Customer Reviews
Scratched cd-Def Leppard-High n dry 
2008-05-05
When I received the Def Leppard cd, High n Dry, I played it on my home cd player and on my auto cd player and it got stuck on certain sections. I would assume it is scratched. I intend to return it as soon as possible.
The First Classic Album 
2008-05-02
This is tied for my favorite Def Leppard album along with Hysteria. Mutt Lange infused ideas from his days producing AC/DC with the more pop oriented and raw talent of early Def Leppard. The result is an album that is raw and melodic. Not quite heavy metal but it has enough big riffs for any metalhead to enjoy. Def Leppard would never be this aggressive again but that's just what makes this album special.
Raw, innovative, unbridled 2008-02-08
What can be said about this album that hasn't been said before. At the cusp of being a teenager, my friend found some cassettes at a park. He gave me this album and heard it. Then I heard it again. And again. I was hypnotized. I didn't know it at the time, but I was listening to one of the top hard rock albums of all time. For almost all rock bands, for reasons I shall not get into, their first or second albums are their greatest work. Most rock critics like to use the tired phrase "their early work was best" to describe most band's output. But in this case, it is absolutely undisputed. Their second album is undeniably raw and engaging. Their riffs on Switch 625 are practically unparallelled. This was a piece of work where band members where clearly trying to please themselves. At the time, this was a band that was clearly not trying to turn their work into a commercial success. This is what you get before you get discovered. Even the album Pyormania was excellent, but was not as raw as this album. Pyromania was much more refined. What do you get when you get a garage band and put them into a studio, all the while telling them that this work will never be heard by anyone else? You get "High and Dry". Enjoy.
Among Leppard's Best! 
2008-02-02
Def Leppard have a reputation of being a fairly poppy band, and a far cry from the much heavier aspects of the NWOBHM. This, to some credit, is based on their hits, which do have this tendency. But this album, containing only one such hit, is miles away from what I expected it to be. Rather than the overly pop-oriented rock you hear on the radio, what I found was a mix of the Def Leppard I knew and thoroughly un-pop hard rock bands, like AC/DC. As such, the album is a complete surprise and one I recommend to any that are familiar with Def Leppard only from their radio play and music videos.
A Great Album 2007-12-28
Not the best DL but not far from it. I would rate it as #3 (i.e. their 3rd best alblum).
a "near masterpiece" from Def Leppard that ROCKS 2007-12-07
Although it's difficult to remember through the smoke of
Pyromania, this 1981 album, the quintet's second, hoisted Def Leppard to the apex of the New Wave of British Heavy Metal. Building on raw metal anthems, the band adds subtle melodic touches, catchy guitar riffs, and simpler lyrical themes. Producer Mutt Lange, a longtime associate of AC/DC, absorbs these pop-oriented changes without severely blunting the metal edge. While the album foreshadows Leppard's multiplatinum success, it also retains the aggressive power and rough-edged distortion of heavy metal. The power ballad "Bringing on the Heartbreak" ushered in a style that would come to define 1980s metal. Although later albums showcase well-crafted songwriting and glossy production, this one catches Leppard at the peak of their true metal years.
--Marc Greilsamer
timeless 2007-10-22
these guys really know how to but out the music, great from start to finish.
A great album from a once great band 2007-06-27
There was a time, long, long ago when Def Leppard rocked. By listening to the band's musical out-put for the last fifteen years, it may be hard to believe that, but it's true. Early on, before "Let's Get Rocked," before touring with Bryan Adams and Journey, before making adult-contemporary soft-rock with the stink-bomb "X," (2002) there was a time when Def Leppard was genuinely a great rock band.
Released at the start of a new decade, the Judas Priest sounding debut from Def Leppard, '"On through the Night," (1980) may not have been the most original album of all-time, but it's still a great little-known gem in the chronicles of the NWOBHM (New Wave of British Heavy Metal). For their sophomore release, the band hooked-up with its unofficial sixth member, long-time Def Leppard collaborator and producer, John "Mutt" Lange. Released a year after the debut, Def Leppard's second album "High N' Dry" (1981) has some of the same NWOBHM elements that were on the "On though the Night, but also sees the band establishing its own identity and searching out new terrain.
AC/DC's monumental album "Back in Black" (1980) no doubt had an influence on Def Leppard's "High N' Dry." From singer Joe Elliot's attempts to sound like Brian Johnson, to guitarists Steve Clarke and Pete Willis attempts to imitate the Young brothers, "High N' Dry" sounds a lot like AC/DC. This isn't so surprising when you consider the fact that Lange produced "Back in Black." That said, the seeds of Def Leppard's signature sound that is so apparent on "Pyromania" (1983) and "Hysteria," (1987) like the melodic sing-along choruses and metallic yet infectious hooks, make their appearance on "High N' Dry." In a sense "High N' Dry" can be seen as the album that bridged the gap between Def Leppard's NWOBHM years, apparent on their debut, to their definitive pop-metal heyday of "Pyromania" and "Hysteria."
