Def Leppard:The Collection- Volume One(2018)

Talk about a Mega Set. Pictured above is indeed  Def Leppard The Collection:Volume One box set released last June in which this past Christmas I received  as a Christmas Gift from my Daughters(Lexie/Lauren & Kylee)  on Vinyl!

So psyched to get this set as it features for me the Best of the  Leppard output from the Mini 3 Song E.P release from 1979 all the way through to 1988’s Mega Selling Hysteria. Also must add the excellent Double Live Pyromania Show recorded in Los Angeles back in September of 1983 is included here! You want to hear a band firing on all it’s cylinders look no further than this show!

The real huge score for me is the first three albums on Vinyl those being On Through The Night(1980) High N Dry(1981) & Pyromania(1983) and even back in the day I only owned High N Dry on vinyl and the other two on cassette tape.

Course when CD’S took over in the late 80’s I snapped up these titles on disc but here we are in 2019 and It’s finally nice to secure these early Leppard albums on record!

So instead of me showing you this Slick Looking Unit. Click the link below and head over to my pal John T Snow’s site as he went into great written  detail (last June when this was released) and took  fantastic looking pictures of the set as well. Plus I’m writing up this review during the Christmas Holidays  and I’m kinda lazy! Here’s John’s link…

Def Leppard – The Collection, Volume One – Album Review

Thanks Mr Snow for that awesome review! If you don’t want the vinyl version you can buy this set in a CD set as fellow blogger HMO took the plunge and was gracious enough to send me the stuff I was missing when HMO got his box set last June.

Funny thing was I told my daughter Lexie that when I was buying single and double albums like a lunatic in the 80’s, Box Set’s weren’t that common in the 1980’s. I can think of one box set that came out in November of 1986 and that was Bruce Springsteen- Live 1975-85. I actually got this for Christmas in December of 1986 from my parents on cassette as they told me it had sold out on vinyl. Tbone  got the Bruce box set on cassette as well. Springsteen was dominating two households in Tbay  32 years ago!

So I’m thinking that was it for Box Set’s back in the 80’s(that I had gotten). The only other one I can think if is the Led Zeppelin one but that came out in 1990 and that was bought on CD! The hype for that Zep box was huge when it was released in September/1990. I paid close to a cool $100 for the four disc box set! I had no problem with that price as I had no Zeppelin at that point on disc and buying new release CD’S in Thunder Bay back In 1990 you were basically paying anywhere from $17.99-$24.99 for a new release anyways!

But back to Leppard! All the stops were pulled out for this Vinyl Box Set in which I think the years 1980-88 were Lepp’s high-water mark!

Now the price of this Box Set came in at $200 Canadian for all 8 albums. On the same page on Amazon.ca that is selling the box set some Yoko is selling a single copy of High N Dry for $507 Canadian as well as another seller has Pyromania listed at $58 Canadian! So considering my daughters paid $200 which is still ton of cash I’m thinking they got the better deal wouldn’t ya say?

Pete Wilis was a great guitarist whose solo’s shaped those first two Leppard studio albums. His playing is on fire I mean just check out You Got Me Runnin & No No No from High N Dry! I give full props to Joe Elliot and company as when they kicked him out during the recording of Pyromania they left all of Pete’s Rhythm Guitar parts on the album. Plus Willis co wrote Photograph so a case can be made how important of a writer Pete was with his time in the band.

Speaking of which….

I have said it before and I’ll say it again when Stephen Clark passed away back in January of 1991 the Riff’s went with him to the grave….

I will add that Joe Elliot whom Executive Produced this Box Set did a superb job of piecing this set together alone with the Hardcover Cover Booklet included with it. Roman McHugh as well did a superb job in remastering these albums on 180 Gram Vinyl! The audio on the album is superb so much so you can actually hear Rick Savages Bass  pretty damn clear now!

Leppard still puts out decent stuff (Slang being exceptional) and what not but nothing comes close to what those first four records produced…..