When the grunge movement hit in the early 90’s, for me it didn’t seem like a big deal. Sure, Nirvana and Pearl Jam were everywhere in early 1992. To me, they sounded like the rawer metal bands around at the time—Jane’s Addiction, Soundgarden, and Alice in Chains. It didn’t seem like a dethroning event. It was.
In the early 90’s, while I listened to a lot of grunge music, my heart was still knee deep in metal. I loved my Extreme, Anthrax, and Badlands cassettes. While grunge raised the bar for songwriting, it lowered the bar for virtuosic musicianship.
Most of the music I listened to on cassette made the transition to CD over the course of the 90’s. One cassette I didn’t repurchase on CD (one that I remember enjoying quite a bit) was Def Leppard’s Adrenalize.
Yesterday, I received another Amazon box containing yet another Def Leppard CD. The deluxe edition of Adrenalize doesn’t disappoint.
Upon listening to the album for the first time in 20 years, I don’t understand why I didn’t buy it sooner. The production value is great. The songs are well put together. Like Hysteria, about half of it is classic. The other half is good fun.
I spent a lot of time with Adrenalize before the summer of 1992. At summer camp that year, I noticed everybody was listening to the Chili Peppers, Temple of the Dog and Pearl Jam. Def Leppard became one of those old toys that got left behind for something new. Dethroned.
I remember seeing Pearl Jam perform on a very hot summer afternoon in 1992. The Lollapalooza tour had come to town. After seeing Eddie Vedder swing from the rafters and work the crowd into a frenzy, I thought, “Everything’s changing.” No power ballads, no pyrotechnics, no hairspray.
Hearing Adrenalize again yesterday was like visiting an old friend I hadn’t seen in years. I felt like I owed it an apology.
It’s not a perfect album, but, it has an certain air of nostalgia that I cherish.
The deluxe edition has a disc of a few live tracks as well as b-sides that weren’t on the Retro Active collection. I’m puzzled as to why “Ring of Fire” was left off of both Hysteria and Adrenalize. If anyone has any ideas, please let me know.
