard's next album High N Dry came out, it was the first album HERC bought once his fam had moved into a house here in the desert in the fall of 1981 and he bought it wthout hearing a single song first and immediately loved it from beginning to end. 1983's Pyromania was equally as awesome and HERC saw the band live for the first of three times in September 1983. Then Hysteria hit. It was the last time HERC remembers everyone he knew listening to the same album for what felt like months and he was fortunate enough to see the band again with their bionic drummer in November 1987 and August 1988.
Thnaks for this post on this day, sir.
It does the heart good to know that the Soft Rock Kid® throws on his cape every now and again to become the Hard Rock Kid™... There's no question that our streets are safer when the HRK's on patrol!
ReplyDeleteCape? HAH. You know he pulls a spiked, leather gauntlet out of his drawer and laces it up across his forearm. Then he becomes the HRK™.
DeleteSuffice it to say that SRK has savoir faire.
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