Def Leppard - Songs From the Sparkle Lounge (2008)

So the "Sparkle Lounge" sounds more like Liberace's living room than anything one might associate with Def Leppard. But in reality, the "Sparkle Lounge" was where the band would get together while on tour to work on new material. This album is the fruits of those musical labors.

Simply put this is a step back in the right direction after the terrible misstep of 2002's X which left some fans (including this one) wondering if in addition to being deaf, the Lep might also be a eunuch.

2006's cover album Yeah! showed some promise, but being a covers album it was tough to discern whether the Lep had regained their swagger or if they were just aping the swagger of the bands/musicians they were covering.

Luckily, Songs from the Sparkle Lounge confirms that the Lep has indeed regained their swagger and attitude. With only one slow song, Love the album is considerably more uptempo and rollicking than the band has been since 1999's Euphoria album. If anything the material is considerably stronger than that on Euphoria making this possibly their strongest album since the passing of guitarist Steve Clark.

The music is catchy and upbeat, the harmonies are there, the driving guitars are there, and you can even hear Lep tipping a hat to the likes of ELO and Queen on Love which, with its grandiose strings and tight harmonies, is one of the band's best slow songs in quite awhile.

The one weak point-- the lyrics. Granted, Def Leppard's lyrics have never been within the realm of deep or profound and the one album in which they did go deep (1996's Slang) was not well received because it was largely not what the fans had come to love and expect of the band. The lyrics are traditional Def Leppard, simple and to the point but the low point on the album is Bad Actress which musically is a solid song but the lyrics are so cheesy and lamer than any of the recent ill-fated Kentucky Derby horses that it really takes away from a song that had the potential to be so much better.

Returning to good fun hair metal that put them on the map in the eighties was a recipe for success and this album is a true return to form of what this band is truly capable of. Fans of the High 'n' Dry through Hysteria era should be quite happy with this album.

Related Links
Def Leppard Songs from the Sparkle Lounge on Amazon.com
Def Leppard Slang review
Def Leppard Euphoria review
Def Leppard Yeah! review

Def Leppard - Euphoria (1999)

After exorcising their demons on the deeply personal (and some would argue overly somber) Slang album 3 years prior, Def Leppard seemed to have regained their footing with 1999's Euphoria.

The band seems to have picked up where they'd left off with 1992's Adrenalize, there's a fun energy to Euphoria that's reminiscent of their Pyromania and Hysteria albums. Someone apparently neglected to remind the Lep that it was no longer 1992, and while many of the songs on this album would have likely been hits in a pre-grunge era. The sonic wall of guitars and vocal harmonies that Mutt Lange had perfected as their producer on their eighties albums is certainly still there. Their tongues are still planted firmly in their cheeks with songs like Demolition Man, All Night, and Back in Your Face Again (the latter of which would not sound out of place at an NHL hockey game), and their softer side was evidently still present on songs like Goodbye and It's Only Love.

It's never been any secret that Def Leppard was influenced by the late Marc Bolan, and perhaps they've found the perfect match to Bolan's 21st Century Boy with their very own 21st Century Sha-La-La Girl. A tip of the hat to the late Bolan, perhaps?

Ten years earlier and this album would have been a huge hit to follow up on the success of 1987's Hysteria. Sadly the audience of 1999 wasn't as conducive to the fun-loving rock of this enjoyable, if underrated band. Thus the album went largely ignored by the general listening public, much to their detriment.

Def Leppard - Slang (1996)

By the mid-nineties the very style of music which had made Def Leppard's Pyromania (1983) and Hysteria (1987) albums so popular was as good as dead. After hiring former Dio guitarist, Vivian Campbell to replace the late Steve Clark, Def Leppard opted to re-invent themselves in the image of the music of that era.

Disposing of not only the logo but also the bombastic, fun, over-the-top glam/hair metal that had graced all of their previous albums the Lep entered uncharted territory.

While some may argue that Slang was a failed experiment-- credit must be given to Def Leppard for at least attempting to reinvent themselves, rather than sticking to the same tried and true formula of their previous albums.

