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Customer Reviews
Average Rating:
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Active music
This CD is packed with fast pace music gems (cept for two acoustic spots) that come from the earlier Hysteria sessions. So there are some Clarke goodies here too. You can hear the distinctive Pyromania-Hysteria style here that was their bread and butter for the 80s. Miss You in a Heartbeat and Two Steps Behind have acoustic and electric versions (of which I think the electric is better). Desert Song, Fractured Love, Ride Into the Sun and Ring of Fire (compares a bit to Run Riot) are just awesome pieces.
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Pinnacle of Perfection
Def Leppard's best days were probably right behind them when this CD came out. Retro Active is not just any B-sides kind of CD though, this CD as a whole has some songs that are extremely satisfying and were perhaps not released on other previous CD's only because of a space issue and not because of their overall quality. Quality is the key word here, because every song on here is a powerful rocker or an ethereal ballad. Desert Song is very dark and dreamlike, and then Fractured love hits like a mallet with a great driving beat. The tunes "She's too tough" as well as "Action" and "Only after Dark" are top rockers as well. Mix in a few variances of the hit "Miss you in a heartbeat" as well as the popular "Two Steps Behind" and you pretty much have a CD here that is just as great as Adrenalize or Hysteria.
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Great CD. Why don't they play like that nowadays?
This is a great CD, and it is true that after "Hysteria" they have not been the same. I've heard "Yeah" is a decent effort, though I am not inclined to buy it anytime soon. I wonder why they do not play like they used to anymore. Maybe the 80's are over, but I would bet 10 to one that if they made an album like Pyromania or Hysteria nowadays, they would sell millions again. Hey, Elliot, get off your [...], and give us a good album, please!!!
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Nifty collection
Full points for honesty and integrity on this release. At the time it was put out a sizeable sticker on it proclaimed it wasn't a new album. Which was a nice touch. Also points to the band for having the guts to put this out when many people would of expected just another version of Hysteria - I mean not many bands clear the decks like this. Normally bands foist their 'b' sides and rarities onto fans in some sort of overpriced box set package but the Leps, like Megadeth and a few others, have put out a simple catch all disc.
As to the actual songs I'm not going to do a track by track synopsis but will point out a few salient tracks. Firstly there is the opener Desert Song which is certainly musically the heaviest thing to have come out of the band for a while. Fractured Love moves along nicely and in fact a number of the 'b' sides collected here are pretty handy tunes - Ring of Fire and Ride Into the Sun being two fairly well known tracks among Leppard enthusiasts. Sure, I Wanna Be Your Hero overdoes it on the cheese factor but there are upswings like the cover songs Action and Only After Dark.
Now before we get carried away lets get some perspective in here. And that means being honest and pointing out that yea and verily the ballads are rubbish. Every one of them which is weird given they've written a couple of good ones over the years, evidently the cupboard is bare in this department. Also some of the zest in these tunes would of been welcome on the Adrenalise album.
Brief yet useful liner notes complete this package which along with 1995's Greatest Hits album was a great way for the band to draw a close on the first decade and a half of their career and more ahead with a clean slate. For fans this is good stuff, for casual listeners perhaps the interest won't be there.
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If I could give it six stars, I would!
Wow. One word for this album - AWESOME!
I just recently bought all the post-Hysteria CD's so I could play catch-up with this old favorite band of mine, and this release is really a shining star. Def Leppard showed with X and Slang that they can blaze forward with the changing trends, but Retroactive is more of a return to their pre-Pyromania sound - but BETTER! The very first track alone - Desert Song - makes the purchase worth it, and there are numerous tracks in addition to that that just blow me away: Ring of Fire, I Wanna Be Your Hero, and the acoustic and electric versions of Two Steps Behind and I Miss You in a Heartbeat.
HIGHLY recommended. I'll probably buy another copy soon as a stand-by since I have a feeling I'll wear this one out pretty quickly....
