In January 1982, Def Leppard entered Park Gate Studios in Battle, East Sussex to make the follow-up to their breakthrough album High ’N’ Dry. Under the aegis of producer ‘Mutt’ Lange, they pieced together a record the likes of which had never been heard before: the gleaming pop-metal behemoth Pyromania. And Photograph was the perfect single with which to launch it.
Photograph embodied Leppard’s brave new sonic world. Gone were the gritty AC/DC-isms of High ’N’ Dry, replaced by machine-tooled melodies and Lange’s hi-finish gloss, oven-ready for brand new music channel MTV.
