{"id":392,"date":"2013-09-25T17:18:56","date_gmt":"2013-09-25T17:18:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/batterymedia.com\/blog\/?p=392"},"modified":"2013-09-25T17:18:56","modified_gmt":"2013-09-25T17:18:56","slug":"rs-464-def-leppard-hysteria","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/batterymedia.com\/blog\/?p=392","title":{"rendered":"RS #464: Def Leppard, Hysteria"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
\n
\n
\"Def
You’d scream too if you were trapped inside of the cover of a terrible album for all eternity.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

#464<\/dt>\n<\/dl>\n<\/div>\n

Def Leppard, Hysteria<\/em><\/h3>\n
\n

Release Date:<\/strong>\u00a01987
\nPreviously Owned:<\/strong>\u00a0No. Unless I have a record hiding in my collection somewhere.
\nFirst Time Listen:<\/strong>\u00a0Yes<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

Impressions:\u00a0<\/strong>The path not taken. When I first was getting into music in the early ’80s, \u00a0Def Leppard’s Pyromania<\/em> was out. I was trying out a lot of different things and their hit single “Rock of Ages” <\/a>momentarily intrigued me– with that goofy count off at the beginning (“Unta glebin gloutin globin,)” big\u00a0dumb beat and the cool drawing on the album cover. But, thankfully, it didn’t stick and when Hysteria<\/em> came out, I had already steered away from cheeseball ’80s hair meta entirely. Let’s get this over with… Boring, midtempo stiff sampled beats, sugar-coated guitars without a note out of place, and a flurry\u00a0of lyrical cliches…and that’s just in the first song “Woman.” Not even that fun in a\u00a0lunkheaded way. To a song, the lyrics and singing is really\u00a0horrible. I mean, it sounds like a Spinal Tap parody of this style. Any terrible song that features the singer listing off the names of better rock bands and albums makes me want to put them on\u00a0immediately. “Pour Some Sugar On Me” is\u00a0like irony-bait metal with a splash of “rap” for people with\u00a0horrible taste. Oooh, this “Gods of War” has got SAMPLES! Put it on\u00a0Top 500 list! If there was any doubt about how bad this album is, “Don’t Shoot Shotgun” comes along to seal the deal.\u00a0Calling this album over-produced is truly an understatement, it’s possibly THE MOST over-produced album of all time. An entire chapter in the fascinating book about the history of audio recording “Perfecting Sound Forever” by Greg Milner<\/a>, talks about how producer Jeff “Mutt” Lange and the band took three years to make this album and how every noise on this album was polished to sonic “perfection.”\u00a0I guess I will grudgingly allow that there are some hooks\u00a0buried in this sticky mess and the band\u00a0seems to have some modicum of skill and a overwheming sense of craft: they’re like a less fun KISS and more technical ability. The idea of growing songs in a lab to engineer hits just ends up draining music of any life and giving me a stomachache. Easily the worst album on this list yet.<\/p>\n

Starred Songs:<\/strong>\u00a0None.
\nSneaky Track:\u00a0<\/strong>Nope.
\nShould this album be on the\u00a0list?<\/strong>\u00a0No.
\nReplace with:<\/strong>\u00a0<\/strong>Van Halen’s 1984<\/em> or Rush’s Moving Pictures<\/em> would be far better\u00a0additions in this ’80s hard rock\/metal\u00a0slot. Or just about anything else really. For example, that album that only had\u00a0versions of Suzanne Vega’s “Tom’s Diner” (Tom’s Album)\u00a0<\/em>should be on this list instead of Hysteria.<\/em>
\n<\/strong>Will you listen to this again?<\/strong>\u00a0No.
\nVerdict: <\/strong>Awful\u00a0<\/strong>’80s pop-metal that these days is only discussed as a nadir in the history of music production and engineering.<\/p>\n

Rating:<\/strong>\u00a0 1\/2 star<\/p>\n<\/div>\n