This section looks at the 'Armageddon It' UK single chart peak. The fourth hit single from the 'Hysteria' album for the band in their homeland.
"A very fun song Indeed - kinda like T. Rex meeting Eddie Cochran."
Def Leppard's classic Armageddon It single hit Number 20 in the UK singles chart on this day in 1988.
The fourth single to be released from the 'Hysteria' album in the UK.
It was released on 28th March 1988 reaching Number 20 and spent five weeks on the UK chart.
Four of those weeks were spent inside the Top 40.
It entered at Number 28 before rising to its peak position of 20 in the second week. The third Top 20 hit from the album.
Also the fourth consecutive Top 20 or Top 30 single from the 'Hysteria' album in the UK.
Fellow British rock band Iron Maiden were also in the same chart at Number 18 with 'Can I Play With Madness'.
Other notable rock bands in the Top 40 on this day were AC/DC at Number 27 with 'That's The Way I Wanna Rock 'n' Roll' and Heart at Number 32 with the re-released single 'Never/These Dreams'.
Pet Shop Boys were at Number One on this day with their single 'Heart'.
Other rock acts on the chart that week included Iron Maiden (18), Status Quo (24), AC/DC (27), Heart (32).
UK Singles Chart - 4th April 1992
- 01 - Pet Shop Boys - Heart
- 02 - Bros - Drop The Boy
- 03 - Climie Fisher - Love Changes (Everything) (1988)
- 04 - Tiffany - Could've Been
- 05 - Fleetwood Mac- Everywhere
- 20 - Def Leppard - Armageddon It - (Peak Position)
Rick Savage - MusicRadar 2017 Interview Quotes
“There are little things on this like, ‘C’mon Steve!’ that really capture people’s imaginations. When we sat down to write this, it was originally a chord sequence that I came up with, very basic and simplistic in the verse. And it developed into something more sleazy and swaggery, in the way that some of the great Rolling Stones songs came out – not that we were trying to copy them, but we just wanted a bit of that essence.
“Steve [Clark, guitars] had a separate idea for the chorus and we started filling it all out with massive four or five part harmonies. We just needed any old lyric to get the melody across - 'Gimme all your loving' was used just for the demoes to get it all worked out. We planned to change the lyrics because of the famous ZZ Top song, but we loved the sound of it so much and couldn’t come up with anything better so we stuck with it!”
Phil Collen - 2004 Best Of Sleeve Quote
"The original version was something that Joe, Sav, Steve, Mutt and myself came up with in Dublin. A very fun song Indeed - kinda like T. Rex meeting Eddie Cochran. With huge backing vocals."
Joe Elliott - 2004 Best Of Sleeve Quote
"Nobody recalls who came up with the title. But I’m not to blame!. The lyric on the chorus was something that we sang to fill in the spaces. When the time came to change it. We’d left it too long. We tried a billion other lyrics but nothing else fitted. Sav mentioned it was similar to a ZZ Top song. But by then nobody cared."
Def Leppard Armageddon It - Band Quotes
Phil Collen - "Tongue in cheek. T. Rex meets Eddie Cochran with backing vocals."
Phil Collen - "A fun song to do live. It's kind of like T. Rex's "Bang a Gong." A good party song. It never gets boring to play and it translates well to acoustic."
Phil Collen - MusicRadar 2012 Interview Quotes
“Initially, this was Rick Savage's thing. It kind of went like ‘Dah-dah-dah-dahhh,’ and being that we’re all big T Rex fans, we said, ‘Let’s make it sexier, like Bang A Gong,’ you know? So we put that vibe to it.
“It was a fun song to record. We had a guide vocal going, and we were doing the T Rex groove – it was all very easy to put things on top. We never really did gratuitous recording; anything that we laid down was supposed to be there. No matter what we did, we never got in the way of the melody.
“There’s some guitar stuff, some harmonics, that kind of sounds like bells. Maybe that’s for the headphone freaks, but they work as hooks. Another one of the genius things about Mutt is his way with subliminal hooks: You hear one thing, and you might not even realize what you’re hearing, and before you know it, you’re hearing something else – and then the whole song opens up.”
Joe Elliott - "Armageddon It was the last one. Mutt and I were only ones in the studio. And as soon as I finished doing the last bit of that song, it wasn't so much a feeling of anti-climax as it was an inner sense of being totally relieved. I didn't jump up and down."
"We didn't hug each other and drink tons of champagne. It was more like 'Oh we're finished, man. This is great.' We shook hands, sat down, looked at each other and we both let out a big sigh."
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