Rocket

from the LP Hysteria, Mercury Records, 1987



After the thick cloud of cocaine & hairspray had cleared, it became apparent to lots of people that a substantial chunk of the pop-metal acts who had dominated the airwaves for close to a decade then, would be rendered obsolete going forward; like psychedelic rockers and disco ducks before them, many (if not most) of the big-hair butt-rockers had painted themselves into a corner called “of their time”, that scene in Aronofsky’s The Wrestler where Rourke’s character bemoans the end of metal’s reign, “…it was all going good until Cobain fucked it all up…” serves as the perfect illustration. That being said, time and hindsight have been kind to a few bands from that period, allowing them a lengthier appeal beyond merely those glory days of freebase and big bangs, and in my opinion, Def Leppard falls under these graces. Metalheads out there, don’t go getting your panties all in a bind about this, remember: I’m only considering pop-metal & big-hair bands, not looking at the thrash scene which remained mostly underground throughout the decade. Def Lep always favored substance over scandal (not lyrically, of course, as we are talking about Top 40 metal here…), and this song’s verse of jumbled music references is a good clue as to why they put the songs before their image; while American pop-metal acts worshipped more at the foot of shock-rock 70s groups like KISS & Alice Cooper, these guys had lived through the British glamorama, thus being more influenced by the melodic-based tendencies of people like Bowie & Marc Bolan, leaving their brand of hard rock downright catchier in many instances. Strange, then, that they never did enjoy the same mammoth success in England and Ireland (where singer Joe Elliot is from) that they did Stateside; not fancy or edgy enough for new wave ‘80s London I suppose.