Am I the only one that feels this way about Def Leppard?

I like Love and Affection and think it's a good understated closing track after all that's gone on in the last hour. Excitable is crap though, the only track I've never liked on Hysteria.

 

I'm with you on this one. "Love & Affection" should have been released as a single. Great mid-tempo song with a good riff and chorus. "Excitable" is the weakest track on the album. "Tear It Down" should have been re-worked with Mutt and put on there instead.

 

I co-sign all of this.


Now back to the topic: yes, Def Leppard was good for the first three albums, including Pyromania despite its glossiness, but after that its goal to become widely popular left many of its original fans, including me, no longer interested.

 

I get what your saying, but I have to disagree. Leppard's first two album's "OTTN" & "HND" weren't heavily thought of as being influential. In fact, I think "HND" by comparison, is a poor man's "Back In Black". Their different, but in the same vein,

Now, their third album WAS the game changer. When Pyromania and the invention of MTV, "Photograph" was being played on heavy rotation, all of a sudden, up pops every hair band out of Cali trying to emulate what the boys from Sheffield had done. You seen it in the latter years with everyone from Motley Crue, Bon Jovi, & Ratt to name just a couple. That being said, their influence on the 80's music scene is undeniable.

 

I have "Pyromania" and "Hysteria" on LP. By far played the latter the most. It is a bit bombastic for me in the long run and I haven't played it a lot since then.

 

I still dig the first three D.L. albums. I was 11 years old when High-n-Dry came out and at that time I thought they were the most bad-ass band I'd ever heard. (I still say that H-n-D is one of the best air guitar albums ever made.) Pyromania was an eighth-grade favorite; my brother and I each wore out a cassette of that album.

By the time Hysteria came along four years later, though, my tastes were changing. I was getting deep into thrash metal and heavier fare in general, while they were becoming less aggressive and more "pop," so we were headed in opposite directions.

I still dig their "old" stuff, but I lost interest in them from Hysteria on.

 

I almost agree with this, except I would say that High N Dry would be more similar in comparison to AC/DC's Highway To Hell, while Pyromania would be more like Back In Black. In each case, you had the album that got them in the door for mainstream success, while the other kicked it wide open. Plus, there's still just a bit more rawness with HND and HTH, while the slick produced sound shows more on Pyro and BIB.

 

I agree, and didn't mind Hysteria, but Adrenalize is where I found they got too poppy for me! That was it for me!

 

"Pyromania"/"High 'N Dry" are my favorites by Def Leppard - Two of my favorite albums of that era. "On Through the Night" is a distant 3rd. I love some of the songs but I don't think its nearly as consistent as the 2 albums after it. I was really disappointed with Hysteria when it came out. I've made peace with it, to some degree, but it still in no way compares to it's predecessors. Adrenalize was slightly less disappointing, but probably due to lowered expectations. The band went even further downhill after that.

 

If you were to gather up all the unreleased tracks/demos recorded between Pyromamia and Hysteria, as well as the B-sides from Hysteria (like "Tear It Down" which even as a demo, is better than the version ultimately released on Adrenalize), along with the some of the tracks that got released as part of Retroactive (like "Fractured Love") there's a pretty solid, still rocking album to be had there, which easily would have pleased fans of the first three albums. It would have made a great record that could/should have been released around 1985, had everything gone as planned. Instead you had Mutt not being available for years, Rick Allen's accident..etc...which pushed the band in the sound they ended up coming out with for Hysteria.

 

Pretty sure Joe is lip syncing on this tour. At least that is what multiple people on various music boards are reporting. Some people have compared live video with the audio and they don't match up. Not sure if its all the time or doing the blend thing pop acts do.

 

I agree. In their defense, and Collens in particular, he didn't have Clark anymore to bounce Ideas off of and even though the guitar parts are pretty good, the songs turned out WAY to poppy. "Let's Get Rocked" could have been a killer arena song if they like totally changed all the lyrics lol. "Make Love Like A Man", this tune totally embarrasses my a** cause I'm a huge fan and Good GOD it suxs so bad. "White Lightening" & "Tear It Down" are the only songs worth listening to from it. It's sad to, Cause it has a killer album cover.

True. Retro-Active is a great, great album the way it is. But,,,like you said, if time in the studio were taken on these songs and re-worked some, it could have been a killer release. Favorite off Retro............."Desert Song", awesome, just awesome.

