4.5 stars - their most popular album, and one of the best

Hysteria (1987.) Def Leppard's fourth album.

When Def Leppard released 1983's Pyromania, it became their most successful album at the time. For their next album, they wanted to do something even bigger, though. Once again, they recruited Robert John "Mutt" Lange to produce the album. Unfortunately, not long after the release of Pyromania, tragedy struck the band. Lange was injured in a car crash, which delayed the recording sessions. Not long after that, Def Leppard drummer Rick Allen was in an even worse car crash, which took his left arm. The limb was infected, so it couldn't be reattached. Fortunately, Allen discovered a way to drum one-armed using a certain equipment configuration. The band made a comeback playing at 1986's Monsters Of Rock festival. The following year, the band released its fourth studio album - Hysteria. Read on for my review of this album.

Hysteria is a twelve song album, and of those twelve songs, SEVEN became hit singles! How many bands do you know that can pull that off? Among these big hits are the following. There's the rather odd Pour Some Sugar On Me, which would actually go onto become the band's biggest hit. The band has said that the song was heavily influenced by the Aerosmith/Run D.M.C. recording of Walk This Way, though I don't see a resemblance. Two other strange tracks, Animal and Rocket, also became hit singles. These tracks, while bizzare by the band's standards, are still very good. Armageddon It sounds like a more pop-friendly version of Photograph and Rock Of Ages. It's an excellent song with a killer guitar solo. Hell, it's the song that got me into the band in the first place! The band's first "true" ballad, Love Bites, also appears here. Though an excellent ballad, it sadly served as a premonition to the band's painful transformation in the nineties. Women is a "darker" rocker reminiscent of the band's Pyromania-era recordings, and is probably my favorite of the seven hit singles. It's the only one of the seven that didn't make the band's Vault hits compilation, though. The last of the seven hit singles is the title track, which is a classic power ballad more than worthy of its reputation as a hit. But the five tracks that didn't go on to become huge hits are also good. My favorite song on the entire album is Gods Of War. This is classic hard power rock, and it's a shame the song tends to go overlooked, even by die-hard fans of the band. Run Riot, Don't Shoot Shotgun, and Excitable, though unknown to the casual fan, are still excellent tracks (I especially like the latter.) The album closes with the highly underrated ballad Love And Affection. This was an era when the band could make ballads without wimping out - such a shame that era would come to a close in the not-so-distant future.

This import version of the album contains one bonus track - the live version of Love And Affection. Should you shell out the extra cash and get this version of the album? Nope. The bonus track is pretty good, but this price is too much to pay for just one track. If this had every B-Side from the Hysteria era as a bonus track, it would be a different story, but it doesn't, so stick with the domestic one.

Overall Hysteria is a rock masterpiece. It's not as good as Pyromania, in my opinion, though many fans of the band would beg to differ. If you're new to Def Leppard, START WITH PYROMANIA AND HYSTERIA - NOT VAULT! The band's two most popular albums are also two of their best, and I feel they are the best place to start your Def Leppard collection.

Unfortunately, just a few years after this album was released, lead guitarist Steve Clark died. His death was caused by compression of the brain stem, caused by mixing an alcoholic beverage with painkillers he was taking for broken ribs. This caused yet another huge delay between albums. But would the next album be another Hysteria? Only time would tell.

HYSTERIA IMPORTED? YOU MUST HAVE IT

When you want an album like this, you may wanna buy it import. Why? Because it has Love and Affection live, because for your collection and because it's one of the best albums EVER!!!!!! (...) We are talking about Hysteria from Def Leppard. This album doesn't have a wrong note on any song, it's produced by the master "Mutt" Lange and it has more hits than any Britney Spears album.
I have a younger brother that when this album was at its best, he was only 5 years old, now he's around 20 and he thinks it's one of the best. I wanna ask all of you teenagers if you have, right now, an album that can stand the test of time like this one? Well, I already knew your answer.
I don't think if it fits to review every song, because if you are reading this, you already listened this cd.
The only difference from the american cd to the japanese cd is that it has Love and Affection live (like I already told you) and it has the lyrics on japanese and english. It has other things written on japanese but if I have a hard time with the english, What do you think about the japanese?
This import album is for every one that have the second (or third, or fourth......) oportunity to buy it again or for someone that got stolen all the cd collection and have to start all over again (like myself).