The decade Joe Elliott called a “huge disappointment”
No artist is safe from the changing times. As much as the millions of records might give them a false sense of security, it’s only a matter of time before a band’s signature sound is stomped out by whatever new kid in town is willing to change the world. While Joe Elliott may have been one of the true faces of 1980s hard rock with Def Leppard, he thought that the following decade had none of the energy that came from their glory years.
Granted, saying that the 1980s rock scene was different from the 1990s would be drastically underselling it. When looking at the rock charts from 1987 and those same charts in 1992, you’d swear that you were listening to two completely different worlds, with the age of hair metal being stomped out by the sounds of grunge.
That’s not to say that all types of hard rock were left by the wayside. Artists like Van Halen and Aerosmith still managed to stay afloat in the age of Pearl Jam and Nirvana, but any chance of bands like Poison and Cinderella being taken seriously in their lavish makeup was never going to happen again.
Def Leppard did the smart thing by kicking off the 1990s early. Right before ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’ changed the world, Leppard had put out the album Adrenalize, making some of their last stadium rock anthems and closing the door on their glamorous era with as much dignity as they could.
Once it was clear that the sounds of Seattle and flannel shirts were here to stay, though, the band knew that they needed to undergo a change if they were going to stay relevant. After making the most layered rock and roll this side of Queen, Slang became one of the most drastic changes any band has ever made, as the once-glam rock legends tried their hand at getting moody and introspective.
As the new generation started to build a following, though, the entire genre of alternative rock started to concave in on itself. Outside of Kurt Cobain’s tragic passing, the rest of the Seattle scene had started to go their separate ways, whether that meant going on hiatus, breaking up completely, or going through some of the rougher patches in their discography.
Even the offshoots of alternative rock like Britpop began to falter at the end of the decade. For all of the great music that Oasis may have given fans throughout their tenure, the massive bomb of Be Here Now was enough to put the band in decline for a few years, leading to them re-emerging as an entirely different band.
While Leppard still held onto their core audience, Elliott thought that the entire 1990s rock movement never gave their fans the same energy that they did, saying, “The ’90s are a huge disappointment to the ’90s kids, I believe…The ’90s lacked melody that was the main thing. It had the attitude that punk had in the ’70s in Britain. It had a shoe staring quality If you like it as well.”
Leppard may have had a completely different mindset when working on their masterpieces, but the difference in tone really speaks to where the youth was at the time. Since the 1980s made you feel like you were at a party that never ended, grunge was the moment where everything got a lot more introspective.
