William_the_Bloody

No worries mate, Its in all good fun. Your thread has sort of made you the defacto man on metal history, so I was just a bit shocked....but the moment has passed

Unknown Soldier

The Lowdown
Pyromania means a mental disorder characterized by the need to start fires and Def Leppard’s third album Pyromania was a fiery metal revelation back in 1983, where it started its claim to fame as being one of the most important metal albums of all time. The bulk of its sales were in the US where the album was really aimed at and it sold over a staggering 10 million copies there alone, making the album something of an mystery here in the UK, as sales here took time to take off and even then they paled in comparison to those in the US. I can remember back in 1983, that the UK rock press (non metal) commented that was there was this huge British band in the US selling millions of records and topping the charts there, whereas here in the UK the band were only known among true metal heads, because as far as the general music public went they were unheard of, that of course would all change a few years later here though with the Hysteria album. As leaders of the NWOBHM Def Leppard on their previous album High ‘n’ Dry back in 1981 (see review) had dropped the charismatic metal of their debut On Through the Night 1980 (see review) for a more stadium rock-orientated approach that bore fruit on High ‘n’ Dry and that album’s sole aim had been to crack the US market. Def Leppard it seemed had one sole purpose in the 1981-1983 period and that was to become the biggest British ‘heavy’ band stateside since Led Zeppelin and to do this they had equipped themselves with some great marketing tools both old and new to achieve this goal. 1) They had adopted the vital ‘stadium rock’ sound or in this case ‘stadium metal’ a la Judas Priest. 2) Constantly toured the USA. 3) Had a producer like Mutt Lange. 4) Embraced MTV. 5) They were attractive and looked good as metal pin-ups in pop mags. Of course on top of this the band were blessed with a melodic metal sound that was often described as being at the lighter end of the heavy metal spectrum, but in reality their sound could easily appeal to most metal listeners out there. Also when they also hit big in 1983 glam metal was making its arrival truly felt as well, so it was no surprise that they cashed their chips into that market as well. The recording of the album wasn’t all roses for the band though, as guitarist Pete Willis was fired at the start of the Pyromania sessions for alcohol abuse to be replaced by Phil Collen, who had once spent time in British hair metal band Girl and he would go onto form the band’s vital guitar playing duo with Steve Clark. As for the album I probably know every track and every breath featured here and on “Rock Rock (‘Til You Drop) the band dished out one of the great openers to ever appear on a metal album. The following melodic “Photograph” sounds like a dream and I think its here that listeners either get hooked or decide it’s not really for them and the harder edged “Stagefright” which mixes in touches of melody is spot on. After three rampant tracks it was obvious that the band would slow things down if not the heaviness on “Too Late for Love” before embarking on the epic a-side closer “Die Hard the Hunter”. The b-side is just as solid and memorable as the five tracks before it, with the exception of “Action! Not Words” and these include Def Leppard gems like “Foolin” “Comin’ Under Fire” “Billy’s Got a Gun” and the unofficial title track the awesome “Rock of Ages”. The album’s running time at 44 mins makes it longer than most of your typical metal albums at this time, which helps to demonstrate its undeniable quality and made it very hard for me to pick just four tracks to highlight below, as nearly every track is great. Pyromania under Mutt Lange’s production tutelage, must be the most buffed-to-a-sparkling-sheen example of how to produce a metal album, that still manages to stay true to all the essential ingedients when creating a big metal sound. The album is essentially timeless due to its great combo of melodic hooks and heavy riffs and it still sounds equally great twenty years after its initial release.

Joe Elliot- Vocals
Steve Clark- Guitar
Phil Collen- Guitar
Rick Savage- Bass
Rick Allen- Drums

Production- Robert John “Mutt” Lange

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William_the_Bloody

Ah thank you, I hope my whining about Shout at the Devil didn't influence your order though, you should go with your heart.

That being said, I do think Shout at the Devil should have been put in the top 3, but I think I might see where your coming from? The Crue's musical skills were subpar in comparison to many of their peers (Iron Maiden, Def Leppard ect) thus I kind of view Shout at the Devil in the same light as Never Mind the Bollocks, a one off fluke of brilliance.