Other than the title track, there's nothing on this album that would have fit on any other Def Leppard album. The musical style is more spare, minimal, and generally "naked." Some would say that the greatest flaw of Slang is that much of the music is far too serious or too dark. People who were expecting the fun of Rocket, Rock of Ages, Pour Some Sugar On Me, or Armageddon It instead got songs that dealt with death, suicide, and other similarly somber topics. This wasn't the Def Leppard the fans had come to know and love in the eighties and the resulting lukewarm reception was quite evident in its modest sales.

Stand-out tracks include Breathe a Sigh (which has my favorite misheard lyric EVER*), Slang, Work it Out, Pearl of Euphoria, and Where Does Love Go When It Dies. But, that being said, this isn't a singles album-- the album as a whole is actually greater than the sum of its parts.

With over ten years having passed since Slang's release one can offer a bit more objectivity-- hindsight, if you will. While this wasn't the "fun" Def Leppard of the eighties it, very likely, was an album the band HAD to make. Prior to this album, the band hadn't really dealt with the death of guitarist, Steve Clark. As much as it is a change of direction, it was the band's way of getting past Clark's death and moving on with their lives.

Three years later with Euphoria the band would get back to that fun-loving, happy-go-lucky pop-metal of the Hysteria era. But sometimes a band needs to take a step in a different direction, a personal re-evaluation, before they can move forward. Slang was just that for the Lep.


*the first time I heard the lyric "I more than long for your affection" as "I mow the lawn for your affection."

Def Leppard - Yeah! (2006)

Sometimes you want music that makes you think—that makes you re-evaluate certain long held opinions you may have. Other times you just want music that’s just plain fun—pure mental vacation. This is the music that doesn’t take itself too seriously. It’s not music for the sake of music, it’s not music for the sake of the almighty dollar, it’s music purely for fun.

Def Leppard is fun, they always have been, their new album Yeah! is no exception. Generally cover albums are “stop-gaps” to buy time for the band to finish working on original material without the band falling out of the public spotlight. Generally they’re hit or miss, and many fans consider them “cop-outs”—after all we fans have heard the same old song before. We want something new!

What makes Yeah! work where other cover albums have failed is Def Leppard’s song selection. These are all songs by bands that influenced the various members of Def Leppard in their youth. With many of the groups/musicians they chose to cover—they didn’t go with the obvious—with T-Rex a lesser band would have covered Bang a Gong (Get It On), Def Leppard chose 20th Century Boy; for Sweet one might expect Ballroom Blitz or possibly Fox on the Run, but they chose Hell Raiser; for Free just about anyone would expect All Right Now, but instead they went with Little Bit of Love, with ELO the obvious would have been Don’t Bring Me Down (or possibly Do Ya?), but Def Leppard instead went with 10538 Overture.

Some of these songs Def Leppard is exactly the band you’d expect to cover them—Hell Raiser is probably the most obvious. On their Retro-Active CD the Lep chose to cover Sweet’s Action to great effect. Perhaps because Sweet was to the seventies what Def Leppard was to the eighties. Pure glam-rock fun, not at all pretentious, just good old fashioned rock and roll fun (with a bit of hairspray thrown into the mix for good measure).

Other songs are less obvious, although still (in some cases surprisingly so) quite respectable covers—The Kinks Waterloo Sunset, ELO’s 10538 Overture, David Essex’s Rock On, and Roxy Music’s Street Life all fall within that category.

After 2002’s X, which bored me to tears after only a couple of spins in my CD player, I was a bit apprehensive, but the price was right and I figured after High ‘n’ Dry, Pyromania, and Hysteria Def Leppard had more than earned a second chance. These guys may not be the band to make you think about the ills of the world, their music isn’t what one might hear in a Starbucks, and it certainly will never be considered high art—but there’s already plenty of that kind of music out there. Def Leppard is fun, that’s what people listen to them for and Yeah! is just the kind of album that can re-establish their reputation with a new generation of fans.