Pete Willis - The only REAL Def Leppard

[vandeleur]

They always seemed the least convincing of the bands that came through with the nwobhm bands.
They dropped the rock stuff as soon as money came their way and the stuff after the couple of albums mentioned are wetter than an otters pocket.
Does all that produced bollox even count as genuine music and the stories of how mutt arranged them sound more Meccano than rock n roll.

[vandeleur]

Oh , I don't like def leopard

[cadaverdog]

They dropped the rock stuff as soon as money came their way and the stuff after the couple of albums mentioned are wetter than an otters pocket.

Could you translate that into English?

[FORD]

Their biggest influence was Mutt Lange and with him doing AC/DC albums at the same time as their early albums a lot of the sound would come from that.

There is no real reason to assume that Pete Willis leaving led to the pussification of DL. That happened over a number of years and maybe it was just in response to the fact that the more they went in that direction the more albums they sold.

By the end of the process the songs Mutt Lange was producing/writing with Bryan Adams even Shania Twain could just as easily have been on Def Leppard albums.

Ac/Dc might well have been the only band who didn't pussify significantly with Mutt Lange producing. Yeah, you could say that Powerage had a slightly harder edge than Highway to Hell, but nothing to complain about, compared to what happened to Def Leppard, Foreigner, and others who turned into complete cheese factories after they started working with him. Hell, even Bryan Adams had a few decent songs on his first couple of records (they got a lot of airplay up here in Cascadia, naturally)

[Green Manalishi]

Luv those first three albums especially On Through The Night and High N Dry . I saw them live back in that time period as well and thought they kicked ass for such a young band . Who was I kidding ? They were/are my age !
I do hear the AC/DC influence but can't help but notice a twinge of UFO as well .

[WARF]

[vandeleur]

Could you translate that into English?

Which bit , the words and stuff ?

[Green Manalishi]

Lookin' back at my old ticket stubs I found these shows :

Tues - 6 - 17 - 1980 The Checkerdome - St. Louis : Ted Nugent , Scorpions , Def Leppard ( nutty crowd ! )

September , 1981 - Kiel Auditorium - St. Louis : Blackfoot & Def Leppard ( raggedy , nearly indecipherable ticket stub )

Sat - 8 - 20 - 1983 - The Checkerdome - St. Louis : Def Leppard & Uriah Heep

They were a young , up and coming rock band to be reckoned with for sure .

[78/84 guy]

Here's a bold statement...

I'll take the first two Def Leppard albums over the first two Van Halen albums....

Discuss....

Sober up !! And they are great albums.

[Mushroom]

Here's a bold statement...

I'll take the first two Def Leppard albums over the first two Van Halen albums....

Discuss....

You are a liar!

[Mushroom]

Def Leppard's First Strike is a collection of demos released in 1985 without the band's, and management's, authorization.

It's a great collection that shows off the band's raw hunger and creativeness. Some of the demos are better than the re-worked versions...

... Sorrow is a Woman
... Answer to the Master
... Wasted
Also includes a never-been released song "Heat Street"

Ride into the Sun was on an earlier set of demos and then totally pussified in 1987. I believe it was a B-side to a Hysteria single, but then included on the Remastered Hysteria release.

[Mushroom]

If you hear somebody cruising the boulevard with Switch 625 blasting on the car stereo, it's probably me

[Terry]

I dunno...I never really considered High 'n' Dry an astounding rock record. Even within the context of the NWOBHM. It was certainly one of Def Leppard's most straightforward records and had a consistent hard rock edge to it, but that type of material never quite came off sounding like stuff Leppard naturally gravitated towards. Like, the whole attitude on that album was one more of a sort of affected pose or posturing than material and performances the band moved toward organically or something they felt in their guts.
Put it this way: High 'n' Dry was a good hard rock album by Def Leppard standards.
Honestly, I think Hysteria was their best work. Even if roughly half the album was throwaway stuff songwise (Rocket, Don't Shoot Shotgun, Run Riot, Excitable, Love And Affection), the lesser songs were made slightly better by the production. And the remainder of the album were great pop rock tunes combined with that lush, dense, multi-layered production...
Pete Willis was fine for the band for what it was when he was in it, but I doubt Willis had the talent or drive the rest of the band did to take Leppard to the next level. Plus, his physical appearance was ridiculous (with a series of naff haircuts and a general look of someone's kid brother who was playing with the group only because the rest of the band were initially too nice to kick him out).
Now, when Steve Clark died, THAT I could agree was a demarcation point for Leppard. Their output in terms of quality went downhill steadily after Clark passed on.

[Seshmeister]

Finally I find a music post you made I can disagree with.

I was nodding right up to the point you said Hysteria was their best work, Pyromania for me any time. I find Hysteria over thought and over produced. I hate that Pour Some Sugar has become the standard off that album with the pat-a-cake-pat-a-cake-bakers-man verse.

You're very correct to point out that half the album is fillers. I think the other major problem is the drumming which doesn't swing. The 60 layers of backing vocals are there to add the theatre and energy that should be happening from the groove of the drumming which isn't there.

There is a massive huge difference between Phil Rudd and a mid 80s drum machine...

[Terry]

Finally I find a music post you made I can disagree with.

I was nodding right up to the point you said Hysteria was their best work, Pyromania for me any time. I find Hysteria over thought and over produced. I hate that Pour Some Sugar has become the standard off that album with the pat-a-cake-pat-a-cake-bakers-man verse.

You're very correct to point out that half the album is fillers. I think the other major problem is the drumming which doesn't swing. The 60 layers of backing vocals are there to add the theatre and energy that should be happening from the groove of the drumming which isn't there.

There is a massive huge difference between Phil Rudd and a mid 80s drum machine...

Well, at least you didn't retort with a lament on how I glossed over the 'fact' that Pete Willis was the most important member to ever pass through Def Leppard...or some nonsense about how High 'n' Dry was one of the best hard rock albums ever. Had that been the case, I would have found it necessary to fly across the pond and give you a swift kick in the goolies that would have made the most vicious Glasgow football hooligan wince in amazement.

Odd what you said about the drumming, because I think the drumming on Hysteria (certainly sounding more electronic than acoustic compared to Pyromania) 'swings' pretty well. Much more so than Pyromania, where whenever I hear a tune off that album it's almost as if I can hear the click track/metronome keeping time...granted Rick Allen certainly never was going to be confused with Terry Bozzio in terms of technical ability, but the drumming on Pyromania is so calculated and robotic it was devoid of personality: to me, oddly enough the Pyromania drumming despite being acoustic in origin sounds more cold and computer-generated than anything on Hysteria.

I'd have to agree that Pyromania definitely had less filler-tunes than Hysteria. In point of fact, the only tune on Pyromania that is disposable to me is Action, Not Words. However, the half of the Hysteria album that works does so much better for me than the best of Pyromania. And no small part of that is due to the production. Pyromania, soncially, just sounds too dry and mid-level in terms of EQ: no real bottom end, thus no real balls.

Fuck me, I'm expending way too much thought on these Sheffield jagoffs.