Thursday, 26th March 2015
Def Leppard's classic Hysteria single reached number 10 on the Billboard Top 100 chart 27 years ago on this day in 1988.
The third single from the album of the same name spent 16 weeks on the chart. This was the first Top 10 single for the band in the USA.
It entered the chart at number 66 in January and would peak in its 11th week on the chart. In total it spent five weeks inside the Top 20, four of those in the Top 15.
This song helped pave the way for bigger success with the next three US singles - PSSOM, Love Bites and Armageddon It which all went Top Five.
Here are some quotes from Sav and Joe on how the song came about during the 'Hysteria' album sessions in Dublin, Ireland.
Hysteria - Rick Savage/Joe Elliott Quotes
Sav - "We'd gotten so far with the recording and writing of Hysteria and we thought that we needed about three more songs. We were looking for more straight-ahead rock songs and we all went away for a weekend and I got together with Phil the guitar player and I played him the opening riff for Hysteria."
"I said 'Look it's an idea I've had for a few months now I mean I know it's not what we're looking for but let's see what we can develop, and he had another part of the song which became bridge of Hysteria and we put the two together and all of a sudden he started coming up with melodies for the verses and the bridge and it happened very quickly and within the space of about two hours we'd got most of the song done."
"We just needed a chorus and we said look leave it 'till Monday cause we've got the germ of a good song here but we don't know whether it's appropriate we don't know whether it's what we need right now let's play it to the rest of the guys on Monday. The guys came in Monday morning and everybody loved it and it was like Wow this could be really big."
Joe - "It was like a complete team effort."
- Def Leppard - Hysteria Single Page
- Def Leppard - Hysteria Tour 1987/1988
- Previous News - 16th March 2015