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List Price: $13.98 | | Label: Island / Mercury
Salesrank: 1803
Released: October 25, 1990 |
| Our Price: $9.41 |
| Used Price: $3.95 |
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| Media: Audio CD |
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Hysteria Track Listing:
1. Women
2. Rocket
3. Animal
4. Love Bites
5. Pour Some Sugar on Me
6. Armageddon It
7. Gods of War
8. Don't Shoot Shotgun
9. Run Riot
10. Hysteria
11. Excitable
12. Love and Affection
Editorial Review:
Japanese-only SHM-CD (Super High Material CD) pressing of this classic 1987 album from the Rock legends. SHM-CDs can be played on any audio player and delivers unbelievably high-quality sound. You won't believe it's the same CD! Universal. 2008.
Description of Hysteria:
Probably Def Leppard's best album, and certainly their most successful, Hysteria pretty much sums up 80s hard rock: catchy, tuneful, and fun. It's also one of the few albums from the period that doesn't sound dated now, and singles like "Pour Some Sugar On Me", "Armageddon It", and "Rocket" remain staples of rock radio. The rest of the album is equally entertaining; "Animal" and "Hysteria", while mid-tempo, have the same slick intensity, and "Love Bites" is one of the few pop-metal ballads that doesn't sound saccharine over a decade after its release. Def Leppard may be remembered more for their hair than their music these days, but that's more due to changing tastes than anything else. It's still good. --Genevieve Williams
Hysteria Reviews:
Hit me like a bomb... 
2009-12-06 - The trials and tribulations of Def Leppard post `Pyromania' and pre-`Hysteria' have been related ad nauseum in many other forums so I will not rehash them here. That this album became such an enormous success and made the band the kings of a predominately American genre - hair metal should not have been a big surprise, but it was. The album sold very slowly in the States for the first year or so of its release but then came the phenomenon known as "Pour Some Sugar on Me", the epitome of rock excess in one four and a half minute song and album sales soared eventually passing the previous records monster success. All of that considered, `Hysteria' has not aged as well as the other albums from the Leps rise to rock superstardom. Probably the biggest reason for this is that the album is a technicological marvel but what does that have to do with rock n' roll? Also, Def Leppard to the chagrin of heavy rock fans intentionally wanted to bury their past as a "heavy metal" band and become a pop supergroup which was a success, but at what cost? The album has a boatload of hits but very few of them are songs that I continue to play with relish some twenty years later. "Love Bites" was a number one single in the USA but.....eeesssshhh! Much of the songs on the second half are not that great with the exception of "Hysteria" (a much better song than "Love Bites") and closer "Love and Affection". Most of the hits are early and often on the LP, with opener "Women" being among the better of the first six songs and of course "Sugar" which got the chicks to the gigs. Overall I am sure the band will not cry about the millions they made from should be considered the key albums of the late Reagan era but they would no longer be considered a metal band...which won't keep them up at night!
Hysteria
2009-11-29 - Hysteria being Def Leppard's 1987 release and their 4th studio album is a prime example of 80's Hard Rock music. The booklet contains no lyrics but a list of whom plays what. The album was a massive commercial success when it was released and topped the charts on the Billboard 200, UK Top 40 and the Australian ARIA Albums Chart. To me this is not heavy metal but rock with metal elements to it being that I am used to listen to groups like Megadeath and Metallica. One could even say that it sounds a bit like glam rock or glam metal since it definitely has glam rock elements to it. Tracks that standout are "Love Bites", "Pour Some Sugare On Me" and "Armageddon It". The critics loved the recording and Allmusic and Rolling Stone both gave it high marks. 4/5.
Top 40 metal. 
2009-11-10 - I realize this is their bestselling album and a fan favorite. And I admit the sound quality is nothing short of spectacular, thanks to Mutt Lange's perfectionist engineering. But it's all encased in such a silky-smooth, over-produced environment that the record seldom really lets its hair down. Unlike "Pyromania", which, although produced with equal precision, still maintained a heavy rock guitar atmosphere, "Hysteria" encapsulates Def Leppard's sound inside a mechanistic, mid-tempo bubble and only occasionally is the band allowed to let its hair down (more so towards the end of the record). The guitars are often muted or more often simply overshadowed by the rigid mechanical percussion (a necessary evil due to the drummer's missing arm). Assorted vocal effects and overdubs add some additional cheesiness to the proceedings. A few rockers like "Don't Shoot Shotgun" and "Run Riot" do echo the band's past glories, but for the most part this is "safe" metal, acceptable to the masses and tailor-made for Top 40 radio. The over-abundance of sappy power-ballads (including the wimpy title track) only adds to the record's problems. Indeed, many bands of this era felt obligated (or were pressured) to record power ballads, which would guarantee Top 40 radio airplay and selection as the prom theme at many a high school. "Hysteria" is a slick attempt to commercialize the guitar rock sound that Def Leppard had been perfecting on albums like "Pyromania" and "High and Dry". It turned the band into zillionaires, but it compromised their musical integrity. It's an old story, unfortunately.
Def Leppard's Best 
2009-10-23 - Loads of chart-topping songs on this album, plus more good tracks that most people aren't even familiar with. It is still a great album even after 20+ years.
Def Leppard Review
2009-10-16 - "Hysteria" is Def Leppard's best album. The song "Hysteria" has incredible production values. I don't know how a rock recording could be done any better.
