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| Artist: Def Leppard
Label: Mercury
List Price: $13.98
Buy New: $7.14
You Save: $6.84 (49%)
New (53) Used (13) from $6.00
Rating:  161 reviews
Sales Rank: 853
Media: Audio CD
Discs: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.2
Dimensions (in): 5.6 x 5 x 0.5
MPN: 001100402
UPC: 602517660373
EAN: 0602517660373
ASIN: B0015D3Z80
Release Date: April 29, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Shipping: International shipping available
Condition: Brand New - Factory Sealed - Shipped from Florida via USPS First class mail. We ONLY sell what we have in stock. NO back orders here.Import Edition
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| Customer Reviews:
 Nothing to sink your teeth into! April 29, 2008
W. STEVENS (Cleveland, OH)
9 out of 48 found this review helpful
I would rate this album as if I had never heard this band before. I can tell you there is no decade in rock that this album would ever find a label to produce it. The slow songs are lifeless and the faster songs are terrible as any generic 80's band you would ever want to hear. Def Leppard became popular for a reason, with High & Dry and Pryromania they put out some hard rockin albums with fantastic songs and incredible guitar playing. The songs were so catchy, you couldnt help but get into it (snap your fingers, tap your feet, or get up and dance). This album couldn't lift up anyone even if it used a crane. The songs are poorly written musically, the production is crappy. I don't understand why Def leppard keeps putting out albums?? They had their day with INCREDIBLE albums like High N Dry, Pyromania, and Hysteria! They had some good releases like Adrenalize, Retroactive, and even some surprises like Euphoria which had some great songs like Paper Sun and Promises. But no doubt about it, Songs From The Sparkle Lounge is their worst CD ever! Die hard fans posting great reviews on this website arent fooling anyone a bit. This stuff is highly forgettable!
 Wow, I didn't see this coming.... May 1, 2008
bcgator (Arizona)
9 out of 9 found this review helpful
I'm a longtime Lep fan, since the early '80s and High & Dry. I've never grown tired of their music, and one of their discs is always in the CD player. We all love some work more than others - I never got attached to "Slang", and thought some songs should have gotten more airplay than they did, such as "Promises" which is still a favorite, and "Everyday" off the X album which I liked much more than the rest of the world - but like many other people I figured their days of releasing relevant original-material studio albums were likely passed. I was ok with that, knowing they're still frequent-tourers, and I've now seen them 6 times (3 times in the last 2 years, in fact). So I wasn't expecting this album at all. Wow, what a fantastic and welcome surprise.
"Sparkle Lounge" didn't grab me the first few times I played it through. Maybe it's just me, but it always takes some time to absorb what I'm hearing. The same may happen to you. On the 4th listen, I became absolutely positively hooked. First of all, the production quality is SUPERB. My first listen was on a pair of small computer speakers - what a waste. When I played it on a full system, it absolutely rocked. When I say production quality, I'm not talking about the songs, or the lyrics, I'm talking about the behind-the-scenes engineering of the recording. It's the cleanest, purest, and most sonically crisp recording since Green Day's "American Idiot", which is also a production masterpiece.
And I never thought I'd hear Def Lep with so much diversity. I thought I'd dislike the slight country flavor of Nine Lives, but it actually works very well. I distinctly hear the Beatles and Gary Glitter in "C'mon C'mon", and the Beatles again in "Only the Good Die Young". And whether you like or dislike "Love", and the idea of ballads in general, I love the Queen influence in the song - it's got Bohemian Rhapsody all over it. And in "Gotta Let It Go", the chorus reminds me of Bon Jovi, and their hit "Have a Nice Day", with the huge power chords and pounding percussion. Again, whether you like or dislike Bon Jovi, that's not something I expected from Def Lep.
The entire album is paced well, it's sequenced perfectly, and it's never boring. But you want to know what the real litmus test was? By the end of the 4th listen, I realized I was "dancing" around my place of work, playing air guitar and air drums, as I listened to the CD. Isn't that really what it's about, and what matters? I'm actually rocking out to a brand new Def Leppard album. Yes...it's 2008, and I'm rocking out to a Def Leppard album, and it's not called Hysteria or Pyromania!
