Tag: Def Leppard

Def Leppard – ‘Vault: Def Leppard Greatest Hits 1980-1995’ (1995) – Album Review (The Def Leppard Collection Series)

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After five albums and another long delay between records, the band and label decided it was time to release a greatest hits package even though they were in the process of working on their nexxt album, ‘Slang’. This would also wrap-up the era pre-Vivian Campbell. From here on it was a different band and a new era. The greatest hits compilation is called “Vault: Def Leppard Greatest Hits 1980-1985 and was released in the UK on October 23, 1995 and finally in the US a week later on October 31, 1995. And has done pretty good over time going 5X platinum in the US and platinum and gold in numerous other countries as well. Grunge might be king at the time, but Leppard still sold some records.

A cool thing the band did to promote the album was play 3 acoustic shows on the same day…the catch was that it was on 3 different continents. The shows were in Tangiers, Morocco in Africa, London, England, UK in Europe, and Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada in North America. The feat also made the Guinness Book of World Records. Pretty crazy.

The album also had two different covers. This one you see above and there is one with an eye on it and the picture of the vault in the eye. I need to find that one. If that wasn’t enough, there were three versions of the album. Although most of the songs were the same, North America had “Miss You In A Heartbeat (Acoustic), while Europe had “Action”, “Make Love Like a Man” and “Heaven Is” and Japan had “Rock! Rock! Till You Drop” and a new track “Can’t Keep Away From the Flame”. A real fan would have all three versions…oops, guess I’m not a real fan. Okay, let’s get in to the songs, that is enough chit chat.

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Def Leppard – ‘Hard Rock Cafe: Singapore, Malaysia – October 26, 1995’ – (Bootleg DVD) – DVD Review (The Def Leppard Collection Series)

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On October 26, 1995, Def Leppard played an acoustic show in Singapore, Malaysia at the Hard Rock Cafe. The show was filmed and broadcast by Channel V as part of their V Series concerts. Channel V is their version of MTV. Six songs from the show were later released on the Limited Edition of the UK ‘Slang’ album.

This bootleg DVD I have was recorded from teh show on the Television. It is a little grainy because TVs were not 4k back then. The sound quality is really great. There is an audience recording of this show out there somewhere that has two additional unreleased songs (at the time). The two songs were from the upcoming ‘Slang’ album. The songs were “All I Want Is Everything” and “Where Does Love Go When It Dies”…I’d like to hear those two pre-Slang songs.

The stage is small and intimate. Vivian Campbell, Rick Savage, Joe Elliott and Phil Collen are lined-up and everyone has acoustic guitar…welll Rick has a bass (not acoustic though). Rick Allen is banging away behind them on the drums. They kick it off with a high energy performance of “Pour Some Sugar on Me”. The band is having fun and the crowd is loving it. Between each song, we get short little interviews and I normally don’t like the show to be interrupted, but this was a TV show, not an actual concert so I can be okay with it.

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The Collection: Ep. 11 – Wrap-Up April 2024

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I can’t believe it is time for another monthly wrap-up of what we added to The Collection. This time around, it is April 2024 and we added a ton of stuff. Somethings we added were actually in their own episode like the Record Store Day purchases and some Kiss Bootlegs. The rest of what we added are on here.

We hit up the local record stores here in Charlotte and even down in Wilmington, North Carolina when we were on our Spring Break trip. We picked up stuff from Discogs, eBay and even from Amazon as well. It is a lot of stuff and so much in fact, there are things still unopened and haven’t been listened to yet. I think that is a sign I bought too much. But like traffic signs, I’m ignoring it too!!

So go check it out as it is live now on April 29, 2024 at 8pm. Thanks for stopping by and please click “Like” and hit “Subscribe” as it helps out the site when you do.

And for those that wanted the BIG picture we used to put at the bottom of the post with everything in it, here you go…it is back as requested…

Friday New Releases – April 26, 2024

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This is a big week for me. Two of my favorite artists are releasing 40th Anniversary Editions of their biggest albums. First, Def Leppard and ‘Pyromania’ and Billy Idol with ‘Rebel Yell’. Yes, I ordered both and they are on their way. Can’t wait to dive in to this and here the previously unreleased material. If those don’t shake your tree, there are ton more new releases this week that are actually new releases. Let us know what you want to hear or what we may have missed. Thanks for stopping by and I hope you all have a wonderful weekend.

