Def Leppard – Rock of Ages: The Definitive Collection::...let'sget let'sget let'sget let'sget rocked (BOBS w/o)
Written: Oct 04 '05 (Updated Oct 04 '05)
Product Rating:
Pros: if you just wanna get rocked, you really can't go wrong with Def Leppard
Cons: just give in to the (overly simple) music - you can feel guilty later
The Bottom Line: no matter how much I love Bach, Tschaikovsky, and violins, I DO wanna get rocked from time to time. There are times you just gotta say "what the rock..."
bob_tomato's Full Review: Rock of Ages: The Definitive Collection by Def Lep...
Believe it or not, snarky music critic bob_tomato likes to get rocked…
I'm not going to claim that I'm hip to the current bands out there – though perfectly willing to give them a shot, I'm woefully unprepared to be rocked by the likes of Queens of the Stone Age, White Stripes, Opeth, or A Perfect Circle. No, I'm more comfortable shaking my tomato tush to the music of the rock bands I listened to back in my high school and college days. So here I am, limbs flailing , smack in the middle of that special band of spandex wearing, hairspray addicted, sweaty guitar gods known as the pop-metal bands. No, I got ta feel it in my blood…
Def Leppard has got what the tomato needs to get rocked…
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I'm your average ordinary everyday dude…
Face it – most men in the highly coveted 18-25 demographic pretty much have just one thing on their minds – women, lots of pretty women. The music of Def Leppard is soaked in testosterone and machismo, a blatant appeal to crotches everywhere, the heartbeat of the alpha male driven to conquer anything that crosses his path. This is the soundtrack of gutting it out, going for the glory of winning the girl and gaining the prize you've set your sights on.
The snarky music critic in me begs to dismiss Def Leppard as just a bunch of lucky bastards with little musical talent who made it big. There's nothing subtle or nuanced about Def Leppard, there are no complicated melodic passages or devilishly clever instrumentals at work here – these guys are just average, ordinary everyday dudes, playing their music as loud and as lewd as they can.
Rick Allen's heavy- (one)handed and heavy-footed drumbeats demand that you respond, and when combined so incredibly tight with Rick Savage's bass, the rhythm section becomes the sound of Leppard's animalistic drive. Viv Campbell, Phil Collen and (the late) Steve Clark's crunch out eternally simplistic power chords and rehearsal-scale solos. Joe Elliott's gruff-edged tenor/screamer vocals are the perfect front for super-producer Mutt Lange's hyperchorused backing voices that create the signature sound of the band.
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…drivin' with my baby to get her in the mood…
Def Leppard's two-disc set Rock of Ages: The Definitive Collection came out in May of 2005, and was intended to replace a greatest hits collection that appeared a decade earlier. With thirty-four songs, this new, larger collection manages to fill in some holes that plagued the first single disc set.
Disc 2 (follow me here) features many of the major songs that frame the megastar period of the band. The mid-eighties were huge for the band, and their greatest hits have already been presented in the box set Vault, released in 1995. Disc 1 is basically Vault version 2, featuring just two additional tracks, so if you have that collection already, you really need to pay attention to Disc 2 to decide if this new greatest hits collection is worth having.
From the very beginning of Def Leppard's nearly thirty year career (wow – that hurts), they've worked hard at perfecting the sound that they are best known for – uncomplicated, uncompromising stadium rock that knocks you over in strong rhythmic waves, storming into your ears with the unique choral aural sound that Mutt Lange became famous for after he produced Leppard's 1981 album, their second major label release High n' Dry.
Listening here toRock Brigade, one of the two tracks from their first album On Through the Night that appear in this collection, you can hear that the band had very tight vocals to begin with, and there is some evidence that the hyperchorus thing is not entirely Mutt's doing. But it is also apparent that Mutt brought a level of control to the band – the other OTTN track, Wasted, is a fast driving rock number that careens on the edge of anarchy. That original sound is what made Def Leppard a huge hit with their first fans in Britain, but Lange's production and songwriting skills made the band a worldwide smash. Disc 2 contains some of the Lange produced songs that were strangely left out of the Vault, (most probably for lack of room on the single CD) - Rock Rock (Til You Drop), Let It Go, Too Late For Love finally make a DL greatest hits collection. Also represented are album tracks key to the rise of Def Leppard to the world stage – Die Hard the Hunter and Billy's Got A Gun, both from Pyromania, are solid and thoughtful additions to this collection.
This collection also shows Def Leppard coming full circle to their recent albums without Mutt Lange. After a string of monster albums with Lange (High and Dry, Pyromania, and Hysteria) they parted ways after 1992's Adrenalize - the last hurrah for one of pop-metal's biggest bands of the eighties. (see my reviews of the complete Winger discography for more on the death of hair metal)
Now cruising on the fuel of past memories and nostalgia, Def Leppard continues on, putting out albums that have begun to grow up in theme, pacing the age of the band as they hit their mid-forties. Songs like Now and Paper Sun are excellent choices to represent this new maturity - Now features a lyric that is actually respectful of the woman being sung to and about, and Paper Sun deals with the band's reactions to the Omagh bombing in Ireland. The Definitive Collection also features a track from the band's upcoming covers album, Badfinger's famous hit No Matter What. It's pretty much a faithful covering of the original version, with a few techno-noise touches added here and there to make it sound Leppard-ish.
