Def Leppard will celebrate the 30th anniversary of their hugely successful Hysteria, one of the best-selling albums of all-time, with the release of a series of special reissues. The remastered anniversary edition will be released on August 4 in various formats via Bludgeon Riffola/Mercury/UMe as a Super Deluxe Edition, Deluxe Version, 1-CD “Vanilla” version, 2-LP black vinyl version, and a limited edition 2-LP colored vinyl version. The reissue includes B-sides and live tracks, plus the audio for “In The Round In Your Face (Live)” on CD for the first time.
In the announcement, Def Leppard frontman Joe Elliott says: “It’s hard to believe that it’s been thirty years since the release of Hysteria…..In some respects it really does seem like only yesterday. So, to mark this milestone, we wanted to do something very special for our fans and give them the definitive version of the album, one that incorporates all of the memories and milestones that we caught on tape and some of the madness that we got up to on the road. We hope it means as much to you as it does to us.”
Related: Our interview with Joe Elliott
Phil Collen adds: “I look back at the whole Hysteria experience with excitement along with fond and tragic memories. It was our commercial zenith thanks to Mutt Lange’s insistence that we create an artistic hybrid between hard rock and pop top 40 music using every genre available as an inspiration. It was a rock album that would garner seven hit singles. Mission accomplished.”
Collen knows his Def Leppard history. The album was released on Mercury Records on August 3, 1987. There were, indeed, seven songs released as singles from the album which has sold a reported 25 million copies worldwide. Ironically, the very first, “Women,” was by far the least successful, only reaching #80 in the U.S. and failing to chart in the U.K. But from then on, it was one hit after another over three calendar years: “Animal” (#19), “Hysteria” (#10), “Pour Some Sugar on Me” (#2), “Love Bites” (#1), “Armageddon It” (#3) and “Rocket” (#12).
Among the new versions, the Super Deluxe Edition boasts 5-CD/2-DVDs and four books—Story Of; a Ross Halfin photo book; discography; a Hysteria tour program and tour poster. The Deluxe Version features 3 CDs.
Don’t just take our word for it…
We’ll have links for all the versions soon enough… In the meantime, here’s the band’s official live version of “Pour Some Sugar on Me”…
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Def Leppard will visit South America and Mexico in September and October.
