While touring in support of their debut album, ‘On Through the Night’, Def Leppard opened for one of the biggest bands at the time, AC/DC. Famed producer, Robert John “Mutt” Lange, who produced AC/DC’s massive album “Back in Black”, took notice of the band and he was very impressed. So much so, he agreed to be their producer for the band’s sophomore album ‘High ‘N’ Dry’. A move that would change the course of history for this band and catapult them in to the stratosphere of rock stardom. But first, they had to do an album and this album saw the band head to a more melodic phase, however, the edge and rawness of the debut was still present.
The songwriting was more refined, everything seemed more purposefully composed, it was cleaner yet it was still powerful, engaging and after over 40 years with it, it is one of the best rock & roll albums of all time. Well…it is for me. The band, who was Joe Elliott, Steve Clark, Rick Savage, Rick Allen and Pete Willis, recorded the album between March and June of 1981 and it was released a very short time later on July 11, 1981. A short 16 months after the debut. Man, if they could’ve only kept that pace of releases, how much could they have released over the years. The album would go to #38 in the U.S. and #26 in the UK. Not a massive success, but enough of one thanks to the ballad “Brinin’ on the Heartbreak” which saw massive airplay on MTV, that the band was setup nicely for the next album.
Their third album ‘Pyromania’ was so big, so successful and so amazing, that ‘High ‘N’ Dry’ was re-released in 1984 with 2 additional tracks. One was a re-mix of “Bringin’ On the Heartbreak” which added synthesizers and piano overdubs to make it sound more like what was done on ‘Pyromania’. The other track was “Me & My Wine” which was the B-Side of the original release of “Bringin On the Heartbreak”. It too was re-mixed for a more modern sound. This re-release helped sell more albums which has since seen the album go double platinum. They even did new videos for it with Phil Collen on guitar who was not on this album at all as Pete Willis was at the time. The copy we are reviewing today is the original release without the 2 new tracks, the way it should be heard. Let’s get to it.
Continue reading “Def Leppard – ‘High & Dry’ (1981) – Album Review (the Def Leppard Collection Series)”
There were two instances where we got freaked out. The first was at the It’s a Small World Ride. When we were coming into the last section that has the Goodbye signs in different languages, there was a Monitor that flashed Goodbye and named each member of my family. How did they know we were on the ride and in that spot at that exact moment? We did not use our magic bands when we entered the ride.
2 Loud 2 Old Music 