I have been listening to all kinds of music my entire life, but 80’s-90’s rock has always been a favorite genre of mine. I have been around music my entire life being my dad has been in several bands and recently got to do a country music festival in St. Lucia, and often plays at the Pioneer Place in downtown St. Cloud. One band that I have been listening to my entire life and recently got to see live was Def Leppard. They are a British band that got their start up in 1977 and were quick to the top, with the 1981 album High ‘N’ Dry with hit song “Bringin’ On the Heartbreak”.
Today I will be reviewing Def Leppard’s 1983 album Pyromania. The album came out January 20th, 1983, and to this day has sold over 10 million physical copies, and has over 300 million streams on Spotify alone.
“Rock! Rock! (Till You Drop)”- 7.8/10
“Rock! Rock! (Til You Drop)” is the opening song of the album and sets the tone of the album early. Although this is not the most popular on the album, this song is still a wonderful anthem. It opens with an easy flowing, clean tone riff that gets picked up into a distorted driving riff. The song is played at a steady driving tempo with a catchy chorus and easy to sing along to background vocals during the verses. This song closes with in a very classic 80’s rock way that you would hear live, which I think puts the cherry on top for me.
“Photograph”- 9.1/10
“Photograph” is one of my favorite songs on the album and one of my favorite songs to hear live from 80’s cover bands. This song has roughly 127 million plays on Spotify and is one of Def Leppard’s most popular songs. The opening riff is very iconic in that decade of music. This song is extremely catchy and specifically the bridge going into the chorus is one that everyone can sing along to. The chorus is one of the most well known in the 80’s and has had many people singing along to it at concerts for years. This song displays a great deal of musicianship and begins to show how talented the band is, especially the vocals towards the end of the song.
“Stagefright”- 6.0/10
“Stagefright” is one of the less popular songs on the album and to me has a very Guns N’ Roses sounding vibe, tone, and tempo, partially because of the vocals sounding a little like axl rose. This song doesn’t display how musically talented the band is in my opinion and I think could be a lot better.
“Too Late For Love”- 8.7/10
“Too Late For Love” is one of the more popular songs on the album with over 27 million plays on Spotify. This is one of Def Leppard’s most well known ballad sounding songs next to “Love Bites” off of the Hysteria album. The song starts with a slow tempo and clean tone intro of mostly vocals then bridges into a slightly more upbeat verse and chorus. The song is one of the most well put together songs on the album that display the vocal ability of lead singer Joe Elliot. I think ‘Too Late For Love’ is one of the great ballads of the 80’s and will continue to stay that way forever.
“Die Hard The Hunter”- 6.2
This song has one of the coolest sounding intros on the album with a clean chorus tone on the guitar with reverb and harmonizing vocals, the intro is really the best part of the song because the rest of the song does not compare to the intro. The rest of the song is kind of bland in my opinion and slightly repetitive in tone of the song. This is not one of my favorite songs on the album, but the intro brings the rating up a little.
“Foolin'”- 9.1/10
“Foolin” Is one of my favorite songs on the album by far. The intro has a similar tone to “Die Hard The Hunter”, with a clean chorus tone on guitar and vocals, then the drums slowly start to trickle in and go into a slow build up to go into the first verse. The song does a good job of displaying the musical capabilities of each member of the band and has an extremely catchy breakdown chorus. The song goes from slow feel, to fast feel, and back and forth, always changing the way song feels and that prevents it from becoming repetitive. I love the song overall and is a top 3 song on the album for me.
“Rock Of Ages”- 9.4/10
The “Gunter Gleiben Glauchen Globen” intro is one of the most well known intros of the decade. The intro is also used in The Offspring’s, “Pretty Fly (For a White Guy) off of the 1998 album, Americana. The song starts with the iconic cowbell drum intro, then the guitar comes in, then the rest of the guitar and bass come in. The song has a very anthem sound that is easy to clap and sing along to. This is a very popular song with almost 85 million plays on Spotify, and is a very popular song played by cover bands still today. The song does a great job of showing that Def Leppard can make a song that shows how talented they are, while also making it easy to sing along to, thus making it one of the most popular Leppard songs.
“Comin’ Under Fire”- 8.5/10
This is one of my favorites on the album, and I don’t think it gets enough attention. This one also follows the common theme of the intro being a clean guitar tone that picks up into a distorted tone. I think this song is equally as catchy as some of the more well known songs that Def Leppard puts due to the easy to sing along to verses and catchy chorus. Even though this song only has 6.4 million Spotify plays, which is significantly less than most of their well known songs, I think this is one of the better songs on the album.
“Action! Not Words”- 6.4/10
“Action! Not Words” is kind of catchy, but I think is a pretty basic song overall. It does not display how musically talented they are and I think is pretty repetitive throughout the song. I think it has potential to be much better but is just overall not one of my favorites.
“Billy’s Got A Gun”- 7.3/10
“Billy’s Got A Gun” is a decent song that shows impressive vocal abilities out of lead singer Joe Elliot, and as a beautiful tone to it, and has a really good guitar solo. Although, personally it is not one of my favorites on the album. I think again it gets a little repetitive and has an anticlimactic non fitting ending.
The average song score of this album scored a 7.9/10. Although that was the technical score, I am going to give it a personal score of 8.4/10. I think this is a great, classic album, but I also think that Def Leppard has a better album that would exceed a 9 rating.
