This music video represents the fantasy of almost every 80s kid, skateboard wherever you want, read a comic book about your favorite hero having an amazing adventure, and doing it all while your favorite band performs behind you.
Depending on what part of the world you were living in, Women was either the first or the second single to be released off of Dep Leppard’s best-selling album, Hysteria. Hysteria was a great album that was helped immeasurably by MTV. Fans of the band already knew that Def Leppard rocked but MTV gave everyone the chance to watch them as they did so.
This was the first Dep Leppard video to be filmed after Rick Allen lost his left arm. A good deal of the video’s popularity comes from Rick showing that he was still one of the best drummers in the business.
This video was controversial when it was first released with some people wondering if the video would promote violence with its story of a Marilyn Monroe look-alike being photographed while a killer tossed around a knife and newspaper headlines announced that a movie star had been murdered. Controversy sells and the video was put in heavy rotation on MTV, helping Photograph to reach number one on the charts and to stay there for several weeks.
Director David Mallet is one of those directors who has done videos for just about everyone, from AC/DC to Olivia Newton-John to Peter Gabriel.
When you’re Def Leppard, people will play the harp while in the middle of the fire for you.
This is another video overseen by the prolific David Mallett, who directed several videos for both Def Leppard and just about every other big act of the era.
This music video for the classic Def Leppard song was filmed in Ireland, outside of Dublin. The scenes inside the factory were filmed at Jacob’s Biscuit Factory and such a blue collar location feels just right for a hard-working band like Def Leppard.
David Mallett was one of those directors who worked with basically everyone at least once. If you were in any way a star, David Mallett probably did at least one video for you.
Slang was the title track from Def Leppard’s sixth studio album. The album had the misfortune to come out in 1996, when Grunge was still in full swing and Def Leppard’s style of arena rock had gone out of style. It was Def Leppard’s first album to fail to achieve platinum status in the United States, though it was more successful in Europe. Of the album’s tracks, the title track is the only one that is still regularly played in concert by the band.
The video for the song was filmed in Los Angeles, at Occidental Studios. The video feels like a slicker version of the video for Rocket. Jimmy Swaggart makes a cameo appearance, crying as he announces that he’s sinned. This video was filmed 8 years after Swaggart’s infamous “I have sinned” speech and its inclusion here really does make Def Leppard seem like a band stuck in time. It’s still a rocking song, though.
This video was directed by Nigel Dick, who directed videos for everyone.
This is actually one of Def Leppard’s better songs but it had the misfortune to be released in 1996, at a time when many formerly huge 80s bands were being overshadowed by the new bands of the 90s. Visually, the music video has more in common with the melancholy video style of 90s grunge than with the energetic and upbeat videos that we typically associate with Def Leppard.
This video was directed by photographer Matt Mahurin. Mahurin started directing videos in 1986 and has worked with everyone from U2, Queensrÿche, Metallica, and Dreams So Real to Tracy Chapman, Tom Waits, R.E.M., and Alice In Chains.
The theme of this video seems to be that Def Leppard is the band that has fun onstage and off!
This footage for this video was shot over the course of two shows at McNichols Arena in Denver, Colorado. Originally, the footage was going to be used for a future concert film but, when Armageddon It was released as a single, the band’s record label said that they needed a music video to accompany it and they needed it immediately. Since the band didn’t want to do another “concept video” (and really didn’t have time to come up with a concept in the first place), the Denver footage was hastily edited together.
The end result was that Armageddon It went on to the become the band’s fourth top ten hit in the United States.
The seventh and final single to be released off of their album Hysteria, Rocket allowed the members of Def Leppard to acknowledge the music of their youth. Among others, the song’s lyrics cites The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, David Bowie, T. Rex, and especially Lou Reed’s Satellite of Love.
