Ted Templeman book out April 21

[Terry]

I liked Permanent Vacation, similar to Def Leppard I seem to have fallen out of love with them 1 album later than a lot of you.

I get it that like DL and Pyromania it is the beginning of the end but there are some great stuff on there and ok Desmond Child has his finger in 2 of the big singles but there is plenty of good stuff on PV. I always really liked Simoriah.

Back in the day someone told me that there was some business estimate that the album cover of DWM lost so many million dollars. It was a Spinal Tap level of dumb to have an illegible cover back in the day of browsing through record sleeves in record shops... PV sold over 10 times as many(not that that means everything)

Looking at the tracking on PV just now I had forgotten that Dude Looks Like Lady was song #5 so they clearly didn't realize it was going to be such a huge song for them.

Wow looking at Wikki Hangman Jury was the first single?

Title track to PV was good. Same with Hangman Jury.

Far as Leppard, for many anything post-High 'N Dry sucks balls. Still think both Pyromania and Hysteria are great albums, myself, though these days I can't be bothered with any of the tracks from either of those albums that have been played to death on the radio: you reach a limit on how many times you either need to or can stand to listen to those signature Leppard radio tunes. I still give Too Late For Love, Die Hard The Hunter, Gods of War and Billy's Got A Gun a listen once in a blue moon.

[Seshmeister]

Title track to PV was good. Same with Hangman Jury.

Far as Leppard, for many anything post-High 'N Dry sucks balls. Still think both Pyromania and Hysteria are great albums, myself, though these days I can't be bothered with any of the tracks from either of those albums that have been played to death on the radio: you reach a limit on how many times you either need to or can stand to listen to those signature Leppard radio tunes. I still give Too Late For Love, Die Hard The Hunter, Gods of War and Billy's Got A Gun a listen once in a blue moon.

I'm at the point now where hearing 'Pour Some Sugar On Me' actually makes me angry and it seems like the music media, particularly radio for some reason I don't understand at all have decided that it is by far their best song.

There is an argument to be made that like Highlander 2 Hysteria is one of those pieces of art that actually manages to make it's predecessor worse by highlighting all the problems that weren't obvious before. Unlike Highlander 2 though it can't be denied that Hysteria was a commercial triumph...

[Nitro Express]

Skyscraper was certainly a more mannered type of rock than what was on EEAS, that's for sure.

Was never all that wild about JLP or Stand Up, myself. Title track was interesting as something sort of non-typical of what Roth had done up to that point.

Honestly, it has been quite a while - and I mean, probably well over a decade now - that I've actually had the hankering to listen to Skyscraper from start-to-finish. Some of that has to do with the way it sounds from a production standpoint, and it'd be reasonable to suggest Ted's absence had more than a little bit to do with that. Some of it has to do with the fact that I've always considered some of the Skyscraper material a bit weak. I mean, I wasn't particularly thrilled with, say, I'm Easy or That's Life on EEAS...but those tunes sort of made sense in terms of where they were placed on the album and had the benefit of being either surrounded or preceded by killer tunes. These days, the only tune on Skyscraper that REALLY knocks it out of the park for me is Damn Good: a lot of the other material on the album has become more timely than timeless for me as the years since the initial release date have passed by. And that probably also has something to do with Ted's absence as well, in terms of what material was chosen to be recorded.

Van Halen’s manager and others who knew Dave said Dave is a song and dance guy. The guy liked disco. Dave had a bit of Danny Kay in him. If he was born a bit earlier he would be the guy tap dancing. Dave was that. The Van Halen’s were the real rockers. They had no interest in song and dance shit. But that contrast of Dave being song and dance and the Van Halen’s wanting rock hard made Van Halen interesting. Dave brought the swagger and the rap. The Van Halen’s brought the thunder.

[Nitro Express]

I'm at the point now where hearing 'Pour Some Sugar On Me' actually makes me angry and it seems like the music media, particularly radio for some reason I don't understand at all have decided that it is by far their best song.

There is an argument to be made that like Highlander 2 Hysteria is one of those pieces of art that actually manages to make it's predecessor worse by highlighting all the problems that weren't obvious before. Unlike Highlander 2 though it can't be denied that Hysteria was a commercial triumph...