  • Def Leppard – Pyromania 40th Anniversary Box Set – (Mercury Records)
  • Billy Idol – Rebel Yell (40th Anniversary Expanded Edition) – (Universal Music)
  •  Pet Shop Boys – Nonetheless – (Parlophone Records / x2 Recordings Ltd)
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Def Leppard – ‘Visualize’ (1993) – DVD Review (The Def Leppard Collection Series)

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Def Leppard were trying to keep product moving to keep the fans happy between albums. They didn’t want the gaps between albums, that tended to be rather long, to not have anything come out. So, on October 5, 1993, they released another VHS video and this one was called ‘Visualize’. My copy is on DVD which came in 2001, but the original was a VHS only edition. It contained  promo videos, interviews and concert footage and it won a 1993 Metal Edge Readers’ Choice Award for “Best Home Video.” It ended up selling only around 50,000 copies in the States. I know I had it in VHS, got rid of that when the DVD came out and bought it again. On DVD, it is coupled with another VHS only release called ‘Video Archive’ which we will talk about later.

When you start the DVD, it makes you pick which language you want and it was so tempting to pick something other than English, but I went with the English version since I am uneducated American who only knows one language. When you click “Visualize” it starts out with some live footage and an interview short with the band, first Joe Elliott then Vivian Campbell, Phil Collen, Rick Allen and then Rick Savage. Good to see all the guys getting face time.

Video wise, the first one is off “Hysteria” and was the final single called “Rocket”. The reason it is here is the video ‘Historia’ was released prior to “Rocket” coming out as a video single. The “Rocket” video is a great one with the band in a warehouse with TVs all around showing clips of rockets and the band’s favorite artist that inspired them like Bowie and Elton John for just a few. The next video was for “Switch 625” and this was done only as a tribute to the passing of the band’s great guitarist, Steve Clark. He has been missed. The video is prefaced by a Japanese interview where Steve talks and jokes around. The band then talks about what he means to them. Very touching tribute.

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The Collection – Record Store Day 2024

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Welcome back to The Collection. Today, April 20, 2024 was yet another Record Store Day and another morning of getting up too early and waiting in line…but it is always fun. See what we got this time around.

lease do leave a comment and I promise I’ll address them as soon as I can! Don’t forget to click “Like” and “Subscribe”. Thanks for watching.

Def Leppard – ‘Retro Active’ (1993) – Album Review (The Def Leppard Collection Series)

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The band was now five albums in but it had been 12 years total. Not a great track record. They wanted to not have 4 years or more between albums again so it was decided to release a compilation album to hold fans over until the next release. But this wasn’t any ordinary greatest hits compilation, nope…that would’ve been too easy. The band decided to pull together a bunch of rare tracks and B-sides and put them together on one release…but still…not so simple as they re-recorded parts, remixed others and gave us a solid collection of songs from their career over the span of 1984 up to 1993. It also gives us some of the last recordings of the late, great Steve Clark.

The album would be called ‘Retro Active’ and released on October 5, 1993. It would spawn three singles including “Two Steps Behind”, “Miss You In A Heartbeat” and The Sweet cover for “Action”. Both “Two Steps Behind” and “Miss You In A Heartbeat” would go Top 40 and the album would go on to sell over 1,000,000 copies in the U.S. alone. Heck, even the opening track, “Desert Storm” would hit the U.S. Mainstream Rock Chart at #12 without even being released technically as a single.

One really cool aspect of the album is the cover which was designed by Hugh Syme and Nels Israelson. The image is a photographed of a woman sitting in front of a vanity mirror. However, she is positioned just so, along with other items, so that when you moved the album further away from you it turned in to a skull. A really cool concept

The album opens up with an outtake from the ‘Hysteria’ album called “Desert Song”. It was originally recorded as an instrumental and is the last song released by the band to feature Steve Clark on guitar. In fact, it is noted as the only song in the catalog to feature both Steve and his replacement Vivian Campbell who did some background vocals on the song. I know I said it was originally an instrumental and it was, but lyrics were written when the pulled the song back out after forgetting about it for years. The song is about Mick Ronson who was dying of cancer around this time. It is a killer opening track, hard hitting and a really cool Clark tone to it which is so missed. The bass work is great on this as well as the guitars. To me, the song sounds more like it would’ve fit on ‘Slang’ then on ‘Hysteria’. A truly fantastic track.

