Hysteria

After the success of Pyromania, hard rockers Def Leppard went immediately into the studio to record a follow-up, intending to release it within a year. It ended up taking three gruelling, expensive, emotional years.

The band’s intention from the start was not to make ‘Pyromania 2’, but instead to ‘broaden their scope’ and cross over into pop. When Pyromania producer Mutt Lange told the band he wouldn’t be involved in the album, they turned to producer Jim Steinman (Meat Loaf, Air Supply) but it didn’t work out.

Soon after the departure of Steinman, drummer Rick Allen lost his left arm in a car accident. When Lange got the news, he visited the band and had a change of heart: He decided to produce the album after all. Allen also took part, owing to the addition of a MIDI foot-pedal to his drum kit.

Over the next two years, Lange worked painstakingly with the band to realise their collective vision: a multi-layered rock album that would cross over into pop without being too ‘sweet’ or ‘soft’.

The band released the album’s lead single, “Animal”, in July 1987, and it was hugely successful. The album followed two weeks later, and debuted at number one not only in the UK, but also in Australia, New Zealand, and Norway.

Mercury Records chose “Women” to be the lead single for the US release, but it stalled at number 80 on the Billboard Hot 100. Industry insiders were quick to call the album a ‘disappointment’ and a ‘failure’. Within two months, the album went platinum in the US.

The subsequent singles reached position numbers 19, 10, 2, 1, 3, and 12, respectively. By the same time the following year, the album had climbed to the top of the chart. It stayed in Billboard’s top 10 for 78 weeks. As of 2015, the album has gone platinum 12 times in the US alone, and become the 25th biggest album ever on the Billboard 200.

Hysteria was the last album released before the passing of guitarist Steve Clark, who died on 8 January 1991.

Like all Def Leppard material, the album was not distributed digitally until 2018, due to a years-long conflict with Universal Records.