Last Friday, the 27th, Def Leppard released their new album, Diamond Star Halos , and, despite market trends suggesting otherwise, vocalist Joe Elliott argued that making music in the format of complete albums is still important – at least for his band.
In an interview with Jon Hotten of Rock Candy , Elliot mentioned the trend of releasing many singles or making EPs and commented that, although the format makes sense for a younger generation, his generation has experienced a different world.
“When we got together in 2014, we noticed a trend of people releasing a song a month, and then maybe they would put them all together on an album two years later. Other people were making EPs. Maybe an album isn’t as important to the new generations because they didn’t grow up in the era when it was. But we did,” he reflects.
“We grew up in the era of Ziggy Stardust , Dark Side Of The Moon , Goodbye Yellow Brick Road – the best double album of all time, in my opinion. That’s where we came from. You can’t change that. We invested in lying in bed and reading the liner notes, reading every single word.”
Bassist Rick Savage was also present in the conversation, and mentioned liking the feeling of nostalgia that exists in Diamond Star Halos , mentioning the influence of the pop side of bands like the Eagles, Fleetwood Mac and Elton John .
“For me, it has a feeling of the early 70s, when you're reaching adolescence and everything is beautiful. It's fresh, it's new. For us, that was between 1971 and 1974, when we were starting to have color TVs, bands were wearing more outrageous clothes, the music was being more produced, sounding better,” he recalls.
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