Release Date: November 30th 2018
Genre: Hard Rock
Label: UMC – Mercury
Members:
Joe Elliott – lead vocals
Phil Collen – lead guitar \ vocals
Vivian Campbell – lead guitar \ vocals
Rick Savage – Bass \ Vocals
Rick Allen – Drums
Tracklisting:
The Story So Far: The Best Of Def Leppard
Disc: 1
1. Animal
2. Photograph
3. Pour Some Sugar On Me
4. Love Bites
5. Let’s Get Rocked
6. Armageddon It
7. Foolin’
8. Two Steps Behind
9. Heaven Is
10. Rocket
11. Hysteria
12. Have You Ever Needed Someone So Bad
13. Make Love Like a Man
14. Action
15. When Love & Hate Collide
16. Rock of Ages
17. Personal Jesus
Disc: 2
1. Let’s Go
2. Promises
3. Slang
4. Bringin’ On the Heartbreak
5. Rock On (Radio Remix)
6. Nine Lives (Feat. Tim McGraw) – Def Leppard, Tim McGraw
7. Work It Out
8. Stand Up
9. Dangerous
10. Now
11. Undefeated
12. Tonight
13. C’mon C’mon
14. Man Enough
15. No Matter What
16. All I Want Is Everything
17. It’s All About Believing
18. Kings of the World
Hysteria – The Singles:
1. Women / Tear It Down (US Version)
2. Animal / I Wanna Be Your Hero (US Version)
3. Hysteria / Ride in To the Sun (Int Version)
4. Pour Some Sugar on Me / Ring of Fire (US Version)
5. Love Bites / Billy’s Got A Gun (Live)(Int Version)
6. Armageddon It / Release Me (Can Version)
7. Rocket / Women (Live) (US Version)
8. Excitable / Run Riot (Album Version)
9. Love and Affection / Don’t Shoot Shotgun (Album Version)
10. Animal / Tear It Down (Spanish Version)
Do Def Leppard need an introduction? Do you even need to be reminded of what the band have achieved over nearly 40 years of making music? Well I’m going to anyway:
Def Leppard’s fourth album Hysteria, released in 1987, topped the UK and U.S. album charts. As of 2009, it had reached beyond the success of Pyromania, having been certified 12× platinum for sales of over 12 million in the U.S. and has gone on to sell over 25 million copies worldwide. The album spawned seven hit singles, including the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 number one “Love Bites”, alongside “Pour Some Sugar on Me”, “Hysteria”, “Armageddon It”, “Animal”, “Rocket”, and “Women”.
Def Leppard have sold more than 100 million records worldwide and have two albums with RIAA diamond certification, Pyromania and Hysteria. They are one of only five rock bands with two original studio albums selling over 10 million copies in the U.S. the others…
- The Beatles,
- Led Zeppelin,
- Pink Floyd and
- Van Halen
Hysteria is of course one of the biggest selling rock albums of the 1980s and the band are currently celebrating’s its 30th anniversary by performing it in full on their tour.
On the verge of kicking off a sold out UK tour the band have also found time to record two brand new tracks so that fans and collectors have an opportunity to find something on the new collection that is new to them. ‘The Story So Far: The Best Of Def Leppard’. now contains a cover of the Depeche Mode classic ‘Personal Jesus’ and despite fears around cover songs, this is actually rather good.
Joe does like a good cover and to be fair to the band they don’t ever pick the obvious songs to rework. His voice suits the song, the guitar riffs are unmistakably Leppard sounding and the underlying bass line suits Rick Savage perfectly. On the chorus the reverb on the vocals works perfectly and gives listeners a reason to consider a best of from the band once more.
For those people wondering why another Best Of collection is required from a band that have already delivered ‘Vault’ and ‘Rock of Ages’, it’s worth noting that the latter was released 13 years ago. Leppard haven’t stood still and continue to release new material enticing new fans who didn;t grow up with the band in the 80s to get onboard. Tracks from ‘Songs from the Sparkle Lounge’, ‘Mirrorball’ and ‘Def Leppard’ all feature making this the definitive collection as at 2018 from the band.
Vinyl fans also get a 7” single with the album which contains the Depeche Mode cover and a Christmas single, ‘We All Need Christmas’. He’s not wrong although in this lifetime Christmas would come if labels sent out MP3s rather than streams of music to reviewers. A worrying trend that makes providing an early review very difficult. I’ve waited until my own physical copies arrived from Amazon before writing this one.
The second release, ‘Hysteria – The Singles’ is a work of art. Again it arrives just as the UK tour commences in support of said album, the box set reminds us of a time when people still bought 7″ vinyl singles and also it was an era when one album could get 7 or more hit singles out of it. Almost unheard of these days but at the time it made Leppard one of if not the biggest rock band on the planet at the time. As a result, this is the perfect way to reminisce about times past and it’s perhaps the best way to celebrate the tour when this will be played in full.
Containing 10 singles including 2 unique to this collection ‘Excitable’ and ‘Love and Affection’ the set also sees the cover art of 9 of the singles making up the sleeve of the original album. An additional Spanish single is included as well and the box set also includes a booklet with a full band discography and an introduction Joe Elliott as well.
The Story So Far: The Best Of Def Leppard: Score 8/10
Hysteria: The Singles: Score 9/10
Reviewed by Adrian Hextall
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