DEF LEPPARD Pyromania CD (1983)

Before the arm, before Hysteria, before every pub in the English-speaking world had Pour Some Sugar On Me on the jukebox, there was Pyromania. Sheffield lads with too much hairspray and just enough NWOBHM left in their DNA to make something that actually hit hard.

Mutt Lange production means everything is enormous, Photograph sounds like it was built in a stadium specifically to be heard in a stadium, and Rock Rock Til You Drop still works as an opening track forty-odd years on. This is the record that turned Def Leppard from a promising British heavy metal act into a genuine global machine, and it holds up in a way that some of their peers from 1983 genuinely do not. Essential hard rock history, the kind of thing that earns its place in a collection next to your punk records because great is great regardless of genre.

UK release, 1983. Full length CD.

Fans of: Mötley Crüe, Guns N' Roses, Scorpions, Dio, Twisted Sister, Dokken, Warrant.