10 Perfect Albums That Will Make You Love Hair Metal Music

During the early '80s, hair metal hadn't really found its footing yet. While the Sunset Strip was definitely creating a buzz, it would be a long time before they really became kings of the world, with most hard rock being focused on the New Wave of British Heavy Metal happening across the pond. Def Leppard may have fit in nicely as a decent hard rock band, but something changed once Mutt Lange entered the fold.

Giving them a challenge, Mutt said that they had the option of making the same record over again or writing something that was actually going to become a classic, crafting one song after another with machine like precision. When you listen to a song like Photograph, there isn't a single note out of place, from the finesse behind Phil Collen's guitar leads to the massive vocal sound that sounded like Queen trying to sing hard rock songs.

This was still a hard rock record though, and for every ballad like Foolin or Photograph, the band have something even heavier to balance it out, from the metallic intensity of a song like Stagefright to turning the closer Billy's Got a Gun into one of the most cinematic songs that the genre would ever see. The big pop crossover Hysteria may have been just around the corner, but this was the first time where Leppard finally felt comfortable in their own skin.