Adrenalize

Def Leppard - Adrenalize

Adrenalize
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CD Details

Artist: Def Leppard
Edition: Music CD
CD Release Date: 1992-03-31
Music Label: Island / Mercury
Soundtracks:
  1. Let's Get Rocked
  2. Heaven Is
  3. Make Love Like A Man
  4. Tonight
  5. White Lightning
  6. Stand Up (Kick Love Into Motion)
  7. Personal Property
  8. Have You Ever Needed Someone So Bad
  9. I Wanna Touch U
  10. Tear It Down

Music reviews of Adrenalize

Music Review: NOT a definitive album of theirs by a long shot
Rating: 3 Stars

Adrenalize(1992). Def Leppard's 5th studio album.

Def Leppard were for the most part one of those rare 80s hard rock bands which managed to meet a ton of success and at the same time run into a lot of tragedy along the way. They of course started out as a fully energized and inspired NWOBHM band on their debut On Through The Night(1980), which sported some awesome songs, but wasn't really their best IMHO. Then on High 'N Dry(1981) infamous producer Robert John Mutt Lange found them and over the years he gradually changed them from a hard rock act into big 80s pop/rock radio stars. Both the aforementioned High 'N Dry and their breakthrough album Pyromania(1983) kept the traditional hard rock edge that the debut album sported, yet at the same time there was a clear focus on solid songwriting and necessary polish that wasn't prevalent with OTTN. So because of this, I find High and Pyro to be their overall best albums.

Then after a major delay due to drummer Rick Allen's car accident which caused one of his arms to be amputated and a LONG recording process, Hysteria(1987) was unleashed upon the unsuspecting public (I say "unsuspecting" because apparently it took more than a year for the album to take off). Mutt Lange succeeding in weeding nearly all of the "hard rock" out of the band and polished their sound to the point of having an entirely processed feel to it. However, I still believe that Hysteria is a definite 5 star album due to the fact that Mutt Lange clearly knew how to write good memorable pop-oriented songs and this album had plenty of them. 7 HIT SINGLES in fact. Even the underrated songs on there were good! A highly engineered polish production for the album was backed up by excellent songwriting. Unfortunately, five years, one Mutt Lange no longer producing, and one death of a great guitarist Steve Clark later, the same cannot be said about Adrenalize.

The first problem I see with Adrenalize is the fact that Mutt Lange jumped ship this time. Now there's nothing wrong at all with the band wanting to write their own stuff considering this was the first time they've done this since OTTN, but their reliance on Mutt Lange to provide them with the right direction in previous outings really shows here. Their OTTN songwriting is miles ahead of most of the material on Adrenalize. The band did figure out how to manage production knobs as the polished sound is even tighter than Hysteria's. But Mutt Lange's "hands off" approach leaves Adrenalize to be a lost cause in the early 90s music storm, much like how Grunge music began to take over around this time and eat up all the late-booming hair metal acts.

HOWEVER, the 2 exceptions and sole reason that I still give this album 3 stars comes from two tracks on here: 'White Lightning' and 'Tear It Down'.

First there's 'White Lightning'. Hats off to the band for creating a dark and brooding (albeit highly produced) epic ballad that stands as one of their all-time best songs, despite the fact that most people will overlook it. It may not be as hard rocking as previous gloom-ballads from their heyday, but the guys really nailed the "'Love Bites'-meets-'Women'-meets-'Comin' Under Fire'" sound on the dot. Why can't the band's later ballads all be this good? Then 'Tear It Down' was actually a Steve Clark penned song and hardest thing on the album which the band performed live on the Hysteria tours before its studio release. One of the highlights.

Though there were a few big hits on here, the rest of the songs come off as "Hysteria-lite". For instance, 'Lets Get Rocked' sounds much like a watered down 'Pour Some Sugar On Me' with some whacked-out lyrics: "...I'm just your average ordinary everyday dude." ... okay whatever. I suppose Sugar was the same way lyrically, but it doesn't quite work as well on 'LGR'. Other songs like 'Personal Property' and 'I Wanna Touch U' sound good in general context, but put them next to similar rockers such as 'Armageddon It' and 'Rocket' and they pale in comparison. This is where Steve Clark's absence can be felt the most. So Adrenalize ends up living under Hysteria's shadow, never finding a way to live up to, much less surpass it. 'Make Love Like A Man' is actually a decent track, and I do like it better now than I used to. But most of the other songs are nothing but sappy ballads. And that's another problem with Adrenalize: WAAAY too many power ballads on here. Now I don't have a problem with bunches of ballads if they are well crafted. For instance, have a soft spot for Heart's 'Bad Animals' album, and even though it was made predominately of ballads, they were all GOOD songs. Here, there is only one good 'White Lightning', and all the rest are 'Love Bites' wanna-be love ballads.

replayability: Low (or medium if you happen to like it)

Despite all the downplay that I've stated, I do recommend that commercial DL fans (or more specifically the Hysteria/Euphoria fans) check it out and form their own opinion. Afterall, it was popular at the time and I see many people here find it to their liking. It's just that if you're more of a fan of their earlier harder and better stuff (i.e. Night, High, Pyro, Hysteria, and even Retro) then you may be disappointed like I was. I still keep it in my collection for 'White Lightning' and 'Tear It Down' but other than that it just collects dust. NOT MANDATORY, BUT WORTH A LISTEN.
More Adrenalize free music reviews:
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

Description of Adrenalize

Japanese-only SHM-CD (Super High Material CD) pressing of this classic 1992 album from the Rock legends. SHM-CDs can be played on any audio player and delivers unbelievably high-quality sound. You won't believe it's the same CD! Universal. 2008.

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