“Hysteria” by Def Leppard

"Hysteria" is the title track of Def Leppard's 1987 album, tucked away as the album's tenth song and released as its fourth single that November. Joe Elliott has said the title came from drummer Rick Allen, and the song itself is the band at their silkiest: a clean, chiming guitar melody and a chorus of voices stacked so high it sounds like a cathedral choir run through a mixing desk.

That sheen is Robert John "Mutt" Lange's doing. He produced it and co-wrote it with Elliott, Steve Clark, Phil Collen and Rick Savage, and in the pre-chorus he had the clean guitar chords recorded one note at a time, building each chord piece by piece instead of strumming it. It paid off: Def Leppard had never cracked the Billboard Hot 100's top 10 before, and this one peaked right at number 10.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.