Def Leppard’s entire back catalogue is now available on streaming services for the first time.
The ‘Pour Some Sugar On Me’ rockers, fronted by Joe Elliott, were unable to share their songs on Spotify and Apple Music until now because of a royalties dispute with Universal, who owned the rights to the original recordings, but they’ve now agreed a new deal with the label.
Elliott commented: "It is with a mixture of relief and euphoria that we now see our entire catalogue finally getting a digital release.
"Having embraced every other format with open arms, especially and more recently the re-emergence of vinyl, we’re now going to be available to everyone everywhere and honestly, it’s as exciting as the original releases were."
Elliott explained: "We tried to do a deal many years ago, but it didn’t work out, so we just waited and bided our time.
"Record labels, or any kind of institution like this, keep the same name, but every 18 months you can have totally different people.
"We were just very fortunate that the people at Universal at the moment were very onside to doing this deal. We sat down with them and basically just batted the stuff back and forth until we all settled on what we thought was a fair deal."
Guitar player Phil Collen added: "We felt we’d been left out of the digital party, but it’s a thrill for us to finally accept the invitation and to be able to say ‘Yeah, you can stream us, download us and hear us on all digital outlets.’"
Among the records available are their 1980 debut studio album ‘On Through the Night’ and ‘Hysteria’, which gave rock fans the hits ‘Armageddon It’, ‘Love Bites’, ‘Woman’ and ‘Rocket’.
And that’s not all, the Sheffield band – also comprised of Vivian Campbell, Rick Allen and Rick Savage – have announced their first UK and Ireland since 2015, ‘The Hysteria Tour’, which will seem them perform the 1987 LP in full after demand from fans.
Savage said: "After many requests from fans in the U.K, I’m delighted that we can bring the whole ‘Hysteria’ album to arenas across Britain and Ireland later this year. From ‘Women’ to ‘Love and Affection’ plus many other faves thrown in for good measure.
"Oh, and our old pals Cheap Trick will be there also to help with the celebrations!! We can’t wait’."
The run kicks off in Dublin On December 1, and ends in Birmingham on December 17.
Def Leppard’s tour dates are as follows:
December 1, Dublin, 3 Arena EIRE
December 2, Belfast, The SSE Arena UK
December 4, Cardiff, Motorpoint Arena UK
December 6, London, The O2 UK
December 8, Nottingham, Motorpoint Arena UK
December 9, Newcastle, Metro Radio Arena UK
December 11, Glasgow, The SSE Hydro Arena UK
December 12, Manchester, Manchester Arena UK
December 14, Sheffield, FlyDSA Arena UK
December 15, Liverpool, Echo Arena UK
December 17, Birmingham, Arena Birmingham UK