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Def Leppard Tour History Fan Archive.
Slang Album Song By Song Part 3

Sunday, 26th January 2014





Slang Deluxe Edition 2014.

Def Leppard will release the Slang Deluxe Edition in February and in 1996 Phil Collen told the story of the 11 original album tracks.

In May 1996 Phil went through each song giving a brief explanation of them.

In part three Phil talks about the songs 'Work It Out' and 'Breathe A Sigh'.

Slang Song 5 - Work It Out

Phil - "Viv's demo of this was pure pop and a great song but we wanted to give it a harder edge. This song took ages to get right as we tried to blend certain unusual elements ie... Nine Inch Nails, The Cure, and Bowie; while keeping the rock guitar thing happening. A lot of the stuff we record is due to a process of elimination and this song was no different. Joe's vocal was also very different from anything we've done in the past using Iggy Pop and late 70's Bowie as a guideline. Again, this song as almost everything on the album, was a progressive experiment while keeping the element of fun a priority. This is obvious during the middle section where we started to jam, going off on an inspired tangent, a benefit of recording live. The first U.S. single release and some of the coolest drum stuff I've ever heard Rick play."

Slang Song 6 - Breathe A Sigh

Phil - "In sharp contrast to All I Want Is Everything, this song took ages and about seven different versions until we were happy with it. This ranged from a piano version to a reggae thing. My original demo tried to sound like Mariah Carey does gospel with a country twang, and I didn't think it would be right for us. But after all the different versions and being very close to bailing on this song, we tried it one more time. This time we based it around a pop, hip-hop drum feel and Sav's cool bass line. We then added sustained electric guitars and a classic Def Leppard multi-tracked backing vocal type of thing kind of inspired by Boys II Men. It was getting there but was made better by the help of Brad Buxer's percussion programming. Then we were ready for the lead vocal. The original inspiration for the vocal phrasing was Aretha Franklin so we went that rout. Stuck a jazz guitar in the intro and !Voila! The hardest song to record, but the biggest achievement!!!"

All previous updates on this release and new music can be found in the Album News section.

  • Buy 2CD Album @ - Amazon.com - 11th February 2014
  • Buy Double Vinyl Album @ - Amazon.com - 11th February 2014
  • Buy MP3 @ - Amazon.com - 11th February 2014
  • Buy 2CD Album @ - Amazon.co.uk - 11th February 2014 (Import)
  • Buy Double Vinyl Album @ - Amazon.co.uk - 11th February 2014 (Import)
  • Buy MP3 @ - Amazon.co.uk - 11th February 2014





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