10 Amazing Rock Songs That Artists Hated Recording

As successful as Def Leppard was at the start of the '80s, they were definitely in for an uphill battle going into Hysteria. With producer Mutt Lange no longer at the helm, they had to make another colossal record that they felt could stand alongside their previous album Pyromania, which was quickly becoming one of the bigger hair metal albums of all time. So when they got to Dublin to record, sessions started smoothly and they grinded to a halt.

While these sessions were notable for being the time when drummer Rick Allen lost his arm, the story of Animal is a lot more nuanced than that. Originally having Meat Loaf's songwriter Jim Steinman in the producer's chair, the song ended up going through many different mixes before the one we hear today, with Steinman favoring honesty in the recording rather than Lange's usual model for perfection.

Once the band ditched Steinman though, it gotten even more chaotic, where everything would be going well until they hit a hiccup and then didn't know what to do. By the time that Rick came out of the hospital for his injuries though, Mutt became properly involved with the record, turning some of the terrible drum sounds and white noise into the pristine harmonies that we know and love from the record. From that point forward, Leppard were about to double down and show everyone their true colors.