Pyromania

Women to the left, women to the right — with this record Def Leppard would find themselves drowning in ladies as one of the biggest bands of the eighties. No longer content to merely be at the peak of the New Wave of British Heavy Metal, they brought back AC/DC and Foreigner hitmaker Robert John “Mutt” Lange to polish their heavy metal sound into gold, platinum, and beyond. He delivered — half these goddamn songs were released as singles, and they all burn brightly on classic rock radio to this day. Outside of those juggernauts (and there’s a reason they all struck), “Stagefright” shows they hadn’t fully left their early days high ‘n’ dry, and “Action! Not Words” provided a template for Ratt and their fellow Sunset Strippers. It reflects both the raw and shiny sides of eighties metal more than anything before or since.