The band's early line-up on their first three albums was by far the best. Sorry Phil Collin (and Vivian Campbell), but the Pete Willis/Steve Clarke combo were by far the finest duel-guitarists that the band ever had. Their riffs and solos throughout the album are just plain killer, easily as good as anything AC/DC had to offer (is it blasphemy to hold that opinion?). It should be noted that apart from "Hit and Run," every song on "High N' Dry" was co-penned by either Clarke and/or Willis. With both long since gone (Willis was fired in '83 and Clarke died in '91) it's easy to see how the band has suffered creatively ever since. The songwriting throughout the whole disc is terrific, with very well-crafted but hard-rocking songs, one after the other, without a dud in the lot. Even the album's one balled "Bringing on the Heartbreak" sounds great and is light-years better than the syrupy trash that made up the band's most recent steaming-pile of manure, abomination of an album "X."
Another great feature of "High N' Dry" is its organic sound. While the band may be most well known for their ultra-slick "Hysteria," on "High N' Dry" the band sounds a lot rawer, much more rough-around-the edges and a lot more ballsy than they would on later albums ("Pyromania" can be seen as a mid-way point between the two).
"High N' Dry" is also great simply because the band wants to rock. Def Leppard at this point in their career were hungry and eager to prove to the world that they kicked ass, and they did. Don't believe Joe Elliot when he tells you that Def Leppard were always really a pop band at heart, not a metal one, that just isn't true. While there is a clear pop-sensibility to "High N' Dry" it most definitely has a metallic edge and a lot of balls.
When I think of Def Leppard, I think of the group existing as two separate entities. First, there is the Def Leppard of the 80s, a great rock band who put out four terrific albums, even if they did get a little too commercial towards the end. And second there is the Def Leppard of the 90s/00s, an embarrassment; a band for soccer moms, the less said about the better.
So even if Def Leppard has sucked beyond belief for years, go back in time with "High N' Dry," and rock out to an album from a once really great band.
Solid, AC/DC influenced scruff rocker 2007-05-23
Will the real Def Leppard please stand up? On their debut LP the band were fairly stock standard NWOBHM dudes. On later releases they alternated between ground breaking production jobs from Mutt Lange (also the producer of this) and soulless trend following losers. Here we find the band playing heads down hard rock presumably heavily influenced by Back in Blacks success.
And they made a pretty good fist of it. In fact due to it's heads down passion this album stands up decades later. Opening blasts of rifferama like Let it Go, Another Hit and Run and High 'n' Dry (Saturday Night) ride thick full bodied riffs while Bringin' On the Heartbreak is probably their besst ever ballad and tellingly was written before ballads were the bands reason to be. Side two - in the old money - doesn't have the highlights but such is it's solid recording, youthful swagger and desire to conquer that the tunes retain a certain hard rock honesty.
Def Leppard were never metal but on this album they deliver their most pounding and raucous hard rock, the sort of wattage that must of reduced many club dates to sweat soaked rubble. An album best played at volume and all up a totally viable slab of riff driven hard rock. Dig in.
80's pop-metal from before the formula was established. 2007-02-23
I actually 'rediscovered' this album; Def Leppard's Pyromania was the first cassette I ever bought, shortly after its release (and shortly after my 13th birthday), and while I loved it, my tastes soon turned to things heavier. Years later, a friend was playing his beat-up cassette copy of High'n'Dry and I was absolutely floored. This is, from start to finish, a brilliant album, and like their debut On Through the Night, shows a very young and unpretentious band wanting to do nothing more than emulate and build on what bands like UFO, Thin Lizzy, Led Zeppelin and AC/DC had done before them. That said, I think the AC/DC comparisons are a bit overblown; obviously, they were an influence and they did share a producer, but AC/DC, as much as I love them, could never match Def Leppard's subtlety or sense of melody. Anyway, the production on this album is very full and clean, yet manages to retain the young band's rawness and energy - note the guitar feedback during the intro to 'Let It Go', and the shouted 3-count between the bridge and last chorus of 'Another Hit and Run'. High'n'Dry is unique in that it was written and recorded before the 80's hard rock/pop-metal formula had been firmly established, and in fact helped define it. As such, while this album contains all the recognizable elements that came to define the genre, it also covers a lot more ground musically than what was to follow in its footsteps. Not being a fan of Def Leppard's post-Pyromania releases, I don't know that I can really recommend it to fans of their later work, but to any fans of late-70's/early-80's hard rock who somehow have managed to not yet hear this in the 26 years since its release, do yourself a favor and get this now!
