With their classic albums "Pyromania" (1983) and "Hysteria," (1987) Def Leppard proved to be one of the 1980s premier rock bands. They created and epitomized 80s pop-metal and drew countless imitators. They were really, THE definitive band of the 1980s pop-metal genre. In the early 90s, before the rise of grunge, demand was high for a new Def Leppard album. But as the mighty Def Leppard got started on their new album, tragedy struck the band. One night in early 1991, guitarist Steve Clarke mixed alcohol with painkillers, with fatal results.

There is a cliché that says when Steve Clarke died, Def Leppard died with him. Listening to any post-Clarke Def Leppard album makes this painfully clear. Clarke was by far the most talented member of the band. An underrated guitar player, he was also the bands best songwriter, churning out some of the catchiest songs of the 80s. His loss was a death blow to the band. Without him Def Leppard has limped on ever since.

1992 saw the release of the first post-Clarke album "Adrenalize." While recording the album, rather than replace Clarke, the band opted to continue as a quartet (guitarist Vivian Campbell would later join the band). Not surprisingly, the albums best songs were co-written by Clarke.

"Adrenalize" certainly has the style and feel of "Pyromania" and "Hysteria," but the album sounds weak. Def Leppard's signature sound is in place; catchy hooks, and melodic sing-along chorus; but it just doesn't fly. The album is just too pop-savvy and assessable for its own good. The bands once metallic edge has been filed down to nothing. The band is like a neutered pit-bull with no teeth. "Adrenalize" is just cheese, pure 80s sounding, generic, hair-metal cheese. "Adrenalize" makes Warrant's "Dirty Rotten Filthy Stinking Rich" (1989) sound like Slayer's "Reign in Blood" (1986) by comparison.

The band sounds good; it's just that the songs are weak. Had Clarke not died, and had he co-written the songs and played on the album, it probably would have been a good CD. Try as he might, guitarist Phil Collen just can't match the intensity of the Willis/Clarke duel assault that made Def Leppard's first three albums so good.

"Adrenalize" opens with its big hit "Let's get Rocked," which could possibly be the worst song the band has ever recorded. Not only is the music weak, but the lyrics are just soooo bad. For example:

"Got a million ways to make my day
But daddy don't agree
'Cos when I try to get away
He says he got plans for me
"Get your butt right out of bed"
Stop buggin' me
"Get up and move your sleepy head"
Don't shake my tree
He said "Mow the lawn" - who me?
"Walk the dog" - not my style, man!
"Take out the trash" - no way!
"Tidy your room" - c'mon get real!
Sorry dad, gotta disappear
Let's get the rock out of here"

Keep in mind that Joe Eliot was well into his 30s when he was singing about his dad telling him to "get your butt right out of bed" and "mow the lawn" and "walk the dog."

Def Leppard's lyrics from their debut album, "On through the Night," when they were in their early 20, are actually pretty edgy and cool. Certainly light-years better than this dribble.

The catchy mid-tempo "Heaven is," not surprisingly co-written by Clarke, is one of the album's best songs. "Make Love like a Man," (also co-written by Clarke) is just pure cheese. It's really no better than Slaughter or Trixter, or any other bastard child Def Leppard spawned. "Tonight" is the album's candy-ass obligatory power-balled. Somewhat derivative of the far superior "Foolin'" from "Pyromania," "Tonight" packs no punch. The mid-tempo "White Lightening," an ode to the dangers of substance abuse, and no doubt aimed at Clarke, is actually edgy and is one of better songs on the album. "Stand Up (Kick Love into Motion), also co-written by Clarke, has potential and is effective enough, but is ultimately too popish for its own good. "Personal Property," sounds like a smoothed-out "Rock Rock (Till you Drop), from "Pyromania," and is one of the albums better songs. The candy-ass "Have you ever needed someone so bad" should have been titled "Have you ever heard a song that sucked so bad." "I wanna touch you," also co-written by Clarke, is musically good, but is ruined by its insipid, asinine lyrics. The closing, Clarke co-penned hard-rocker "Tear it down" is good, but not great.

