Slang was undoubtably the best all around work and criminally underrated.

They had been trainblazing all the way up to Hysteria....a delicate balance between artists and commercialism was kept....that came to a screeching halt with Adrenalize...a poor sequel to Hysteria (and they had never done a sequel to anything before then) that came with exaggerations of everything Leppard...never mind that plenty of poor imitation bands had already ruined what was originally cool and fresh. The band themselves had to go and parody themselves. They had the spotlight on them still so the album did fairly well...as did the tour....people went...had a good laugh as they said farewell to hair metal, which Leppard obviously had embraced, and then promptly wrote the band off as having nothing fresh to offer.

They showed promise with Retroactive and then got back on track with Slang..unfortunately...since they squandered their spotlight with Adrenalize...no one gave a sh** and never heard it. Critics often misunderstood it..attempting to brand it as an attempt at grunge (none to be found) and dimwitted fans who thought Leppard was about Pour Some Sugar On Me couldn't handle it. After one listen, I was a believer again. Adrenalize had put me off the band that much. The only good thing about Adrenalize was they began to play live even better.

Adrenalize remains at the bottom of my CD heap, where it deserves to be while Slang is among my desert island discs.

Euphoria was more forgiveable..despite it's obvious swipes from past work, they also continued to offer fresh material mixed in with old ideas.

X, like Bon Jovi's Crush...features dumbed down lyrics and an overall sound that borrows from a trend that was on it's way out when the album hit stores. It's saving grace is Scar and Kiss The Day.

So Slang it is.