Surprisingly, this is truly a great album, even though it is regarded as a unreleased/b-sides collection, the material on here is worthy of being called top-notch album quality. If you took all the great songs from all rest of Def Leps 1990's albums, you still couldn't accumulate enough to surpass this one. Only 2 good songs are on Adrenalize, maybe 2 on Slang, and 6 on Euphoria, you still can't touch Retro Active's 11 song that are all excellent. Most of the material on here is from the Hysteria sessions, and the rest come from Adrenalize sessions, being cover songs and canned material. There is 1 or 2 songs on here that were recorded for this CD. Steve Clark,R.I.P., appears on a handful of tracks, and newcomer Vivian is on a few as well. This CD has a ton of rockers like Desert Song, Fractured Love, Action, She's Too Tough, and Ring Of Fire, among others. But the standouts are the two ballads, Two Steps Behind and Miss You In A Heartbeat, both presented in electric and acoustic versions. All-in-all a superb album, that should be considered a regular album, and by far the best one since Hysteria.

Not too long ago, Def Leppard was one of the most exciting bands in rock; they were popular AND talented, a dynamite combination of one part brain, one part heart, and one part libido, that mixed up one of the best formulas around. Unfortunately, critics started blaming them for just that - "The Formula." Then, in recent years, as they've been trying to fight their way out of "The Formula" label, fewer people have been noticing/caring, and critics that DO notice make sure to slam them for trying to be something they are not. Alas, in the case of Def Leppard, I DO agree with that unfortunate claim.

Regardless of what type of person you are, Leppard Hater, Leppard Lover, Leppard "They [stunk] since Hysteria" -er, Leppard "I stumbled on this page by accident" -er, or other - er -, if you, like me, wish the real Def Leppard would please stand up, buy Retro Active and prepare to get more of your 15 bucks worth than you have in awhile. It's been a decade since this last great Def Leppard Album, but a decade isn't as much as one might think, given it would take another quick decade after this to go back to their Pyromania days. And the bottom line is that, not so long ago, they really were on a role, musically speaking. I can't believe how much I almost forgot how much I loved this band till I threw this on the stereo a few weeks ago - and subsequently haven't been able to stop listening to it. "X" really is a bad album, so bad, it brainwashed me into temporarily losing too much respect for the band. It's hard for me to tell if they really have always been a little too money hungry, but regardless, if you like good music, let's put everything aside and proclaim the wonderful evolutionary direction the band was going in the early 90's, with the wonderful succession of Pyromania to Hysteria to Adrenalize to ironically, a "retro" album.

Without giving it all away, here's a quick runthrough of the wonderfully long (did I mention you get your money's worth) and successfully diverse (keyword - SUCCESSFULLY) song roster. "Desert Song" took awhile to grow on me, but once it did, I woke up to the AMAZING guitar solos -- they were showing signs of prog with their choices of scale usages and rhythmic motives! And they STILL managed to be catchy. I wish they would have taken that idea and made all of their subsequent music with that in mind. "Fractured Love" has highly effective percussive elements while still keeping a shoutalong chorus (think the next logical step after "Rocket"). The way they covered "Action" really blows me away, as I wish their own writing was as experimental yet quality filled as those that influenced them. There are the hits "Two Steps Behind" and "Miss You in a Heartbeat", both with acoustic and electric versions. The latter has a piano/vocal version also.

Personally, the electric version of "Two Steps Behind" is one of their best all time moments, it just takes me to another world. Fans of the "Leppard Layering technique" - with guitars upon guitars and vocals upon vocals - will not be disappointed. Joe Elliot plays some cool (albeit inexcusably short) boogie woogie piano as the intro to a revision of one of their earliest songs ("Ride into the Sun"), and REALLY hits the jackpot with the gutwrenchingly highly artistic collaboration with the Hothouse Flowers ("From the Inside"). The marriage of music to lyrics here is supreme. The driving d minor riff to "Ring of Fire" will have you hypnotized into playing it yourself for hours on end, and "I wanna be your hero" and "She's Too Tough" are way too strong to merely exist as B Sides.

