The Top 25 Albums of 1983: #14

Def Leppard
Pyromania

Pyromania—as in, Def Leppard settin’ shit on fire.  As monolithic, immaculately-produced, chart-baiting, blockbuster albums go, Pyromania may be eclipsed only by its successor, the behemoth Hysteria.  Def Leppard’s breakthrough album is wall to wall hits, made from bricks of rock and mortar of rock.  That’s two rocks, people.  Three, if you count “Rock Rock (Till You Drop)” twice.  That’s how you know they’re serious.  If there wasn’t a cultural stigma about genuinely universal music, Def Leppard might still be the biggest band in the world.  Instead, we live through their influence on Fall-Out Boy and Panic! At The Disco singles (and, yeah, there are plenty of people out there who will try to convince you that “Sugar, We’re Going Down” isn’t a monster of a song, but these people are not your friends.)

And yet, there’s a reason Def Leppard are unparalleled hit-makers of rock: because they play both sides of the gender war.  Check out the lyrical conceit of “Photograph:” Joe Elliott has your picture from a magazine, you’re his every fantasy, but he doesn’t want your photograph, he wants the real you.  This is why Def Leppard have a reputation as a band dug more by chicks than by dudes.  This is also why they’re geniuses—they speak equally to both sexes.  When the song’s for the women, the women have the power; when the song’s for the men, it’s time to party.  Guys: let’s pretend for a second that we still live in a world where the laws of rock are laid out right there in Pyromania’s opening track:  1) Women to the left, women to the right; 2) Your momma don’t mind what your momma don’t see; and 3) Anything goes.  Girls: let’s pretend we live in a world where all the men want you but know you’re going to break their hearts.  What would that be like?  Pretty nice, wouldn’t it?

-Marty Brown, 2007

Comments

[mr. rendon]

Your mullet betrays you. I love "Photograph."

[MC Stank Booty]

Yeah, full disclosure: I have a K-Mart picture of me age 13 rocking a ferocious mullet and a Def Leppard T-shirt. My parents had it hanging on their wall for 10 years.

[andre]

marty...i will never listen to this album. but you knew that already didn't you? it comes with a mixture of shame and pride.

[Ryan]

when are there gonna be more albums? What the fu*k are you guys doing at at the office?

[MC Stank Booty]

We decided to let this one live until Andre listens to it.