It’s not always the best song that becomes the hit single. I never liked Jump but it was VH’s big hit. It’s my least favorite song of theirs.

[Terry]

I'm at the point now where hearing 'Pour Some Sugar On Me' actually makes me angry and it seems like the music media, particularly radio for some reason I don't understand at all have decided that it is by far their best song.

There is an argument to be made that like Highlander 2 Hysteria is one of those pieces of art that actually manages to make it's predecessor worse by highlighting all the problems that weren't obvious before. Unlike Highlander 2 though it can't be denied that Hysteria was a commercial triumph...

Hysteria...

Part of the initial problem with me re: Hysteria is that it was so dense in terms of the multitracked guitars - and multiple guitar parts - that it was difficult when it first came out for me to really get a handle on the album as far as the tunes went. Unlike High 'N Dry or Pyromania, I had to listen to Hysteria a LOT to get into the album.

The other part of the problem is sort of two-fold and ties into the aforementioned stuff, where Hysteria - even by Mutt Lange standards - was totally overlabored far as the recording process went. Doubtless, the initial recording sessions with Jim Steinman, the subsequent scrapping of those sessions, Rick Allen's accident and subsequent rehab, the return of Lange and a 15 month recording and mixing process all contributed to that. But...Hysteria sounds more than a bit sterile to me as a result of all that, and more than a few of the tracks seem less like songs (or decent songs) than exercises in overdubbing.

I like Women
Animal
Gods Of War
Don't Shoot Shotgun (dumb song title, but whatever)
Hysteria

Rocket seems less a song than a bunch of wacky overdubbing and mixing tricks.
Love Bites is okay, but even by Leppard's own commercially hungry standards a bit too poppy for my liking.
Pour Some Sugar on me is a decent pop rock tune. No more, no less.
Armageddon It, to me, is just disposable filler.
Run Riot, to me, is more disposable filler.
Excitable, to me, is more disposable filler.
Love And Affection, to me, is more disposable filler.

I mean, doubtless Pyromania was just as calculated an effort, but at least the production isn't quite as synthetic-sounding as Hysteria in terms of the result: with Pyromania, even the biggest tunes on the record in commercial terms still rocked to a degree, and while there was plenty of double and triple tracking on the guitar parts for the most part Pyromania refrained from having, say, 5 or 6 different guitar parts mixed together, unnecessarily cluttering up the sound as was the case on Hysteria at times.

[Terry]

Van Halen’s manager and others who knew Dave said Dave is a song and dance guy. The guy liked disco. Dave had a bit of Danny Kay in him. If he was born a bit earlier he would be the guy tap dancing. Dave was that. The Van Halen’s were the real rockers. They had no interest in song and dance shit. But that contrast of Dave being song and dance and the Van Halen’s wanting rock hard made Van Halen interesting. Dave brought the swagger and the rap. The Van Halen’s brought the thunder.

Agreed, 100%.

The thing with that is, on record all you got is the vocals, the instruments and the tunes. So, if the tunes themselves aren't quite there - as was the case for about half the Skyscraper album - Dave's patter and Vai's guitar wizardry were only gonna go so far in terms of covering up deficiencies in the songwriting far as the studio stuff went. Live, different story.

[Seshmeister]

Agreed, 100%.

So, if the tunes themselves aren't quite there - as was the case for about half the Skyscraper album - Dave's patter and Vai's guitar wizardry were only gonna go so far in terms of covering up deficiencies in the songwriting far as the studio stuff went.

As someone that has dabbled a little in the songwriting thing sometimes you don't even know which are the best ones and you definitely don't know why.

Q: Why is Yankee Rose so much better than Knucklebones?
A: It just is.

[Seshmeister]

Let's not forget the drums which are shit which sucks the energy out of it. And before someone jumps into defend Rick Allen, remember he is a multi millionaire wife beating dangerous driver. Plus even if he had all his arms I doubt he would have been allowed to play on the album anyway.


Q: What do you get if you take this

slow it down and combine it with We Will Rock You?