I could go on forever, but I believe my point is made. Who REALLY is Def Leppard? It's always controversial to answer a question like that with one particular album, released, years ago, and ESPECIALLY when the answer isn't "Hysteria." And in fact, it's not that it's not "Hysteria". Again, "Retro Active" is a collection of all sorts of various material, much of which was originally given birth along with that landmark album from 1987.

Bottom line: THIS is why today's rock music is inexcusable. It (including Leppard) has only gotten worse since then, and with an album like this, there really is something here for everyone. Why aren't today's bands feeling more of a kick in the [rear]? It's because not even the record companies think that music is in a lot of trouble.

If you feel the same way, email me.

Take away a couple of throwaway tracks hastily pasted together and you have a classic leppard record - one that takes us from on of their earliest songs "Ride into the Sun" to the contemporary radio friendly "Two Steps Behind".

This album rocks and like "Slang", without the sometimes overwhelming presence of Mutt Lange, the Lepps rock out without a care - sounding as raw and passionate as they did with their earliest cuts.

I think "Desert Song" is a hidden classic. Why this did'nt make it to either Hysteria or Adrenalize, I will never know... a track of tremendous passion and power with not one but two killer solos by Phil and Steve, this is in my book one of the Top 5 Def Leppard Songs. Another standout is "After Dark" which is probably a first for the Lepps - a song without a defining chorus... by all the same it's a captivating track with some great vibes by Vivian Campbell.

I was pleasantly surprised by "From the Inside", a genuinely good song with some marvellous playing by the boys and their friends from Hothouse Flowers.

All in all a great record and a must buy. It actually rates 4.5 stars in my book, but being a Lepp addict, I will make it 5 stars.

Leave it to DEF LEPPARD to throw together an album of throwawaytracks and still have an album better than most I have heard. RETROACTIVE combines songs from that span Leppard's 20 year career into one album. "Desert Song" is the real great piece here. Lyrically and musically a step in the right direction for Leppard's SLANG album. It is musically complex and a true tribute to the kind of guitar player Steve "Steamin" Clark was. I had been a fan of "Ring of Fire" since I first turned over my "Pour Some Sugar On Me" 45 and when I heard about this album i hoped it would be on it. Not only was it on there, but the boys had gone and added a new intro to it that fit the song like a "Velvet Glove". I stole the term "Velvet Glove" from the album's second song "Fractured Love", which begins with a tribal jungle drum beat into a dark mysterious beginning then goes into a hard rocking chorus that blows your socks off. The triple guitar assult(Clark, Phil Collen and Vivian Campbell) sounds great and singer Joe Elliott has never sounded so good. All in all a great album that really rocks. DO YOU WANNA GET ROCKED?

Full points for honesty and integrity on this release. At the time it was put out a sizeable sticker on it proclaimed it wasn't a new album. Which was a nice touch. Also points to the band for having the guts to put this out when many people would of expected just another version of Hysteria - I mean not many bands clear the decks like this. Normally bands foist their 'b' sides and rarities onto fans in some sort of overpriced box set package but the Leps, like Megadeth and a few others, have put out a simple catch all disc.

As to the actual songs I'm not going to do a track by track synopsis but will point out a few salient tracks. Firstly there is the opener Desert Song which is certainly musically the heaviest thing to have come out of the band for a while. Fractured Love moves along nicely and in fact a number of the 'b' sides collected here are pretty handy tunes - Ring of Fire and Ride Into the Sun being two fairly well known tracks among Leppard enthusiasts. Sure, I Wanna Be Your Hero overdoes it on the cheese factor but there are upswings like the cover songs Action and Only After Dark.

Now before we get carried away lets get some perspective in here. And that means being honest and pointing out that yea and verily the ballads are rubbish. Every one of them which is weird given they've written a couple of good ones over the years, evidently the cupboard is bare in this department. Also some of the zest in these tunes would of been welcome on the Adrenalise album.

Brief yet useful liner notes complete this package which along with 1995's Greatest Hits album was a great way for the band to draw a close on the first decade and a half of their career and more ahead with a clean slate. For fans this is good stuff, for casual listeners perhaps the interest won't be there.