I'm sure they worked like dogs to make it as good as it is. As a fan, I'm proud of them, and they should be very proud of themselves. As if their catalog of great music wasn't already large enough, they just added another winner to their history. Congratulations to Def Leppard, I'll see you on tour again very soon.
A package of surprises April 29, 2008
Yasuyo (KUSATSU, SHIGA Japan)
8 out of 8 found this review helpful
This album has a wide diversity of songs. Some are modern-sounding, some have a more classic rock vibe like the song "Come on, Come on" or the beatles sounding "Only The Good Die Young", and of course some lean more towards 80s Def Leppard like "Hallucinate" which has a riff very much like the one in the Pyromania classic "Photograph". They are all very entertaining songs and have some very catchy guitar and vocal hooks and melodies regardless of their style. As usual, Def Leppard demonstrates tremendous care in how they arrange their songs.
For someone looking for a traditional def leppard album it may take some open-mindedness to swallow some of the songs. But the songs do have more guitars than they did on the X album, and it only has one ballad which is "Love" if you're one of those who don't like ballads. And the lyrical themes for some of the songs are deeper than what you would normally get on a def leppard album. Actually if you're patient enough, you're going to find yourself in for a treat in the middle of the ballad "Love", because it starts to rock a bit in the middle as they grab some inspiration from an incredibly well known rock act. Can you guess who it is? Hint: Bohemian.
To sum it up, if you love def leppard and are into all kinds of music and love surprises, you may dig this. If you want every song on this new album to sound like one of their 80s records, you better pass on this because you will definitely be turned off by the style of some of these songs.
The Album We've Been Waiting For April 29, 2008
Cory T. Shaeffer (Pittsburgh)
8 out of 9 found this review helpful
In the days prior to the release of this album, I noticed that many of the early reviews said the album was just OK. But make no mistake about it, "Songs From the Sparkle Lounge" is much better than that. At first listen, with the jarring opening track "Go," which is a mix of the "Slang" sound and the "Hysteria" sound, it becomes apparent that the guitars are back in full swing. Other tracks keep the energy level at its highest in years while supplying classic Leppard hooks ("Bad Actress"), and a few tracks stand out as smashes in the waiting. "Only the Good Die Young" is the catchiest Def Leppard song since "Promises." There is only one true ballad on the disc, "Love," which doesn't catch on immediately, but this record is not about the ballads. It is about the fact that this band needed a guitar-driven, energetic release to follow up the band's excellent 2006 covers album "Yeah!" They have accomplished that here, and Joe Elliot's vocals are better than ever, showing no signs of age. This body of songs will add to the live shows; they now have some brand new legitimate hard rock songs to stand along side their past classic hits, and while each and every track is not "Photograph" material, there is much to love here, and it proves that Def Leppard is very much a vital rock band in today's market, and there are several tracks here which may give the band its first huge hit in quite some time.
Listen LOUD! April 29, 2008
GJV (Austin, Texas)
7 out of 7 found this review helpful
There is something for everyone on Sparkle Lounge. It ROCKS and must be listened to at full volume to really enjoy it. I believe it is the complete 180 that they needed to do after their 2002 release (X). This collection of songs are not in the "heavy metal" vein of High N Dry ('81), but they still rock harder than any other record since Retro Active ('93). They have had good rocking songs on recent records such as "Paper Sun", "Kings Of Oblivion", "Scar" and "Torn To Shreds" but they were spread out between too many ballads or filler. I think they got it right on this one with only one true ballad, "Love", and that one is a very different sound than their recent ballads.
The production on Sparkle Lounge is very stripped down and has a "live" feel, kinda like what they did for HnD, but the sound and structure of most of the songs could be described as Hysteria meets Slang ('96).
I believe casual Def Leppard fans that have given up on them after Hysteria or Adrenalize ('92) should give this record a listen with an open mind. The hooks on Sparkle Lounge are everywhere and the songs are lyrically more mature and diverse than the "love" record, X.
I agree that some of the songs should be longer or there should at least be a 12th track but at least they are back to rocking!
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