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def leppard / Hysteria USA Single Release

on this day - 6th January 1988

On this day in Def Leppard history the 'Hysteria' single was released in the USA and Canada.
The third single released from the album of the same name and the band's first U.S. Top Ten hit.

Def Leppard 1987.

"Oh can you feel it, do you believe it?"


Def Leppard 1987.

This section looks at the 'Hysteria' single release. The first single released in the USA to reach the Top Ten of the Billboard Hot 100 chart.


"Out of touch, out of reach, yeah."

Def Leppard released their classic Hysteria single 32 years ago on this day in 1988 in the USA.

The third single to be released from the Hysteria album in the USA.

It was released on 6th January 1988 and reached Number 10 in the Billboard Top 100 chart.

The first Top 10 hit single for the band in the USA.

The second Top 20 hit from the album after 'Animal' which was in its second week at its peak position of Number 19 on this day.

The song remained on the chart for 16 weeks.

It continued the consecutive run of 'Hysteria' album singles on the Billboard Top 100 chart that began on 10th October 1987 with 'Animal' and ended on 27th May 1989 with 'Rocket' - 86 weeks in a row.

Shown below are some quotes from Sav and Joe on how the song came about during the 'Hysteria' album sessions in Dublin, Ireland.


Def Leppard 1987.


Def Leppard 1987.

Hysteria Classic Albums - Rick Savage/Joe Elliott Sep 2002 Interview Quotes

Rick Savage - "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 Elliott - "It was like a complete team effort."

Rick Savage - "Yeah, this was one of the few examples of just the way that it worked out that splitting up the song became people’s individual ideas that worked together."

Def Leppard 1987. Def Leppard 1987

Hysteria - Rick Savage 1995 Interview Quotes

"We all decided to take a weekend off and try and write a commercial rock song. I came up with something, and it became the main riff to the song. Phil thought it was great and he came up with the bridge and sang it to me. We took out some acoustic guitars and played it for some friends. The following Monday, we went back to the studio and everyone was blown away, even though it wasn't the type of song we wanted."

"Stringed instruments can set a mood, and we wanted to do the same thing but do it on guitar. We didn't want to cop out and do a keyboard thing so we got into using E-bows and orchestrating sustained notes with harmonies. It gave that orchestral sound to the guitars."




Def Leppard 1987. Def Leppard Hysteria

2004 Best Of Liner Notes - Rick Savage Quote

"Me and Phil wrote the verse and bridge one afternoon. Then auditioned it that night around the fire for some Irish friends. It got a surprising thumbs up. It was a great hard rock song. Side two of the vinyl edition of ‘Hysteria’ is one of the most heavy metal sides of a record we’ve ever done."

2004 Best Of Liner Notes - Joe Elliott Quote

"Rick Allen thought of the title in hospital because people were trying to climb up laundry chutes to get photos of him. If memory serves. The verse was Sav’s. Phil wrote the bridge and the chorus came from Steve. Mutt, Phil, Sav and I wrote the lyrics. There are actually 11 different guitar parts. We glued all those elements together like a model kit and they worked perfectly."


Def Leppard 1987.


Hysteria 1987.

Joe Elliott - June 2000 Interview Quotes

"When it comes to us doing things, people might have listened to it and thought, "How the hell are they going to do that live?" You do alternatives when you play. The song "Hysteria" has eleven guitar parts. What we did is made a hybrid of them into two - the ones that people could really hear and the ones that aren't that important to hear live."

"Also, what we did do, which is the best thing we ever did, was that we would s*** our pants when we heard these finished mixes and we would go, "Holy f***, this is going to be hard." And we'd have to rehearse twice as hard. It made us a better band, unto the point where - I could pull out a dozen reviews that said, "Def Leppard, whose backing vocals are so obviously on tape..."

"No they weren't. We have never used tape. Never, ever. The only thing that we've ever used that you could deem "not real" are drum loops, because Rick basically, with one arm, I think more so than anybody else has got an excuse to use them. Any drummer you see who has headphones on is playing to drum loops."

Rick Savage - August 2017 Interview Quotes

"This has a lot of meaning personally, because all the verse guitars and intro I actually played on Phil’s mirror-plated guitar going through a whole nation of different effects."

"There was a box called the Rockbox, and it was very similar to the Rockman in that it was this tiny little thing you plugged in. But it had such great compression when you kicked it in!"

"It’s not unusual for me to come up with guitar parts, but more often than not I let the proper guitar players record it on the album. For some reason, it just didn’t quite have the feel that me and Mutt wanted when Phil or Steve played it. So in the end, Mutt said, ‘Sav, it’s your riff… you just play it!’ and I did, even though I’m the bloody bass player."

"So it’s a song that’s very close to my heart, it’s one of my babies. Phil came up with the bridge idea, which then went into this separate thing that Steve had come up with and all of sudden, we found we had a song. We just glued three sections together and I think it was Rick [Allen, drums] that came up with the title."


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