 

That would be pretty disappointing to find out.....especially since they made a big point of the fact back in the day that they never used backing tapes for the background vocals. Lip Sync can be very subjective given the size of arenas and the distance the sound is travelling. Watching a bunch of clips from this tour, Joe sounds good but like he should. Still plenty of somewhat bum notes but overall a good vocal. He seems to be selecting the passages he tries to belt out better than on past tours.

 

I'm sure your wrong....now go to your Beyonce tour where they DO lip-sync.

 

I thought about them when I saw the thread title, then I stopped thinking about them again.

 

To me, they're a pop band. Slick, overproduced, radio-friendly pop for soccer moms. Nothing I have any interest in.

 

Don't know why the hostility as I am just repeating what most people on some metal music forums are saying regarding the current tour. They are backing it up with YouTube videos of recent shows and recordings and comparing them.

Oh and this very site commented on it!!! Def Leppard's Joe Elliot Lip-Synching »


I can't stand Beyonce so not sure where that comment came from.

 

Odd considering...

 

BiB noticably more slick than Highway? To my ears the song "Touch Too Much" is about a thousand times slicker than anything on Black.

 

Pop and Rock n Roll are not the same.
"Pop" is Wham, Michael Jackson, Britney Spears and Boy Bands.
I'd hardly call Phil Collen guitar and Joe Elliott vocals Pop along those lines.
Even their most slick production is still Rock and Roll.
Oldies Rock and Roll from the 50s and early 60s or even the Beatlemania era is Pop when compared to Hard Rock forms of Rock and Roll
My point is Def Leppard is Rock and Roll even if it's Pop Rock, the Rock is still there, not so with just Pop acts.
I mean Leppard is harder than plenty of classic rock bands.

 

Congrats! Now move on or start a thread about a band you like.....and I'll tell you why no one cares

And that thread quickly died...no truth to it. Sure they have some "piped" in, but so did Van Halen.

Just pointing out that concerts like her's and all the others that dance around like a banshee like her, Brittany, Shakira, Rhiannon and the likes, lip-sync just about the whole show.

 

The first three are the best. Particularly the first one IMO. Hysteria was my 8th grade record though, and it was extremely popular. Back then, power ballads were a thing and I don't remember Hysteria being slagged by anyone really. It took some hindsight and age for us to realize how soft it really was. It's a nostalgic album for me.

 

So explain why the mic is nowhere near his mouth @2:23 but you hear his voice say "Yes, I do. Uh". That's a lead vocal part, not 'piped in' backgrounds.

 

As a HUGE Def Leppard fan since High N Dry and someone who not only owns every single official release the band has put out, plus hundreds of bootlegs beginning in 1979 through the present and has seem them live multiple times, I can say without question that there is something fishy going on with the lead vocals on this tour. You can look at the MANY YouTube clips of recent performances.

Pretty much every post and comment regarding this tour on every music forum I have seen minus the ones in this thread have commented that it appears Joe is either totally lip syncing the lead vocals, or is using a lead vocal guide track much like the pop stars you are so dismissive of. And since those pop stars at least have the excuse of "dancing around like banshees" to explain it, Joe cannot claim the same.

He lost his voice years ago which is not even debatable. Even on their official blu-ray which was undoubtedly touched up, the vocals are pretty bad. I still like it because I love live performances and sometimes a bad vocal can be as entertaining as a good technical one if the passion and intensity are still there. But to be dismissive of the facts and quite frankly rude in your responses is really uncalled for.

 

I'm not a heavy metal purist or elitist so I actually really like pop-metal music. It's fun, bright, flashy, shreddy, power pop. And some pop metal bands were legit very talented and made some great music - Def Leppard being one of them. Love the band.

Love On Through the Night and High n Dry but I personally like Pyromania and Hysteria the better out of the Steve Clarke albums. Adrenalize was a huge step back. On its own, it's an alright album, but context wise, complete wrong step for Def Leppard music wise. The album is very cliched and unlike Hysteria, a lot of the songs sound the same. Plus - way too many power ballads. It really felt like they were copying Hysteria. They should have reversed and gotten heavier and more mature with their lyricism - instead of doubling down on pop rock sound hardcore. It's well produced but it lacks Mutt Lange's painstakingly intricate production. And they suffered for it when grunge, hip hop and alternative rock killed the remnants of pop metal from the mainstream.

It's only in recent years that Def Leppard have regained credibility. Now, they aren't just looked as a glam metal band from the 80s. They're looked as just solid rock/pop/metal band