Released at the height of grunge, "Adrenalize" managed to debut at number one in the US and sell six million copies. Back in '92 it was an anomaly for a Def Leppard video to receive constant rotation back-to-back with the likes of Nirvana and Pearl Jam. That such an album, so out of place in the early 90s, should be so successful, is a testament to how popular Def Leppard had been. The pure 80s sounding "Adrenalize" proved not only to be Def Leppard's last hit album, (minus 1993's "Retro Active" rarities album) but also proved to be pop-metal's last hurrah. "Adrenalize" was the last album of its type to enjoy multi-platinum success. It's just a shame that the once mighty Def Leppard ended their multi-platinum reign at the top on such a weak note.

Adrenalize(1992). Def Leppard's 5th studio album.

Def Leppard were for the most part one of those rare 80s hard rock bands which managed to meet a ton of success and at the same time run into a lot of tragedy along the way. They of course started out as a fully energized and inspired NWOBHM band on their debut On Through The Night(1980), which sported some awesome songs, but wasn't really their best IMHO. Then on High 'N Dry(1981) infamous producer Robert John Mutt Lange found them and over the years he gradually changed them from a hard rock act into big 80s pop/rock radio stars. Both the aforementioned High 'N Dry and their breakthrough album Pyromania(1983) kept the traditional hard rock edge that the debut album sported, yet at the same time there was a clear focus on solid songwriting and necessary polish that wasn't prevalent with OTTN. So because of this, I find High and Pyro to be their overall best albums.

Then after a major delay due to drummer Rick Allen's car accident which caused one of his arms to be amputated and a LONG recording process, Hysteria(1987) was unleashed upon the unsuspecting public (I say "unsuspecting" because apparently it took more than a year for the album to take off). Mutt Lange succeeding in weeding nearly all of the "hard rock" out of the band and polished their sound to the point of having an entirely processed feel to it. However, I still believe that Hysteria is a definite 5 star album due to the fact that Mutt Lange clearly knew how to write good memorable pop-oriented songs and this album had plenty of them. 7 HIT SINGLES in fact. Even the underrated songs on there were good! A highly engineered polish production for the album was backed up by excellent songwriting. Unfortunately, five years, one Mutt Lange no longer producing, and one death of a great guitarist Steve Clark later, the same cannot be said about Adrenalize.

The first problem I see with Adrenalize is the fact that Mutt Lange jumped ship this time. Now there's nothing wrong at all with the band wanting to write their own stuff considering this was the first time they've done this since OTTN, but their reliance on Mutt Lange to provide them with the right direction in previous outings really shows here. Their OTTN songwriting is miles ahead of most of the material on Adrenalize. The band did figure out how to manage production knobs as the polished sound is even tighter than Hysteria's. But Mutt Lange's "hands off" approach leaves Adrenalize to be a lost cause in the early 90s music storm, much like how Grunge music began to take over around this time and eat up all the late-booming hair metal acts.

HOWEVER, the 2 exceptions and sole reason that I still give this album 3 stars comes from two tracks on here: 'White Lightning' and 'Tear It Down'.

First there's 'White Lightning'. Hats off to the band for creating a dark and brooding (albeit highly produced) epic ballad that stands as one of their all-time best songs, despite the fact that most people will overlook it. It may not be as hard rocking as previous gloom-ballads from their heyday, but the guys really nailed the "'Love Bites'-meets-'Women'-meets-'Comin' Under Fire'" sound on the dot. Why can't the band's later ballads all be this good? Then 'Tear It Down' was actually a Steve Clark penned song and hardest thing on the album which the band performed live on the Hysteria tours before its studio release. One of the highlights.

