Def Leppard - Top 10 Songs

[gener8tr]

16 hours ago, AlphaMale said:

I love "Carrie". It's cheesy but catchy memorable cheesy. 

This is another song whereby you really needed to be a teenager the summer of 1987 (when the song was in constant radio rotation) to fully appreciate it.  I was.  I was 19 the summer of 1987, and looking back, CARRIE was damn-near perfect for its time and place.

The only way for me to fully describe this type of TIME / PLACE experience is by looking back 25 years (25 years from 1987 in this case).  I don't know how LOVE ME DO by The Beatles was so damn popular and set them on their way.  Talk about cheesy!  And I'm actually a Beatles fan (now).  But back in 1987, I'd have turned that song off quickly!

[KarpetRydOFunk]

12 hours ago, Darkstone said:

We seemed to have strayed off topic here, but to me a cheesy ballad is all about the lyrics. D2's "I still think about you" is another one. The fact that you could get that and "Slipped her the big one" on the same album is another thing I loved about this music back in the day. All the bands did it. As mentioned, Firehouse's "Love of a Lifetime" is a great example. Of course, "cheese" can be found in songs other than ballads.

I dunno. I think part of it has to do with sincerity, or at least convincing me of sincerity. When I hear "I Still Think About You" and "Love of a Lifetime" I believe the authors mean the words they are singing. And so then I believe them when I sing them myself. But it can also be the music. Stryper suffers on both ends, unfortunately. 

[AlphaMale]

2 hours ago, KarpetRydOFunk said:

I dunno. I think part of it has to do with sincerity, or at least convincing me of sincerity. When I hear "I Still Think About You" and "Love of a Lifetime" I believe the authors mean the words they are singing. And so then I believe them when I sing them myself. But it can also be the music. Stryper suffers on both ends, unfortunately. 

"First Love" ring a bell? That is Cheesy City!

Edited January 8, 2020 by AlphaMale

[PetraGirl86]

1 hour ago, AlphaMale said:

"First Love" ring a bell? That is Chessy City!

Ahhh chessy city is my favorite. First Love isn't exactly what I would call cheesy, just boring. I still like it but it's sure boring. I'm cleshae but I love "Honestly", cheesy or not. Idk if "Lonely" is a ballad, but it's a heck of a great song! 

[Glen]

ok I'll give a couple of examples of what I'm talking about from 2019 -

Horrible cheesy instantly skippable after 20 secs ballads -

Find Me - One Last Kiss

Toby Hitchcock - Show Me How to Live

Great ballads that I could listen to over again and never grow tired of -

Degreed - Ruins 

Work of Art - Let Me Dream

King of Hearts - Don't Wait

 

for me it's everything about the song from cliche lyrics, that slow build up, over the top vocals - all combines for a horrible experience and one which I would never admit to listening to. 

However as said thankfully there are quite a few ballads which are intelligent and very good lyrically.  

[Glen]

and in relevance to this thread :

horrible cheesy ballad :

miss you in a heartbeat

great ballad :

Hysteria 

[PetraGirl86]

2 hours ago, KarpetRydOFunk said:

I dunno. I think part of it has to do with sincerity, or at least convincing me of sincerity. When I hear "I Still Think About You" and "Love of a Lifetime" I believe the authors mean the words they are singing. And so then I believe them when I sing them myself. But it can also be the music. Stryper suffers on both ends, unfortunately. 

Yeah sincerity definitely matters. 

[Glen]

Just now, PetraGirl86 said:

Yeah sincerity definitely matters. 

no it doesn't....sometimes makes it even more unlistenable 

[Glen]

in my examples above I'm pretty sure that Robbie & Toby mean every word they are singing but it's still horrific

[Captain Howdy]

I don't get all this talk of "cheesy" ballads. If we are defining "cheesy" by the lyrical content then 95% of all 80s rock and metal is "cheesy" as most of it used the same lyrical content "rock, love, sex, loud etc etc"

As far as I am concerned a ballad (or any song for that matter) is either good or bad. None of this "cheesy" bs.

 

[Darkstone]

It's hard to define, but it exists. 

[Glen]

58 minutes ago, Captain Howdy said:

I don't get all this talk of "cheesy" ballads. If we are defining "cheesy" by the lyrical content then 95% of all 80s rock and metal is "cheesy" as most of it used the same lyrical content "rock, love, sex, loud etc etc"

As far as I am concerned a ballad (or any song for that matter) is either good or bad. None of this "cheesy" bs.

 

surely you hear the difference between Show Me How to Live and Degreeds Ruins ?

Ones cheesy crap and ones a great intelligent ballad.

If not I give in. 

[Glen]

perhaps we should change the word cheesy for cringy

cos that's what some ballads are

 

[PetraGirl86]

33 minutes ago, Glen said:

perhaps we should change the word cheesy for cringy

cos that's what some ballads are

 

Which 9/10 is actually opinion 

[Captain Howdy]

40 minutes ago, Glen said:

surely you hear the difference between Show Me How to Live and Degreeds Ruins ?

Ones cheesy crap and ones a great intelligent ballad.

If not I give in. 

Firstly, don't know either of them.