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Def Leppard – ‘Live Sheffield 1992’ (Bootleg DVD) – DVD Review (The Def Leppard Collection Series)

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I like my bootlegs. A good bootleg is hard to find and when I come across one, I get all excited. This time was no different. I found this DVD on eBay called Def Leppard – ‘Live Sheffield 1992’ and took a chance. I’m glad I did because the picture quality and sound are all excellent. There is a reason for that. The show was recorded in full both for TV and for Radio as Joe mentions after the first song. But like all Bootlegs, there are a lot of errors on the packaging.

First error, the show is called ‘Live Sheffield 1992’. It was in Sheffield, England that part is true…well that and it was live. The 1992 part was the first error. The show is actually from Don Valley Stadium on June 6, 1993 not June 24, 1992. Then we get to the track listing and obviously this person doesn’t know Def Leppard. The song “Too Late For Love” is called “Too Late Forever” and the song “Rocket” is called “Rock It” ( I can see that as an honest mistake). And the last is “Two Steps Behind” listed as “Too Steps Behind”. There are not a ton of errors, but I do love it when they have them.

This show is not the full setlist. Sorry to disappoint. It is the 1 hour highlight show that was broadcast on Yorkshire TV and on Japanese TV and consisted of only 14 of the 20 shows played that night. It cuts all the solos, but it also cut some really great song choices, however, the quality of the video is so good and the editing is done so well, it feels like a single show and is really enjoyable regardless. Now, an interesting fact, the full show recording is the bootleg that is called “The Circus Comes to Town” which I want to get one day on CD. I believe it might be an audience recording, but still the full show is a great set of songs. Lep has released some of this performance officially on the Video Archive video they released a short time later. Still less songs then on here though. Let’s get in to this show.

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Def Leppard – “Tonight” (1993) – CD Single (The Def Leppard Collection Series)

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The sixth and final single from ‘Adrenalize’ was for the song “Tonight”. The song was written by Joe Elliott, Phil Collen, Steve Clark, Rick Savage and Robert John “Mutt” Lange. Written back during the ‘Hysteria’ Tour as a possible B-Side, it was instead held on to use for an album as they felt it was too good for a B-Side…and they’d be right. The song charted in the U.S. going to #62 on the Hot 100 and #13 on the Mainstream Rock chart while it also charted in the UK at #34. 

The song is a ballad and it sees the singer longing to be with the woman he loves and have some very passionate, satisfying sex. He sees the passion in her eyes and he wants to get lost in those eyes and that passion. A night of unbridled love making. Yeah baby!!! 

The band was overdoing it with ballads on ‘Adrenalize’, but this one reminded me of “Love Bites” and “Hysteria” which are two of their best and for that I like this one. When I wrote about “Have You Ever Needed Someone So Bad”, I also said it was a sophisticated sounding ballad with some great melodies and emotive music. Joe captured the lyrics with the perfect intensity and feelings. Joe knows how to deliver a lyric, no doubt. I don’t really get tired of their ballads because Def Leppard are so good at writing and performing them.

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The Collection: Episode 7 – March 2024 Wrap-Up

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We are doing something different with the monthly wrap-ups as they are now going to be done in video form. Since each month I am adding to ‘The Collection’, why not show the new stuff on our show ‘The Collection’. So, if you want to see everything and hear a little more discussion on the items, go check out the video. It is live right now on Youtube, April 1st at 8pm.

You’ll get some of the usual suspects as I always seem to have a new Kiss CD and a Rock Candy CD, but there will so much more like the new Judas Priest, new Scott Stapp, some cool Psych Rock and a whole lot of CDs I picked at one store for only $2.50 each. We have vinyl, CDs and cassettes, but no 8-Tracks this time around…sorry Tim!! And you might even see some something you’d never expect me to buy. Come check it out.

If you do check it out, please hit Subscribe, hit Like and leave a message so I know you were there. Thanks for stopping by and I hope you have a wonderful rest of your day.