Though there were a few big hits on here, the rest of the songs come off as "Hysteria-lite". For instance, 'Lets Get Rocked' sounds much like a watered down 'Pour Some Sugar On Me' with some whacked-out lyrics: "...I'm just your average ordinary everyday dude." ... okay whatever. I suppose Sugar was the same way lyrically, but it doesn't quite work as well on 'LGR'. Other songs like 'Personal Property' and 'I Wanna Touch U' sound good in general context, but put them next to similar rockers such as 'Armageddon It' and 'Rocket' and they pale in comparison. This is where Steve Clark's absence can be felt the most. So Adrenalize ends up living under Hysteria's shadow, never finding a way to live up to, much less surpass it. 'Make Love Like A Man' is actually a decent track, and I do like it better now than I used to. But most of the other songs are nothing but sappy ballads. And that's another problem with Adrenalize: WAAAY too many power ballads on here. Now I don't have a problem with bunches of ballads if they are well crafted. For instance, have a soft spot for Heart's 'Bad Animals' album, and even though it was made predominately of ballads, they were all GOOD songs. Here, there is only one good 'White Lightning', and all the rest are 'Love Bites' wanna-be love ballads.

replayability: Low (or medium if you happen to like it)

Despite all the downplay that I've stated, I do recommend that commercial DL fans (or more specifically the Hysteria/Euphoria fans) check it out and form their own opinion. Afterall, it was popular at the time and I see many people here find it to their liking. It's just that if you're more of a fan of their earlier harder and better stuff (i.e. Night, High, Pyro, Hysteria, and even Retro) then you may be disappointed like I was. I still keep it in my collection for 'White Lightning' and 'Tear It Down' but other than that it just collects dust. NOT MANDATORY, BUT WORTH A LISTEN.

Def Leppard should have released the rariteis album Retro Active and used these filler songs for the b sides. This album is weak. The only reason i give it two stars is for the only two songs on the disk that are not filler. Those songs would be 'White Lightning' and 'Tear It Down'. This album did well but it was just a poor attempt to recreate 'Hysteria'. Pick up Retro Active instead.

none for the rest. I grew to like 'Hysteria', though I got rid of it a long time ago, and don't/won't listen to ear candy/drivel like this anymore. I saw them on this tour, on 9/25/92 and on 7/8/93, both in Sacramento. They were good shows, but not because this album had any quality to it. They played 'Bringin' On The Heartbreak' at the first show, and 'Another Hit and Run' at the second show. These, and some of the 'Pyromania' songs were the highlights of these shows. This album was essentially the end of Def Leppard as the world had come to know them, but not because Mutt Lange parted ways with them. By 1992, DL were dinosaurs because Nirvana, and all they stood for, obliterated hair bands forever, and made rock unfun. Nirvana made it uncool to write songs that were essentially meaningless, and though DL wrote some good rock songs, when it comes down to it, they ARE meaningless, and so is/was their music. Unfortunately, Nirvana was really the end of rock. I'm not even a fan of Nirvana, but 'fun/dumb' rock looked stupid and pathetic after 'Nevermind' came out, and that's the way things have stayed since Kurt killed himself: half parodies/tribute/cover bands (including bands still touring long after their heyday, e.g. The Beach Boys, The Rolling Stones, etc.) and half new bands that are just rehashes of older (and better) stuff, pretending to be something they're not (I know because I just left LA and was in several bands that all fit this description). The End Complete...

As noted in the booklet, "Adrenalize" was dedicated to the late Def Leppard guitarist, Stephen Maynard Clark. His death was, in fact, Def Leppard's "starting point" for this CD. Although "Adrenalize" isn't one of my favorites by them (that would probably be "Hysteria"--which, of course, I have somehow lost), it's still one of their best earlier CDs, opening with a fluffy angst song for the young male crowd, "Let's Get Rocked." Like this first track, most of the songs on "Adrenalize" are fast and pop-oriented, but there are few good ballads thrown in, like my two favorites on here: "Tonight" and "Have You Ever Needed Someone So Bad." This CD is certainly worth a listen if you're a Def Leppard fan and/or like '80s/'90s pop rock.