Directed by Nigel Dick, the video for Rocket features Def Leppard playing in the same warehouse that was used in the video for Women. This time, the band is surrounded by televisions that flash footage from the 70s. Not only are there the expected clips of Richard Nixon, the Apollo 13 disaster, and Edward Heath but there’s also plenty of footage of various artists performing on Top of the Pops. Because Def Leppard is an English band, there’s also a good deal of footage of Arsenal winning the 1971 FA Cup Final. There’s also a very brief shot of the infamous Gary Glitter, who was a British icon at the time this video was released but who, nine years later, would dramatically fall from grace after being convicted on charges of downloading child pornography. This video was the last to feature lead guitarist Steve Clark, who died from alcohol poisoning in 1991.
Rocket ultimately peaked at number 5 on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100.
Animal is a song that took three years for Def Leppard to complete. The band started work on the song in 1984 with producer Jim Steinman, who is best known for his collaborations with musicians like Meat Loaf and Bonnie Tyler. Steinman’s orchestral style proved to be a poor fit with Def Leppard’s more straight forward sound. After realizing that Steinman wasn’t going to work out, the band brought in Mutt Lange, who was able to get the sound that the band wanted.
Though the band had already found success in the United States, Animal was the first Def Leppard song to became a hit in the UK. Not only did it reach No. 6 on the UK Single Chart but it also scored the band their first invitation to perform on Top of the Pops. (For the benefit of our American readers, that was, back in the day, a big effing deal.)
The video finds the band working and performing in a traveling circus. The video was directed by Doug Freel and Jean Pellerin, both of whom have directed videos for several different artists. Along with directing several other videos for Def Leppard, Freel and Pellerin have also worked with Metallica. On his own, Freel has done videos for Roxette and Faith No More. Pellerin, meanwhile, directed the films, Laserhawk, For Hire, Daybreak, and The Clown At Midnight.
Since I did the concert video version of this yesterday, I thought I would do the original version directed by Russell Mulcahy. Or as I like to call it, Mulcahy for some reason shooting the music video like it’s Madhouse by Anthrax after watching Balls To The Wall by Accept. Also, it looks to me like Mulcahy introduces them at the start of the music video the way I would expect Depeche Mode to be. I don’t know what made him think of the first one, but the second makes some sense. The song is already filled with sexual metaphors.
According to mvdbase, they did this music video a year before they must have decided that a concert video would go over better in the United States. With this music video, they could have also just been trying to break from the image of early metal videos looking like new wave bands. In fact, the book I Want My MTV actually says:
“If you watched MTV with the sound off, you might not have been able to tell the difference between Duran Duran and Def Leppard except that women in Duran Duran videos weren’t in cages”
I can see that when I watch the music video for Photograph. I don’t see that with this music video, but you have to remember that MTV was like the mainstream movie industry. Only a few years after this video was made, you had the rise of directors like Kevin Kerslake who took the medium in an entirely different direction. This meant that as a side effect, bands moved with the year-to-year changes to appear relevant. They probably looked at the video, then looked at Bon Jovi concert videos, remembered their early new-wave-looking music videos, and decided to get with the new-style for bands of their kind in order to get the most positive reception at MTV.
In general, Def Leppard seems to have had a rough history when it comes to music videos. They started off with David Mallet who was coming off of making many music videos for Blondie in the late-1970s. They did a few music videos with the team of Jean Pellerin & Doug Freel. They did this music video with character and storyline director Russell Mulcahy. Then they did some videos with Wayne Isham who had been working with Ozzy Osbourne, Mötley Crüe, Judas Priest, and Bon Jovi for years. He would also go on to work with Megadeth, Metallica, Van Halen, and KISS. However, by that time, Smells Like Teen Spirit and grunge were just around the corner. They never seemed to have had a chance to settle on a particular image like Bon Jovi did. Bon Jovi became so associated with their concert videos that they even made a concert video making fun of the fact that they made endless concert videos.
I think we are seeing a failed attempt with a director they shouldn’t have been working with at this point in their career, and that they realized it and quickly had a more appropriate video made in 1988-plain and simple.
Through the Shattered Lens 