But it's always been about the girls, so you can't have even a relatively new Def Leppard song without some sleaze, and 1996's Slang delivers double entendres about phone sex. Apart from singing about jingling one's bells, this track features a completely different sound for the band – this is a very, very odd song that features a hip hop rhythm, coupling the sound of dusty vinyl samples with metal guitar riffs that have obviously been edited into place. This is a completely constructed song that shows the band at it's worst – the band should rely on the strength of what they've always done best…
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she's dialin' through my radio & I'm ready to make my move
What Def Leppard does best is crank out stadium ready rockers and the occasional power ballad. Rock radio and MTV in the latter part of the eighties became the personal playground of Def Leppard - Vault has already covered these songs already, so owning The Definitive Collection is a toss-up. But if you're new to Def Leppard, or if you don't own the early albums, this set is a good one to pick up.
As I said earlier, Disc 1 is Vault version 2, featuring Leppard's biggest hits from the days of multi-platinum monsters like Pyromania, Hysteria and Adrenalize. Def Leppard's official site even states that The Definitive Collection is "an updated version to replace Vault", and they did the right thing by adding Foolin' to the track list on Disc 1. Foolin' was a HUGE omission from Vault, and really should have been in that first collection instead of Def Leppard's boy band track When Love and Hate Collide (still preserved here for posterity). Take another listen to that track and you tell me if you can't picture Joe E., (Not)PhilCollins, Viv, Sav and Left-Arm in white outfits, emoting in front of some abstract set in extreme gauzy closeup…
No, the real strength of Disc 1 are the show-us-your-tits, meet me backstage during the set change monster rockers that Def Leppard and Mutt Lange unleashed on the world. They're all here, (some in their video edit versions, in a nod to the power of MTV upon rock radio at the time). If you have NO Def Leppard in your collection, then The Definitive Collection is what you need to get rocked.
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Rock of Ages: The Definitive Collection
Def Leppard's Rock of Ages: The Definitive Collection could be the perfect purchase for the person looking to create a decent Def Leppard library with in one stroke. It's a comprehensive collection that includes not only the massive radio hits of the band's glory days, but that also digs deep into the band's past for the key tracks that propelled them to the top. Relatively recent songs and a new cover are also presented here, but they don't seem to overwhelm the other songs in some obvious effort to sell more recent, less popular albums. A nice bonus are recent songs like Paper Sun and Now, two fairly mature songs that stretch the band musically – they were a nice revelation for me.
Calling this set The Definitive Collection isn't a stretch – they did a very nice job rounding out the history of the band with key album tracks, early hits and fairly decent songs from recent recordings. The production value of the album is great, but surely it can't be difficult to replicate such pristine Lange tracks in this day and age. His hard work stands the test of time, and the quality of the original recordings shines through in this collection. The package is fairly standard – a single case, dual-disc flip tray with a generous booklet enclosed with a nicely effusive intro from Dave Ling, writer for Classic Rock and Metal Hammer magazines. It's 23 pages come with some comments about each track from various members of the band, and some good concert and studio pics throughout (plus one priceless backstage photo that shows Joe pointing out Phil's very British, very white, and very exposed butt).
Def Leppard certainly isn't the most musically talented band in the world, but they have the goods where it counts – their performances are all about guts, girls and glory. Their music is a testosterone laden celebration of pure machismo that is simply infectious. It's what rock and roll was born to be – loud, lewd and liberating.
Do you wanna get rocked?
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note to epinions members
This review is part of plorentz's Best Of/Box Set write-off, also known as BOBS. Why he chose to honor me by naming the write off after me, I have no idea...
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Def Leppard - Rock of Ages: The Definitive Collection
Released May 15, 2005 by Bludgeon Riffola/Island Records
Disc 1 (songs that did not appear on "Vault" are in bold)
Pour Some Sugar On Me (Historia video edit) / Photograph / Love Bites / Let's Get Rocked / Two Steps Behind (acoustic) / Animal / Heaven Is / Foolin' / Rocket (Visualize video edit) / When Love & Hate Collide / Armageddon / Have You Ever Needed Someone So Bad / Rock of Ages / Hysteria / Miss You In A Heartbeat / Bringin' On The Heartbreak / Switch 625
Disc 2
Rock Rock (Till You Drop) / Let It Go / High 'N Dry (Saturday Night) / Too Late For Love / No Matter What / Promises / Mirror, Mirror (Look Into My Eyes) / Women / Another Hit And Run / Slang / Stand Up (Kick Love Into Motion) / Rock Brigade / Now / Paper Sun / Work It Out / Die Hard The Hunter / Wasted / Billy's Got A Gun
Def Leppard celebrates its 25th anniversary with Rock Of Ages The Definitive Collection/ features 16 of Def Leppard s Top 40 hits among the 35 selecti...More at Buy.com Marketplaces
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