Secondly, like I said 95% of songs in the genre follow a tried and tested path of lyrical content, so when it comes to ballads you will have god knows how many "Heaven" "Love bites" "Every rose has its thorn" etc which all follow the tried and tested route of either singing about love or lost love. Or the "Living on the road" songs like "Wanted dead or alive" or "Home sweet home".

And then you have the odd songs that follow a different path. The personal songs about loss like "Forever Free" or a song about a child abuser in "Janies got a gun".

Are some better than others? Of course. Do some make a better job of portaying the cliche? Of course, but that does not make the cliched ones cheesy or cringy.

It's like when people say "What is your guilty pleasure" ... nothing is. Because if you like something you like something. You don't have to put a label on it and justify it.

For me if I find something cheesy or cringe worthy, it is because I don't like it. Pretty much everything by The Darkness for instance.

[Glen]

ok so obviously you never listen to Degreed. A mistake but not to worry.

Basically one song is everything that's terrible about this genre and why it is laughed at by the populace at large.

The other is everything which is great about this genre and the populace at large miss out on.

I cannot state it any more plainly than that.

but to each their own. 

 

 

[Tabe]

10 hours ago, gener8tr said:

This is another song whereby you really needed to be a teenager the summer of 1987 (when the song was in constant radio rotation) to fully appreciate it.  I was.  I was 19 the summer of 1987, and looking back, CARRIE was damn-near perfect for its time and place.

The only way for me to fully describe this type of TIME / PLACE experience is by looking back 25 years (25 years from 1987 in this case).  I don't know how LOVE ME DO by The Beatles was so damn popular and set them on their way.  Talk about cheesy!  And I'm actually a Beatles fan (now).  But back in 1987, I'd have turned that song off quickly!

Yeah, see I was a teenager listening to all that stuff in 1987 and I thought "Carrie" was too cheesy for me.  

But I was a big fan of "High Enough" from Damn Yankees, so go figure.

[Darkstone]

I also have to emphasize, that for me personally, cheesy is not necessarily a bad thing at all. It all comes down to the quality of the song.

[PetraGirl86]

13 minutes ago, Darkstone said:

I also have to emphasize, that for me personally, cheesy is not necessarily a bad thing at all. It all comes down to the quality of the song.

………A Good Cheesy 

[whiplash1972]

Ahh, the mighty Leppard... definitely hard to whittle it down to 10, but here goes (in order of release):

 

Let It Go

Too Late For Love

Foolin'

Women

Gods of War

White Lightning

Fractured Love

Paper Sun

Scar

Undefeated

[Geoff]

17 hours ago, KarpetRydOFunk said:

I dunno. I think part of it has to do with sincerity, or at least convincing me of sincerity. When I hear "I Still Think About You" and "Love of a Lifetime" I believe the authors mean the words they are singing. And so then I believe them when I sing them myself. But it can also be the music. Stryper suffers on both ends, unfortunately. 

Karpetface is actually right here, and I agree 100%. It's probably why I don't consider any Def Lep ballads cheesy, because Joe Elliot has/had such a wonderful, sincere sounding voice on those ballads, and I believe every word he says in songs like 'Miss you in a heartbeat,' 'When love and hate collide' and 'Have ever ever needed someone so bad.' He sounds authentic, passionate and believable, and that makes me love the songs. 

If he sounded as attached to the songs as the dude from Santa Cruz on his last album, they wouldn't connect with me.  

For the record, I don't dislike 'Love of a lifetime' because it's "cheesy" - I'm just not a fan of the song. I love plenty of "cheesy" stuff. Anyone heard the ballads on PBF's debut?

But yeah, it's all a pretty silly discussion. At the end of the day there are two types of song - Well, three. Good songs, shit songs, and just okay songs. Cheese isn't really an important part either way, because it's not always a bad thing. Cheesiness can often be a very good thing in retro sounding tunes from 2019.  

[Darkstone]

Apologies to CureTheSane for hijacking his thread, but I was listening to the first two "Slaughter" albums today and I would consider this as an example of good cheesy.

 

[CureTheSane]

I hate it when people get all butthurt with hijacking nd off topic etc.

Always found it strange on a forum, let the conversations go where they go.

As for cheese, a good song is a good song. Listen to it enough and it's not cheesy any more, it's just a song.

Love Bites, Carrie, I Saw Red, You Are The One - love them all

[Darkstone]

6 minutes ago, CureTheSane said:

I hate it when people get all butthurt with hijacking nd off topic etc.

Always found it strange on a forum, let the conversations go where they go.

As for cheese, a good song is a good song. Listen to it enough and it's not cheesy any more, it's just a song.

Love Bites, Carrie, I Saw Red, You Are The One - love them all

Butthurt!? I think you're confusing me with Geoff, although I'm guessing he lost feeling down there years ago. Apology withdrawn. 

[Glen]

1 hour ago, Darkstone said:

Apologies to CureTheSane for hijacking his thread, but I was listening to the first two "Slaughter" albums today and I would consider this as an example of good cheesy.

 

is that cheesy though? I think that's a pretty good song - not earth shattering but listenable. 

But you see the difference between this and the Toby & Robbie songs I mentioned earlier - stuff like that is just an embarrassment.....especially as they were released this year. 

for me anyway