Def Leppard

Sheffield UK’s Def Leppard managed to get its version of early metal-pop into heavy rotation on both rock and Top 40 radio well before hair metal came to the fore and they did it (at least for a while, from 1981’s High ‘n’ Dry, through virtually the entire 1983 album Pyromania, clearly their best, to a few good tracks from 1987’s Hysteria) with uncomplicated hard rock that was directly in the lineage that Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath forged in the previous decade. Def Leppard also appears to have drawn from the orchestrality of Queen, evident most in their backing vocal harmonies. Queen had a long reign in the late 70s and early 80s as one of the most popular rock bands worldwide and probably influenced just about every rock artist of the 80s one way or another.

Photograph was one of the first 45s I ever bought and is a pop/hard rock masterpiece. Def Leppard’s sound perfectly evokes the always gothically romantic sound of metal but in a shorter, poppier format than either goth or metal bands. And it’s clear in their videos that the band itself never took things too seriously, which looking back is refreshing considering both the utter lack of songwriting talent that the later hair metal bands demonstrated and the clichéd heaviness and faked sinistrality that most metal likes to couch itself in.

Coming Under Fire (embedded above – sound only) is a quintessentially structured pop-metal track. Solid hooks, tight (but not overproduced) coordination between bass and drums driving the rhythm, and the urgent atmosphere of metal.

Yes, this band had (and likely still has) probably the most unsophisticated fan base imaginable. But that’s for the hipsters to hate. Enjoy the songs.