Hysteria: Deluxe Edition
Label: Island
Length: LP
Media: CD
Format: Reissue
WorkNameSort: Hysteria: Deluxe Edition
If there exists any album less in need of remastering than Hysteria, I can’t think of it. As perhaps the most meticulously produced and engineered hard-rock record ever made, this 1987 response to the success of Pyromania could basically be translated as: ‘More, please.â?� More harmonies â?¦ and then multitrack some more on top. More melodic guitar lines â?¦ and then multitrack some more on top. More earworm choruses â?¦ and then multitrack some more on top. Take all of it, double it, double it again, turn 24 tracks into 80 gajillion and emerge with a ‘rockâ?� record that’s as sterile and shiny as a surgery theater. Hysteria‘s clinical, robotic sheen is instantly at odds with the hedonistic rock it glistens atop, and that’s what’s always made this record difficult to defend. Pyromania had guts and drive; it was blatantly ambitious, but some of the tattered grind of the band’s early NWOBHM roots nonetheless managed to slip in. Hysteria is all top-of-the-world cock-swagger, with every double entendre and guitar solo algorithmically predetermined to ‘fucking rockâ?� while effortlessly scaling the charts. The bad part? It fucking does and it fucking did. Six Top 20 hits, 18 million copies sold and a generation of people who will drop everything to sing along to ‘Pour Some Sugar on Me,â?� knowing full well the song blows in the exact same proportion that it kicks ass. This double-disc edition extends the pain by remastering the original album (to what effect, I certainly cannot tell) and tacking on B-sides like ‘Ring of Fire,â?� live versions and, best of all, dance remixes (ahh, the ’80s). Midway through the ‘Nuclear Mixâ?� of ‘Armageddon Itâ?� (no, I’m not kidding), the obvious becomes crystalline: Def Leppard changed the rules for hard-rock albums with Hysteria, putting a bright line between the ‘popâ?� side (which this disc masterfully exemplified) and, well, everything else.
This article appears in Oct 25-31, 2006.