They used to sound like this?

[Nuclear Vampire]

On Through The Night and High & Dry are their best albums. Pyromania was decent, but they went to shit after releasing Hysteria.

Yup. Hysteria was terrible and sadly they haven't done anything good since. I loved High N Dry back in the day - played my tape until it wore out and I had to buy another one.

[thetroy]

I still like Hysteria and Pyromania, but High 'N' Dry is fucking badass

[toejam]

They covered "Diamonds & Rust" from Priest.

So they covered a Judas Priest song which was a cover of a Joan Baez song? :ROTF:

[Newc]

Well, Toe, it's like Hendrix doing a Bob Dylan song - Dylan can write, but can't sing worth a crap. He needs someone else to do his songs right

[toejam]

LOL I remembered Joan Baez actually sounded fine, though.

[j2379]

yeah they were a kick ass rockNroll band......then....aerosmith syndrome....another band the went from kick ass rock & roll to pure ass

[skorb]

after the drummer lost one of his two arms they only rocked half as hard.

seriously, I got On Through the Night when it came out, and it was OK. you could tell it was made by 18 yr olds.

High and Dry and Pyromania were their best albums.

I saw em with Krokus and Gary Moore in 1983 at City Island in Harrisburg PA. now that was a great show.

[Number Of The Priest]

Here's a clip where they explain why they release soft songs as singles.

http://download79.mediafire.com/nuwxemi4erxg/f5iorxd7mym/def+leppard+-+vh1+storytellers+-+10+-+question+and+answer.mp3

Also includes a bit of "Wasted" being played.

[necrotechno]

after the drummer lost one of his two arms they only rocked half as hard.

But he could still beat up his wife. Amazing.

[Gartron]

I loved Leppard back in the day, Steve Clarks every man solo's were a real inspiration to me , they fit the songs perfectly when everyone else seemed to be going a million miles an hour.

have to say though, agree with Skorb I never could get into On through the night and much prefered the next two.

Real shame what they've become now through and especially to have that kind of attitude about the songs that made your band

[pro-fusion]

High 'n' Dry is a classic, but the rot started to set in with Pyromania, as far as I'm concerned. The riffs started getting weaker and the snare drum became the most prominent part of the mix. You can definitely tell that all of the great riffs left with Pete Willis.

[Endrik]

any DL is good DL as far as I'm concerned, I don't care if it's NWOBHM or pop-rock, they just wrote great songs PERIOD

[horns666]

Yep, I just have "On through the night" and "High and Dry"..and that's it!

[BTB007]

Interesting thoughts. I was 13 years old when I first heard them. My sister was listening to Hysteria and I was hooked. Before this, music was not a concern to me since soccer was my only interest (pretty fitting for a DL fan, eh?). I asked for all the other DL albums for my next birthday and Pyromania has been my favorite ever since. For my first concert I was trying to go see the Hysteria concert in the summer of 1989 but I was in a soccer camp and couldn't get free to go see them. I was very upset that I missed that concert, but I did get front row seats when them came back through town on the next tour. But, Steve was dead at that time which is why I was mad I didn't get to see them on the Hysteria tour.
And, they've been working in old material on their tours as of late.

[Ralph E.]

Doesn't sound like the new record will be any good (at least for fans of the early stuff)...


DEF LEPPARD NEARLY COMPLETE WITH 'SPARKLY' NEW ALBUM:
From Billboard.com today: Def Leppard is "about 85, 90 percent finished" with its next album, which frontman Joe Elliott describes as "a very rock album" tentatively titled Songs From the Sparkle Lounge.
"I'm not gonna say it's radically different to anything we've ever done," Elliott tells Billboard.com. "There's classic Def Leppard. There's stuff that sounds like it's going back to the middle, late-'70s AC/DC and new wave-type sounding stuff. There's definitely some moments on it where anybody that's familiar with our music will go, 'Whoa! I wasn't expecting that!' We've just been very adventurous, musically, on certain numbers."
Elliott says the "Sparkle Lounge" album title refers to a room the group maintained backstage during its 2006 tour dates, where the musicians would congregate with co-producer and live sound technician Ronan McHugh to work up and record ideas.
"It was a mini (drum) kit, mini amps, a tape recorder and sparkly lights," Elliott recalls. "It had to be on call, like a doctor, so if somebody went, 'I've got this idea, you just run it, plug up, turn on and bang it out, and then you could work on it over the next few days. We've never, ever written on the road before, so this definitely came from a different head space."
Elliott says Def Leppard has finished 11 songs during month-long stints in January and April in Dublin. He expects the group to work on at least two more songs before settling on a final track list and release date. It will be Def Leppard's first set of new material since 2002's X and follows the 2006 covers collection Yeah!
But Elliott says the group won't be previewing any of the new songs on the road this summer, where it's touring mostly with Styx and Foreigner. "Nowadays, you play one song and it's gonna be on YouTube two minutes later and everyone will know it six months before the thing comes out," Elliott says. "That's just a sad indictment of the way things are."