Def Leppard’s exuberant 1980 debut, On By means of The Night time, confirmed nice promise and yielded surprising UK Prime 20 success, however its completed follow-up, Excessive’n’Dry, banished any lingering doubts that these resilient Yorkshiremen have been in it for the lengthy haul.
Throughout their adolescence within the late 70s, Leppard – alongside Iron Maiden and Saxon – turned one of many hottest properties to emerge from what Sounds journalist Geoff Barton dubbed the New Wave Of British Heavy Steel (aka NWOBHM): a brand new breed of grass-roots, UK laborious rock outfits who cherished the anthemic minimize and thrust of traditional 70s rock icons resembling Skinny Lizzy, Led Zeppelin, and UFO, but additionally the perspective and uncooked aggression of punk.
Inevitably, these influences fed into the DNA of Leppard’s On By means of The Night time: a no-nonsense studio seize of the dwell set they’d honed by way of 18 months of strong gigging, which they banged out with a Ramones-esque depth with the assistance of Black Sabbath/Judas Priest producer Tom Allom.
A collection of constructive critiques (together with one from Rolling Stone suggesting that “they not only respect their elders, they’ve taken cues from their new wave peers too”) confirmed Leppard have been heading in the right direction, however the band realized they nonetheless wanted to step up a gear to attach on a global degree.
Accordingly, the Sheffield quintet turned to a brand new producer, South African-born Robert John “Mutt” Lange, whose credit included The Boomtown Rats, The Motors, and, most lately, AC/DC’s influential, multi-platinum-selling Again In Black. Identified for his meticulous method to his craft, Lange’s enter would quickly have a major impact on the course of Def Leppard’s profession, however his disciplined strategies initially pressured his new fees to adapt fairly dramatically.
“It was almost like army discipline, but he got great performances out of everyone that we’d never have got otherwise,” vocalist Joe Elliott recalled in 2014. “Mutt Lange was a great captain, a great leader. We were rudderless and he gave us a direction, which was what we desperately needed.”
Throughout the course of the Excessive’n’Dry classes at London’s Battery Studios, the band and their new producer painstakingly dissected, rearranged, and even considerably re-wrote the fabric they’d ready, however the ensuing album was all the higher for it.
Certainly, Excessive’n’Dry proved to be the file the place Def Leppard’s distinctive, arena-slaying sound first materialized. Their new-found confidence and verve was obvious, whether or not they have been piling into high-octane anthems (“Let It Go,” “You Got Me Runnin’,” “On Through The Night”) or mastering advanced set-pieces such because the edgy “Another Hit And Run” and the superbly crafted, widescreen ballad “Bringin’ On The Heartbreak,” which segued into an formidable “Layla”-esque instrumental coda, “Switch 625.”
Housed in an enigmatic sleeve designed by Hipgnosis artist Storm Thorgerson, Excessive’n’Dry once more broached the UK Prime 30 following its launch, on July 11, 1981, however the care and a spotlight Lange and the band lavished on “Bringin’ On The Heartbreak” additionally rewarded them with their first style of mass enchantment within the US. Its memorable Doug Smith-directed promotional movie turned one of many first music movies to realize heavy rotation on the nascent MTV in 1982, and that extra publicity led to a resurgence of curiosity in Excessive’n’Dry. The album subsequently peaked at No.38 on the Billboard 200, providing Def Leppard a primary style of the sustained mainstream success they might expertise with 1983’s diamond-selling Pyromania.
“Making [High’n’Dry] was an enormous learning curve, but it sounded punchy and professional and, generally speaking, it was the start of where we wanted to go,” Joe Elliott instructed Blabbermouth in 2014. “We were open-minded and so happy to be working with a producer like Mutt Lange. By the time we started doing Pyromania a year later, what we’d gone through recording High’n’Dry had sunk in and we’d realized it was worth all the effort.”
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