Def Leppard: Hysteria (2LP, 30th anniversary edition) [MERCURY]

Why you'll love it

This 30th anniversary edition spreads the remastered album across four 180g sides, three songs per side, so all 62 minutes have room to breathe. Hysteria topped both the Billboard 200 and the UK chart, sold more than 20 million copies worldwide and spawned seven hit singles.

This edition

• 2LP set
• 30th anniversary edition
• Remastered
• 180g vinyl

About the album

Some albums are made quickly. Hysteria took more than three years, a false start with producer Jim Steinman and a car crash on New Year's Eve 1984 that cost drummer Rick Allen his left arm. Allen relearned the drums on a custom electronic kit, the band waited for him, and the album's title is his own nod to the media frenzy around his recovery.

With Robert John Lange, better known as Mutt, back in the producer's chair, the band chased a huge, polished, layered pop-metal sound in which every song could be a single. "Pour Some Sugar on Me" is the stomping, stadium-sized centrepiece, "Love Bites" is the ballad of the decade, and "Animal," "Rocket" and "Armageddon It" are glossy, hook-stuffed rockers. Early sketches of "Animal," "Gods of War" and "Armageddon It" were taped in Dublin on Fostex four-track cassette recorders, a long way from the finished widescreen sheen.

Joe Elliott says the working titles included Paranoia and Animal Instincts, plus the joke option Trouble Up Mill. We'd have bought it under any of them, but we're glad the sleeve designers got the easy one.

Also at Kops: more Def Leppard on vinyl · browse Metal

Tracklist

Listen

On Mercury / Bludgeon Riffola (cat# 5756092), a reissue of the 1987 album.