From: djbooti491@aol.com (Djbooti491) Newsgroups: alt.music.def-leppard Subject: Def Leppard puts off "Slang," Opens "Vault" Date: 19 Sep 1995 13:28:38 -0400 FYO from Billboard Magazine 9/23/95 Open the Vault: When we last spoke withh Def Leppard's lead singer Joe Elliot in Febrruary, the band was well on its way toward a new release in the late summer/early fall. Now it looks as though a new studio album has been punted into the first half of 1996 to make way for a greatest-hits album. According to Elliot, the new album, "Slang" was pretty much finished when the band was approached about releasing a "best of" set first. "we got a phone call out of the blue," says Elliott. "[One of our managers] called and said, "how do you fancy putting out a greatest hits in October?" and initially, we said 'no, no, no.' We'd been working on a new album for ages. My and [guitarist] Phil Collen's initial reaction was that we're not really keen on doing this, but the more we thought about the more we thought that we're going to have to do a greatest-hits album, and it just seemed sillto to close the eight years of with 'Retro Active' and open them up again later." "Retro Active" (1993) was a collection of B-sides and alternate takes. Mercury will release "Vault" Oct.31. The album contains 14 of the band's hits, plus one new song, the dramatic, mid-tempo ballad "When Love and Hate Collide." When looking for a new track, the band went trolling through songs it had cut for 'Slang' that were not likely to make the album. However the group felt that the new sound, while not radically different, didn't match the spirit of the old hits. "It would be like putting a Mellencamp song on a Tom Petty album," says Elliot. "The styles are similar, but it's not a perfect fit." Instead, the band recorded "When Love and Hate Collide," which had been written, but not cut for 1992's 'Adrenalize.' Elliot says selectin the tracks for the greatest-hits album(there are slightly different versions for North America, Japan, and Europe) was a fun journey through the band's past. "I haven't heard some of the songs since we played them live two years ago," he says. "There are other ones that we don't do in concert, so I hadn't heard them in three, four, or five years." His assessment? "Jesus, man, we've had a lot of hits," he says which surely comes as a surprise to no one but him. "We dont look at what's gone on, we look at whats going on and coming up. But it was really cool to hear some of this stuff. ------- Mark' opinion: The greatest hits should be the songs they play in concert that they know the fans like, which may not be the hit singles. I heard they dropped "Let's Get Rocked" and put "Rock, Rock" back in the songlist. Anyone else?