Def Leppard were one of the shining lights of the New Wave of British Heavy Metal that brought an exciting, raw energy and stripped-down sound to metal in the late '70s and early '80s, and their first two albums, 1980's On Through the Night and 1981's High 'N' Dry, showcased a band who knew how to combine hooks, swagger, and guitar crunch with the best of them. By the time they went into the studio to record their third album, they had gained some success but were ready to aim for the upper rungs of charts. To that end, the band and producer Mutt Lange began the process of sanding off most of the metallic edges left in Def Leppard's sound and replacing them with a gleaming, studio-concocted sheen that was all high-end shimmer, stacked vocal harmonies, processed drums, and guitars that whooshed and soared like jet planes. 1983's Pyromania was the group's blatant grab for success, and it worked beyond their wildest dreams, with a parade of singles nearing the top of the charts and the album becoming a huge seller that helped define the era and inspired so many other bands to combine metal and pop. Only the most die-hard metal fans would begrudge the band their success since they made such a catchy, fun, and exciting album. Songs like "Photograph," "Foolin'," Rock! Rock! (Till You Drop)," and "Rock of Ages" are pop music at its best, tightly packed with hooks, spiced with guitar riffs, powered by tightly coiled energy, and topped by Joe Elliott's perfect yowl. "Too Late for Love" is another great ballad in the vein of their previous "Bringin' on the Heartbreak," that shows the slightly more tender side of the group; on the flipside, "Die Hard the Hunter" and Billy's Got a Gun," delve into more dramatic territory that's fantastic and dramatic, respectively. It's a rare case of a band selling off any of the cred they may have built up in their early years and totally buying into the pop music game, but instead of becoming yet another foolish casualty, they somehow beat the system instead. Pyromania is over-produced, over-polished, over-cooked, and brilliant from beginning to end. Because it's such a daring tightrope act, almost every band that followed in their footsteps got it laughably wrong. Def Lep themselves were rarely able to reconstruct the formula correctly, which shows just how difficult it was to combine committed, energetic performances with meaningful, perfectly constructed songs, and to deliver them in a super slick metal-meets-rock-meets-pop fashion that somehow pleased so many people Goldilocks-style at the time, and continues to sound magical decades later.© Tim Sendra /TiVo

Pyromania is in that awkward tier of massively successful, inescapable-in-their-time albums that have nonetheless failed to achieve the ubiquity of a Dark Side of the Moon or a Rumours. Its 10x Platinum status puts it in the company of Van Halen's debut and The Joshua Tree, but also of less-acclaimed chart-dominators like Hi Infidelity and Please Hammer Don't Hurt 'Em. Even within Def Leppard's catalog, Pyromania is a bit of an in-betweener, moving away from the full-bodied, metal-but-melodic rawness of High and Dry and toward the high-gloss accessibility of Hysteria, while effectively fusing the best of both of those approaches. It is here that Robert John "Mutt" Lange positioned himself as the quintessential '80s hard rock hitmaker, codifying both the booming, larger-than-life sound he had become known for on albums like Back In Black and Foreigner's 4 into a "5th Beatle"-type role where his process-heavy studio methods were as integral to the album's sound as the songs. Those methods, combined with the band's uniquely accessible evolution of NWOBHM hard rock (and, to no small extent, their videogenic style), made Pyromania—at least for denizens of the early MTV era—the Def Leppard album, containing their first omnipresent hits ("Photograph," "Rock of Ages," "Foolin'") and a sturdy selection of hard rock deep cuts ("Comin' Under Fire," "Stagefright," "Action! Not Words") that wouldn't have been out of place on High and Dry. Like many '80s hits, Pyromania's critical reputation has been bruised by the inescapability of the songs' ubiquity, but even now, the album manages to thrill. This remaster is muscular with a stadium-size soundstage that peels away just enough of the era-evoking, reverb-drenched brightness that has plagued previous digital versions to give the set the sort of accessible toughness that was always part of the band's DNA. To be sure, it still very much sounds like the fussily titanic "Mutt" Lange production that it is, but, much as he has done for other iconic British rock bands (Black Sabbath, Deep Purple), Andy Pearce's remastering work gives this 40th anniversary edition a notable heft and warmth that has long been missing from its presentation on CD and streaming. The raft of unreleased material—especially the rough mixes—is a fantastic addition, showing just how tight and taut all of these songs were before they were Mutt-ified; the dry and driving early mix of "Photograph" in particular is revelatory and may become your go-to as it manages to provide a bit of surprise to such a well-worn cut. The full live show—recorded at the Forum in Los Angeles near the end of the second U.S. leg of the 1983 tour—is the same one that was included in the 2009 deluxe edition of the album, but it's well worth repeating, as it's one of the band's best shows from the era and even, somewhat wildly, features guest Brian May on a cover of Creedence Clearwater Revival's "Travelin' Band." While it's never wise to say that any "deluxe version" is the final word on a classic album, this set gives Pyromania an edition worthy of its impact and stature. © Jason Ferguson/Qobuz

Def Leppard were one of the shining lights of the New Wave of British Heavy Metal that brought an exciting, raw energy and stripped-down sound to metal in the late '70s and early '80s, and their first two albums, 1980's On Through the Night and 1981's High 'N' Dry, showcased a band who knew how to combine hooks, swagger, and guitar crunch with the best of them. By the time they went into the studio to record their third album, they had gained some success but were ready to aim for the upper rungs of charts. To that end, the band and producer Mutt Lange began the process of sanding off most of the metallic edges left in Def Leppard's sound and replacing them with a gleaming, studio-concocted sheen that was all high-end shimmer, stacked vocal harmonies, processed drums, and guitars that whooshed and soared like jet planes. 1983's Pyromania was the group's blatant grab for success, and it worked beyond their wildest dreams, with a parade of singles nearing the top of the charts and the album becoming a huge seller that helped define the era and inspired so many other bands to combine metal and pop. Only the most die-hard metal fans would begrudge the band their success since they made such a catchy, fun, and exciting album. Songs like "Photograph," "Foolin'," Rock! Rock! (Till You Drop)," and "Rock of Ages" are pop music at its best, tightly packed with hooks, spiced with guitar riffs, powered by tightly coiled energy, and topped by Joe Elliott's perfect yowl. "Too Late for Love" is another great ballad in the vein of their previous "Bringin' on the Heartbreak," that shows the slightly more tender side of the group; on the flipside, "Die Hard the Hunter" and Billy's Got a Gun," delve into more dramatic territory that's fantastic and dramatic, respectively. It's a rare case of a band selling off any of the cred they may have built up in their early years and totally buying into the pop music game, but instead of becoming yet another foolish casualty, they somehow beat the system instead. Pyromania is over-produced, over-polished, over-cooked, and brilliant from beginning to end. Because it's such a daring tightrope act, almost every band that followed in their footsteps got it laughably wrong. Def Lep themselves were rarely able to reconstruct the formula correctly, which shows just how difficult it was to combine committed, energetic performances with meaningful, perfectly constructed songs, and to deliver them in a super slick metal-meets-rock-meets-pop fashion that somehow pleased so many people Goldilocks-style at the time, and continues to sound magical decades later.© Tim Sendra /TiVo

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