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Def Leppard Tour History Fan Archive.
26 Years Ago Love Bites Hits Number 1 In USA

Wednesday, 8th October 2014





Love Bites 1988.

Def Leppard's classic Love Bites single reached number one on the US Billboard Top 100 chart 26 years ago on this day in 1988.

The fifth US single from the Hysteria album was released in August 1988 and had entered the chart at 52.

It replaced Bobby McFerrin's 'Don t Worry, Be Happy' at the top of the US charts. It would go on to spend 6 weeks in the Top 10 and 23 weeks in total on the chart.

It remains their only US number one single. Joe and Phil spoke to Billboard about this in late 2011 - watch the video below.

Love Bites Single - 6 Weeks In The US Billboard Top 10

  • 17th September 1988 - 9
  • 24th September 1988 - 5
  • 1st October 1988 - 2
  • 8th October 1988 - 1 - (First Ever Number One Single)
  • 15th October 1988 - 2
  • 22nd October 1988 - 4

Billboard 1000 No. 1's - Joe Elliott/Phil Collen Interview Quote

Phil - "It was a very interesting thing cause that was a studio song. We'd never actually played it live. And it went to number one and we'd never played it as a band. So we had to put the tour on hold and rehearse it frantically so we could sing and play it at the same time cause it's quite involved as well."

Joe - "I remember it nearly not getting to number one. I remember being told we probably wouldn't get to number one because Red, Red Wine I think it was by UB40 was gonna pip us. ."

Phil - "Wow. I know Bobby McFerrin was the other side of it."

Joe - "And we were at the age as well where we thought it was about bloody time. You know because everybody says overnight success but it was actually seven years since we formed when Pyromania broke. So it was seven years before we hit real success in the States and it was ten years before we hit it in England. And it's strange because we'd been to number one on the album and it had been back and forth. For six weeks we'd been swapping places with Van Halen and Guns N' Roses all summer. So we kinda felt comfortable with that. I wouldn't say we were taking it for granted. But now we wanted a No. 1 single because we'd never had one. So it was like 'come on! come on!' When we got there, it was, as you can imagine, a 'yes!' moment."

Phil - "I think cause we were an absolute hybrid of a hard rock band and pop music. You know you could sing along to these songs but they still had a rock edge. It wasn't say like Boston which was great. It had all these lovely harmonies and everything but they weren't as hard rocking as we were so that was the weird one. We kinda sounded a bit like AC/DC. It had a bit more of that edge but we kinda fit image wise more with something like Duran Duran. So it wore lots of different hats at the same time. So that was very exciting for us cause we always wanted to appeal to lots of different age groups, lots of different genres. We didn't just want to be a rock band you know it was something a bit more special - we felt. And I think it really was as well."






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