Def Leppard - Euphoria
MusicMash Rating: not rated yet
Rolling Stone Rating: 2
"Demolition Man," the opening track on Euphoria, Def Leppard's seventh studio album, plays like a typical installment of VH1's rock-bio series Behind the Music: "Let me loose, I just got back/I was pushed and I got dragged/I tasted mud, I tasted wine/Kissed the life I left behind." The moral of the tale: Every multimillion-selling hack gets a second chance. These blue-collar Brits have always been motivated by sales rather than art, so it's little wonder that they've abandoned the more introspective tone struck on Slang (1996), a commercial flop, to return to their Eighties metal-for-the-malls formula: hooks big enough to beach Moby Dick, lean arrangements that owe more to Thin Lizzy than to Black Sabbath and germ-free production that emphasizes high-end sheen over low-end sludge. Old crony Mutt Lange takes time out from shepherding the career of his wife, Shania Twain, to lend a heavy hand on a couple of would-be hits, including "Promises," which resurrects the "Pour Some Sugar on Me" buzz. Yet the defining characteristic of...
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