Def Leppard - Songs From The Sparkle Lounge

no WAY is there any MORE rock on this than on either Bounce, Crush,Hand or whatever. I listened to it again just to make sure it wasn't my mood or whatever. It's POP melodies and teenage lyrics. Yeah...GO is a good opener, but ALL BON JOVI openers (but Lost Highway) are rockin' harder than this one. I must say, Go is one of the few bright spots on the record. Otherwise, pop melodies, horrendous vocals, extremely limited guitar work (with a few exceptions I must add)...and the most horrible lyrics ever. I mean, even the Bon Jovi debut has superior lyrics to this one.

If this is what a "riff-record" is supposed to be than I'd rather have country albums for the rest of my life. X was POPPY as well but at least it had more...what shall I call it...no idea, maybe freshness. Haven't listened to X since it came out much, who knows, maybe it's worse...and Andrenalize I can't evenm remember. But knowing that this album comes from a band that released such masterpieces as High 'n' Dry or Pyromania, I can only shake my head. Terrible terrible terrible terrible... I'll never listen to this again.


And, it actually made me appreciate Bon Jovi. Any Bon Jovi record, and i mean ANY...even Jon's PowerStation Years or TLFR...any BJ record is of superior quality to this one.

Good man, this pretty much sums up my feelings on the album too. It's a shocker.
Def Leppard are a band stuck in the past.

Agree 100% If the new Jovi album is anything like this POS, I'll be extremely disappointed.

Hmm, why focus on those two songs? Gotta Let It Go is one of the worst on the album for being so blatant and it does bring it down a notch. Love, however...I believe you miss the point. It is not a power ballad in the way you expect. The album is in keeping with the trend they set with "Yeah!" They made an album that is heavy with their influences more so than they had ever before. You have to listen to it in that context.

Love, while it's far from one of my favorites, I recognize it for the fact that it is heavily influenced by Queen. If you put on your Power Ballad filter, you're not going to digest it properly. This isn't a song trying to recapture the 80s. As a whole, the album draws on the 70s.

This album is the closest they've come to making an album that harkens back to High N Dry. It lacks the big vocal choruses they are known for, which in this case is good as it avoids becoming cliche'. This is obvious in songs like Hallucinate, which is quality as far as I'm concerned. Tomorrow is a fairly worthy companion as well, though a bit chipper in it's tone making it easy to miss what it's about.

I don't believe I've posted since I really gave the album a good listen a while back, but my opinion of GO has completely changed. I love the sh** out of it now. I was more initially thrown by the fact it has pretty much a mid tempo pace where you would expect a faster pace. The vocals are ridiculous catchy with the caliber of lyrics I expect from the band.

I do feel that as a whole, the album is not consistently good as they had a tendency to do so in the past. Nine Lives is a sh** stain with some of the most god awful lyrics they've ever written that would be more at home on the sh** platter that is Adrenalize. You won't find me saying "it grows on you" at any point in time. Cruise Control, while having some decent lyrics, is lacking something. It just never really takes off and I find myself bored with it. Good Die Young is just too plain and for some reason Bad Actress doesn't grab me too much.

I have a guilty pleasure in C'mon C'mon. The title is stupid, but it's difficult not to start toe tapping and singing along when you let yourself go with it. I'd have much preferred this as the first single (I'd choose Go, but that's me) and Nine Lives not even make the album.

It's hardly a horrible album. It's a companion piece that would make more sense as a double album with "Yeah!" However, it doesn't quite deliver what I had hoped for so it never satisfies the void that X failed to fill. Euphoria was the last full album that for the most part, I loved from start to finish.

I'd really like to reply to you, but for that I'd have to listen to it again so I can tell you what songs I found to be cheaper-than-cheap Backstreet Boys rip off, or totally artificially compositions. Not to mention that dreadful vocals. However, I won't put myself through that again. If that's a "decent" Def Leppard album, than I really don't want to know how a bad one sounds. As about being the closest to High 'n' Dry...as I said, I am not a big Leppard fan but High 'n' Dry is one of the albums that I liked. And the only similarity to Songs from the Sparkle Lounge is the not over-the-top production. But, once again, listening to this album twice yesterday was literary so painful that I am never ever make myself listen to it again...I can't find enough bad words to describe it.

Ohhh...and comparing Love to Queen ballads must be some sort of insult. Love is just pathetic.

How in the world did you find this to be a "cheaper-than-cheap Backstreet Boys rip off?" It's directly, intentionally, and obviously glam-influenced.

This is the DevilsSon I remember

Ahh how I'd love to respond to that.But I simply can't. Anyhow...maybe I should give Yeah! a chance, see if Def Leppard sounds like butchering Nsync when they actually try to butcher T-Rex and The Sweet.

Ahh these hints. They're too difficult for me to grasp.

There is nothing on Sparkle Lounge that sounds Backtreet Boys-ish or boybandy. Euphoria may be quilty of that in parts though.

C'mon C'mon was probably my least favourite track at first, but it has since become a sort of "quilty pleasure" for me also. Got the best songwriting I've heard, but full of energy and big guitars. Bad Actress is an interesting one for me as it has a very distinctive 70's sound, yet lyrically carries a very modern subject matter - Reality TV.

The reason I think of SFTSL as more of a rock album than any recent Bon Jovi album is that you feel like you're listening to a rock band jamming and having fun, with a very loose edgy production - not the feeling I get from the last four Jovi albums. I can live with people saying Def Leppard are stuck in the past, which they may well be now, and even if Sparkle Lounge may not deliver as much as it should have, I just take this album for what it's worth.

def leppard took way too long in following up X; and while it is subpar to previous lep releases, sparkle lounge is a decent enough album. only track I don't like is nine lives, favs are Go, Tomorrow, Cruise Control.

That is a big part of the problem, they took too long to follow up X, which wasn't very satisfying. I liked Yeah! a fair amount and still play it...I was really looking forward to the follow-up. Sparkle Lounge just doesn't deliver as an album to make up for X. I definately don't put it in the category of Adrenalize or X, though. The songs sound cliched because of the glam ode, but they are honest enough for the most part with one exception, Gotta Let It Go. I could actually like that song had they reworked it and removed the unneccessary Have A Nice Day elements.