Anyways I'm happy you decided to put Kill em All in the top 3 only because the onset of thrash was a real game changer for heavy metal. I honestly believe that if it wasn't for bands like Metallica & Slayer people would have been driving around in their cars listening to underground punk bands like GBH & the Exploited. In this way thrash had more of an impact than NWOBHM, though the latter needed the former.

Finally, I would have put Def leppard ahead of Iron maiden this year only because this album enshrined the coming dominance, of pop/glam metal for the rest of the decade, but hey who am I? everyone's a critic, and I confess that Def Leppard's 1987 Hysteria is one of my favourite metal albums of all time.

Unknown Soldier

Well I think Too Fast for Love is as good as Shout at the Devil even though it doesn't have the big pumping riffs of Shout at the Devil. So I don't think of Motley Crue as a one off album band. I'm not really into punk but Never Mind the Bollocks is easily my favourite punk album from its time period.

I prefer Slayer and even Megadeth over Metallica, but Metallica imo were the only ones of the 'big four of thrash' to be the complete package on their debut album.

Well its a trade off between the pop/glam metal of Def Leppard against the truer metal sound of Iron Maiden here. Personally I sooner throw on Pyromania over Piece of Mind 9 times out of 10, even though I know that the Maiden album is metal perfection.

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William_the_Bloody

Hmmm, I suppose as I like Too Fast for Love as well, but Shout at the Devil to me just stands out far above the other albums. Its funny when I go back and listen to Motley Crue a lot of their music just doesn't seem to stand the test of time in comparison to their peers. My friend just saw the Crue farewell show and he said Alice Cooper stole the show...can't say I'd disagree.


Yes and you like Rust in Peace more than Peace Sells, so I can see some conflict brewing, lol, jk.



I must confess I've never actually sat down and listened to Piece of Mind in its entirety, as I've always had a hard time getting into Iron Maiden, though I finally had a breakthrough with Powerslave, dare I say I would put it above Ride the Lighting Dare I say I would put VH 1984 above RTL, and yes even possibly Love at First Sting ahead of the glory that is Metallica!!!

Oh and WASP can't forget about them!!!

Thelonious Monkey

Piece Of Mind is pretty inconsistent, but I love it more than Number Of The Beast or Powerslave. Powerslave is a close second. And when I think about it now, nearly every track on Powerslave is perfect. There are none that fail to kick ass. I think it's their most solid album after Iron Maiden.

William_the_Bloody

It was 2 minutes to midnight that hooked me into Maiden. Obviously I had heard it before, but about a month ago I decided to crank the intro in my car....I highly recommend that everyone tries this.

Urban Hat€monger ?

I remember reading something somewhere that of all the 10 million-ish sales of Pyromania (in the mid 80s) something like 80% of them were made up in cassette sales because people wanted to listen to it in their cars.

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Unknown Soldier

I'm not sure I agree about the test of time with Motley Crue, as I really like them now and never really liked them that much before. It seems I originally missed everything that was great about the early days of the band.

Well Alice Cooper is a true rock genius and knows how to put a show on and his longevity is pretty amazing. I find the albums that I've reviewed by him in this journal to still be as good as when I first listened to them back in the 1980s.

I always find that when the most famous Maiden album mentioned it's normally The Number of the Beast but when true metal or Maiden fans slug it out they tend to go with either Piece of Mind or Powerslave.

As for W.A.S.P about a month ago they were going to be somewhere in my top 20 for 1984, but given the huge amount of quality in that year it's now quite doubtful, in fact I may start to include my extras again at the end of the year to mention stuff's that missed....... but then again I might not.

As said above someone that falls into the Powerslave camp

If that's the case that well could've been a marketing tool for the American market as well, given that loads of people there drive long distances and so listening to albums in cars would be important.

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Trollheart

It's kinda hard to argue against Powerslave --- what an album! But as I've said many many times, "Number of the Beast" was basically the album that got me into Heavy Metal, so it'll always have a spot at the very top of my heart for that reason.

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Trollheart: Signature-free since April 2018