Songs From the Sparkle Lounge by Def Leppard
Songs from the Sparkle Lounge is the ninth studio album and 14th album overall from the English hard rock band Def Leppard. It was released on April 25, 2008 in Europe and April 29 in North America. In an Interview on Rockline Radio, two band members, Joe Elliott and Vivian Campbell stated that the title of their latest studio album would be Songs from the Sparkle Lounge, saying that "Until someone comes up with a better name this will be the final title upon release". They also mentioned the possibility of previous Def Leppard album producer Mutt Lange being involved with a few songs for the album, but in the end this collaboration did not turn out to be possible due to scheduling conflicts. However, Joe Elliott has stated that the band and Mutt Lange still plan to work on a few songs together in the future. In an interview with Billboard.com, Joe Elliott stated that the album title is a reference to a backstage area at shows where the band would work on new material. "It was a mini (drum) kit, mini amps, a tape recorder and sparkly lights." Elliott also stated that they would not be performing any previews of the songs, as they did not want them appearing on websites such as YouTube prior to the release of the album. Members of the band have described the tracks from the album as written in the style of Hysteria, with the production style of High 'n' Dry. The album's first single, "Nine Lives" features country singer Tim McGraw. Joe Elliott has stated at the band's official site that the concept of this album is that it sounds more like "early 70's AC/DC" and much like Led Zeppelin's song "Rock and Roll". The title of one of the songs in the tracklist, "Give It Away," was changed to "Gotta Let It Go." On April 25, 2008, Def Leppard's record label opened a website with teasers of every song on the album. The album debuted at #5 on the Billboard 200, selling about 55,000 copies in its first week of release.
Def Leppard have always thought big. And their best tunes have always sounded as if they were written with the arena in mind. It was their meticulous collaboration with producer Robert John “Mutt” Lange that brought them to previously unimagined commercial and artistic peaks with <i>Pyromania</i> and <i>Hysteria</i>. On their own in 2008, 20 years since the glory days and producing themselves, the band remains disciplined if not quite as wide-screened in their audio attack. A street-walking stomper like “C’mon C’mon” packs a dense punch even with its layers of backing vocals and walls of guitars. The duet with country star Tim McGraw on “Nine Lives” is novel in theory: a country star meets the heavy metal kids? Its execution is satisfactory if not revelatory; it doesn’t <i>need</i> McGraw to get the song across. “Go” catapults with the energy of old, while “Love” is the power ballad any loyal fan knew they had in them. Singer Joe Eliot’s in fine voice and the band are hardly showing their age, just their era. For fans, it’s like running into an old friend and even though they haven’t seen each other in years feels as if the time in between never happened.
