I love a handful of Def Leppard songs, but they lost me after the Hysteria album. I tried to listen, but the style changed so much at a certain point I just couldn't hang with them at all. To my ears it just sounded like the soundtrack to commercials, in the worst way. I totally think people should put out whatever music they feel, but to me it would've been way cooler if they just changed the band name at that point.
But if I go back and listen to Foolin' or Bringin' on the Heartbreak (I guess I'm partial to songs with apostrophes), I think they're an awesome and cool band. Hell, when I think about a song like Women, that just has such a great feel to it, it makes me feel all warm inside. And the end of Gods of War is like the most awesome clean part of a really heavy thrash band. Man, to think of how awesome some of the stuff they've done was.
So I want to listen to more by them, but every time I've tried past the '80s, I just can't deal with it.
One of my favorite bands, Heavy Pettin, came up around the same time and was always compared to them, which, during the '80s, I think, was a compliment in a way. The difference to me is Heavy Pettin's singer made the worst choices in his vocal tone, but they played with a ton of raw attitude, whereas Def Leppard, no matter what, was more polished than that, good or bad.
I vehemently disagree that money, success, chart-topping, fame, Las Vegas residencies, or anything related to those things makes any musician more or less competent, able to tell what good tone or playing, or just plain good. I just think it's totally unrelated. By those measures, Celine Dion must be the most soulful, powerful, and real musician, able to move the most stoic soul, but I'll take Jason Becker for that title any day.
Back to Def Leppard and these videos, I'm trying to work myself up to watching them, but it's a tough one for me.
