“What has nine arms and sucks?” Fuck your stupid face, that’s what. I don’t care that Def Leppard‘s lost a bit of steam since their heyday in the ’80s. The fact is: they made some of their best pop metal ever during that heyday — and not even the existence of Slang can change that. So when I saw that the band’s seminal album, Hysteria, was celebrating its 28th birthday this week, any question of what I’d be covering with this week’s #tbt post evaporated. 

Hysteria was an important album in a lot of ways. For starters, it was the band’s first album following drummer Rick Allen’s deadly car crash, which had forced the amputation of his left arm. And frankly, all jokes should end there. I don’t care how basic Def Leppard’s song structures or rhythmic patterns are; THE DUDE DESIGNED HIS OWN CUSTOM KIT AND RELEARNED HOW TO PLAY WITH ONE ARM. Let’s see you lose a limb and try and come back to your day job, how about that?

The album also marked their transition away from traditional hard rock and heavy metal and into a more pop-oriented, glam metal sound. Where once their production had been a little muddy and under-cooked, the band now positively sparkled, with Allen’s drums echoing mightily underneath and guitarists Steve Clark and Phil Collen taking pristine, overdriven leads all throughout. It was barely — if at all — metal, but it showed the world a band totally comfortable in its new element, and was an absolutely untouchable collection of pop tunes. Not coincidentally, it became Def Leppard’s most commercially successful album by some distance, selling some 20 million copies worldwide and spawning seven singles. My favorite of those, “Armageddon It,” is below:

Find me a catchier chorus. I dare you.

Just four years later, the band was dealt a fresh hand of adversity with Clark’s untimely death. And truth be told, they’ve never come close to replicating this kind of fire since then. But really, that’s okay; when you put out an album like Hysteria, you no longer have to prove anything to anyone.

Keep it heavy,
Dan