10 Legendary Rock Albums That Were Originally Very Different

Nothing was really clicking with Def Leppard's sound until they hooked up with Mutt Lange. Even though they had made a name for themselves as a decent rough and tumble hard rock band, the pop sheen brought in on songs like Photograph and Foolin turned them into a hard rock version of Duran Duran, taking the power of rock and roll and bringing in a radio friendly tone to everything. Just before work on Hysteria had begun though, Mutt had to break the news to the boys: he wasn't going to be around to produce the record.

Though Leppard were mortified at the outset, their first attempt to get songs like Animal down were absolutely terrible, not having the experience of layering their vocal harmonies properly. When time came to look for a new producer though, hooking up with Meat Loaf's songwriter Jim Steinman was a complete disaster, with Steinman looking to capture the vibe in the room instead of the perfection that they expected. By the time that Steinman bragged that they got the final take before the band even tuned up, they sacked him, after which they took a break and Rick Allen lost his arm in a car crash.

After slogging through some of the biggest mountains of BS though, Mutt finally cleared out his schedule and became properly involved in the production, turning their songs into the signature Queen meets AC/DC sound. The road to Pour Some Sugar On Me was still pretty far off at this point, but they were at least moving in the right direction now.