1171. Def Leppard / X. 2002. 1.5/5

The 1990’s had been a journey for Def Leppard, one that had built a wedge between fans of the band. “Adrenalize” had made some subtle changes to the band’s sound but still topped charts around the world. Then came “Slang”, the band’s first album with Vivian Campbell, and the desire to create something very different from their usual music made this an album that created an impasse. Then came “Euphoria”, where the band had tended to feel that they had gone too far on the previous album, and that they needed to reinfuse some of their harder rock roots back into their material. So it was a decade where the band probably experimented with their sound more than they ever had done previously. Sales were still good, but not anywhere near the extent as they had had with “Hysteria” and “Adrenalize”, concerts still sold out, but exactly which direction was Def Leppard trying to head in? Taking in all of the changes that had occurred in recent years with the hard rock genre, stretching to industrial and nu-metal, and the fact that the band had gravitated (somewhat) back towards their hard rock roots on their previous album, would this dictate their sound going forward? As it turns out, the answer to that was ‘no’. Instead, much like they did with the “Slang” album, they came back towards the popular side of music, and created an album that was more pop rock than anything else. And does anyone remember those times, and the style of songs that were being played on the radio back in 2002? Beyond Bon Jovi’s “It’s My Life” single, which seemed to eat up the airwaves the year before this album was released, that kind of rock nostalgia track had grown in popularity, and in some ways, Def Leppard tried to create their own variant of that with the songs on this album.

If you are going to listen to this album – and to be honest the ‘if’ is implied heavily – you really have to be able to approach it from two points of view. Because without that, you will either believe it is one of the best pop albums ever released, or one of the biggest travesties from a once great band ever released. And my opinion at the conclusion of the review resides heavily in one court.
So here you go. Do NOT come into this album as a fan of Def Leppard. Whatever your age bracket, whatever your preferred genre of music is, come into this album and accept that this is as close to a 1980’s pop album as you are going to come to for an album released in 2002. So pretend you are 15 again, living in the early 1980’s, and only listen to the radio and the tracks they play. If you do, I guarantee you will get more out of this album than if you come in thinking “oh good! Another Def Leppard album! I wonder if this is as good as Pyromania!”
Will this actually help you get the most out of the album? I think so, and I’ve listened to it a lot over the last 2-3 weeks. There are the full blown ballad tracks such as “Long Long Way to Go” and “Four Letter Word” and “Let Me Be the One”, completely and especially designed for radio airplay and to generate sales from a new target audience. What interests me about this with singles sales is that none of the singles released from this album really charted at all, and though most of this was because file sharing had begun to shrink music sales drastically, my opinion is that it was also because this style of song at that time was not as popular as perhaps these bands thought they were. Nickelback and Creed were filling the void that the old Def Leppard had left, and selling more albums and singles as a result along with Linkin Park and Evanescence. These bands were treading along lines that Def Leppard had created, but were now outstripping them because they either crooned power ballads a bit harder or they were transcending the power of the “High n Dry” and “Pyromania” era into their songs. To me, a single that might have really worked in that era was “Love Don’t Lie”, one that retained the sentimentality that the band was obviously now looking for, but at least had a bit more rock to it and a little guitar riffing to inspire listeners. But no, they went with the two obviously ballads and the opening track instead.
Then there is a track like “Gravity” that sounds like it is trying to recreate a song like ‘Armageddon It’ from “Hysteria” with its attempted upbeat vocal, but it really does fall flat, as I guess you may expect. And there is so much generic material here. “Girl Like You”, “Torn to Shreds”, “Scar”, “Kiss the Day”, “Everyday”... I mean, yes, if this is marketed and approached as a pop album, you have a chance to enjoy it all the way through. If you don’t... well....

The last few weeks have been eye and ear opening in regards to Def Leppard. I have reviewed, and therefore listened to a LOT, four albums from four different eras of the band, and this is by far the most polarising. I had this following Hysteria on my playlist for a few weeks, and the amount this album pales in comparison to that is even more stark when you hear them both back to back like that so often.
It remains completely ridiculous to me, and I’m sure I’ve said this before, that a band with Phil Collen and Vivian Campbell on guitars has so little material that truly showcases their abilities on their instruments. When you see the band live, they both shred, and they are both awesome. Here they barely have to get out of first gear when it comes to playing, apart from the very end of “Kiss the Day” where you FINALLY get some guitar action, but overall it remains my biggest disappointment of this band over the past 30 years. There is no Mutt Lange here curating the material, and pushing the band for perfection. It is, indeed, a new era.
I don’t own this album, indeed I never had the desire to go out and buy it at the time. I heard the singles on the radio at the time (not as much as I heard Bon Jovi and Nickelback and others of that ilk), and there was no need to delve any further. And now here we are, 20 years later, and over the past month I have listened to this album... I would say... ten times more in that period than I had in the almost 20 years before that. And as I have probably intimated already, this just isn’t for me. At work it has been a pleasant enough distraction. It’s a little bit like elevator music, it's there in the background and it provides a nice ambience while I tap away at the keyboard. It’s harmless pop. But the test of any album is to go home, and listen to it in the Metal Cavern, with the stereo at an appropriate volume to get the full effects. And this album fails that completely. I am sure there are fans out there who love this album. They definitely listen to a different genre of music than I do.