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def leppard / Let's Get Rocked UK Single Chart Peak

on this day - 4th April 1992

On this day in Def Leppard history the 'Let's Get Rocked' single reached Number 2 in the UK.
The band's most successful single to date in their homeland and the lead track from the 'Adrenalize' album.

Def Leppard 1992.

"It was arranged and recorded in less than two weeks."


Def Leppard 1992.

This section looks at the 'Let's Get Rocked' UK single chart peak. The band's second Top Ten single in the UK and highest charting to date.


"I think it's pretty obvious that we we'd been watching The Simpson's a lot."

Def Leppard's classic single Let's Get Rocked hit Number 2 in the UK singles chart on this day in 1992.

The first single to be released from the 'Adrenalize' album and their first UK release since 'Rocket' in January 1989.

It entered at Number 6 before rising to 2 and narrowly missed out on the Number 1 spot by just 146 copies.

The Shakespears Sister song 'Stay' beat it to the top spot in week seven of its eight week run at Number 1.

This was the band's biggest hit in the UK at the time, which was only surpassed by 'When Love & Hate Collide' when it also got to Number 2 in 1995.

The single had been released on 16th March 1992 and spent a total of seven weeks on the chart. Three inside the Top Ten.

It was the first of four Top 20 singles from the album in the UK.

The song was the first release after the death of guitarist Steve Clark. Their only single to be released as a four piece before they announced new guitar player Vivian Campbell.

It was first performed by the band as a four piece on BBC TV show Top Of The Pops in late March (the music was playback with Joe singing live).

The first 'live' performance was 15th April 1992 in Dublin, Ireland during Vivian's first show with the band.

Read more about the song below.


Def Leppard 1992.


Shakespears Sister (featuring Siobhan Fahey, ex of Bananarama) were at Number One on this day with their single 'Stay'.

Other rock acts on the chart that week included Manic Street Preachers (24), Love/Hate (40) and your Grandma's favourite band W.A.S.P. (17).

Let's Get Rocked 1992.

UK Singles Chart - 4th April 1992

  • 01 - Shakespears Sister - Stay
  • 02 - Def Leppard - Let's Get Rocked - (Peak Position)
  • 03 - Mr. Big - To Be With You
  • 04 - Right Said Fred - Deeply Dippy
  • 05 - Ce Ce Peniston - Finally (1992)



Let's Get Rocked 1992.

Song Trivia

The 'wolf whistle' in the song is actually done by Joe's then wife Karla Elliott as none of the band could do it as well as her.

Phil Collen - 2004 Best Of Sleeve Quote

"My son was two or three when it came out and he thought it was great. Maybe you had to be that age to appreciate it?."

Joe Elliott - 1992 Interview CD Quotes

"Right first song Let's Get Rocked. Let's Get Rocked is, and should be taken, with a very heavy pinch of humour."

"I think it's pretty obvious that we we'd been watching The Simpson's a lot. And we didn't wanna fall into the trap of because of what had happened to Steve, of writing more songs for the album of which Let's Get Rocked was one of them."

"We were six songs in. We were very happy with the six songs and we had four that needed either tarting up or writing."

"I think what we had. Out of the four. We wanted to put out a ten track record this time instead of a twelve track record."

"So we had the four basic ideas. We either had one and a half songs finished with like, you know, two and a half songs to write sort of thing."

".Let's Get Rocked was the last thing done. It was written in about two and a half days. Recorded in ten which for us is like phenomenally fast."

"And because this was all written after Steve had died it would have been very easy for us to kind of write a lot of songs about that experience and it would've sounded a bit morbid you know. And sort of like taking advantage of the situation."

"So we decided to do the complete opposite and instead of making like this heavy metal Leonard Cohen record. We went out there to try and make something that was a bit of fun."

"That went back to the humour of say some of the early Queen albums. Where they had that vaudeville sound. You know like Killer Queen or Lazing On A Sunday Afternoon with a bit of the humour of Glam Rock. Things like Slade."

"And as i say having watched The Simpson's the whole character of the lyric is all about a kid who basically is having one of those relationships that you tend to have with your father when you're a 16 or 17 years old. Where you won't take out the trash and you won't walk the dog and you won't mow the lawn."

"And it's just a kid that wants to go out and just rock and roll you know. And it's, as I've said before, it's very deep and meaningless."

"And we're quite of the fact that it is because I think that people like Sting and to a lesser extent Peter Gabriel and R.E.M and maybe Midnight Oil. That everything, well not everything, but they seem to be very. What's the word?."

"Environmentally aware. I think it's good to have an alternative to that. I mean obviously we don't want the planet to die either. And I guess everybody tries to use environmentally friendly products you know for either the hair spray or washing liquid you know. We don't have to sing about it."

"And I think it's nice to have an alternative. All these bands are relevant. I think they're good. I think R.E.M. stand for a very positive thing. As do Midnight Oil. As does Sting and his rainforest thing."

"And Geldof with Live Aid and all this kind of thing. It's very relevant. But so is Rockin' All Over The World and so is Tie Your Mother Down."

"And, you know, as far as we're concerned so is Let's Get Rocked. So we just put this little arrangement together which basically was just a complete vehicle for the voice 'cause there's like hardly anything going off on the verse."

"It's just me talk-singing in a very kind of Prince/Bolan-esque way the lyric about this kid that's like just wants to be a lazy pig."


Def Leppard 1992.


"Just hang out reading Hustler, watching the Playboy channel and going to rock gigs. And things like that which I guess it's very Hollywood in its...in the way it could be taken. But it's actually just supposed to be very tongue in cheek and just some lazy kid you know."

"I mean I actually sing it in, it's sounds very Americanized the way it's been done. But that again is intentionally humorous in that respect. You can't sing the word dude in a Yorkshire accent."

"So it has to be done in a kind of a transatlantic accent. And again it's, I'm playing a character role. It's not necessarily me I'm just the guy that's singing it you know. You have to be a bit of an actor as well when you're singing and song."

"And you have to change your tack for different lyrics, different approach you know."

"It's the first single off the album and because of the nature of the song it really needs to be because it's supposed to be a bit of a humorous thing and jokes don't get better with repeating them."

"So it needs to kind of be out pretty early otherwise people might either miss the point or get tired of it you know."

Let's Get Rocked 1992.

Joe Elliott - 2004 Best Of Sleeve Quote

"The humour went over everyone’s heads like an airplane. I still believe if a white-man funk song like that had been done by Prince - and it’s not too far a stretch of the imagination - It would’ve been viewed completely differently. We’d just purged our souls of the death of Steve Clark with the song ‘White Lightning’. And we felt like doing something to lighten the atmosphere. It was escapism. What can I say? We used to eat at 6pm and watch ‘The Simpsons’... It must have rubbed off."

Joe Elliott - 1992 Interview Quote

"The first song released was the last completed - it was arranged and recorded in less than two weeks. It sounds like Def Leppard, but it's got a Prince-like approach to the verse, that kind of meter and arrangement. It's not going to win Grammy nominations, but it's fun."


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