‘Photograph’ breaks Def Leppard in the U.S. 32 Years Ago And Now I’m Feeling very old.

A new wave of rock spread across Europe in the early eighties, and one of the biggest was a group of guys just barely out of their teens. That was Def Leppard. and this is 'Photograph.'

Good lawd! In 1983, the cover of this album was as common as a stop sign, it was everywhere down here in Central Texas. Rifle through any car in a 1983 high school parking lot and you'd find this cassette. The box empty because the album never left the cassette deck. This was the harbinger of a nicer approach to heavy metal. In conjunction with constant play on MTV, which had just hit our cable systems that year, we were introduced to dudes with fluffy hair and the kind of naughty looks in their eyes the girl's couldn't resist. Behind the boards for the record was sonic mastermind Mutt Lange, king of taking hard rock and mixing it with enough sonic candy to leap out of your radio speakers like an audio pinata. The guys could get behind the in your face riffs. The girls could put their posters up all over their bedroom walls.

I don't care if this is "girl rock", it's still, after 32 freaking years, insanely catchy. I may have cranked it back in the day, in my room, very loudly, so loud my dad banged on the door and yelled at me to turn it down, saying it sounded like I'd opened a Mexican Catina in my bedroom.  Lead vocalist Joe Elliott said the song as generally about "something you can't ever get your hands on." What it did get it mitts on was the number 12 spot on the Billboard hot one hundred and number 17 on the greatest song of the past 25 years by VH1. So. There.

And it is your K101.7 SONG OF THE DAY!

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