For the past 22 years the name Def Leppard has brought to mind over-produced Adult Contemporary lite-rock that is best left buried in the 1980s. Last week, though, I was at the used DVD store and was presented with an offer I couldn't refuse: a Def Leppard video anthology (Historia) and concert (In the Round, In Your Face) on one disc for just $1.99. I wasted no time getting it to the register. The other night I watched the video half and was reminded of something we've all probably forgotten: 26 years years ago Def Leppard was a great band.

Though we've sneered at them for two decades, for many our careers as music purchasers began with Pyromania. I had bought a Waylon Jennings album and country and pop singles before, but Pyromania and Michael Jackson's Thriller began the weekly vacuuming of my wallet by the record industry that has never ceased.

My parents wouldn't pay for cable so I first saw Def Leppard on NBC's Friday Night Videos. I thought they were the most ridiculous thing I had ever seen. How many guitar players were in this band? I thought I counted five or six. At lunch my friend Scott and I started discussing this silly band with too many guitarists. Then one day Scott confided he had bought their album Pyromania. Huh?!

I had started making the switch from country to Top 40 and rock radio, and a Leppard song came on. When I was seven my older cousin had given me all his scratched and chipped KISS records, and I began to realize that the sound of KISS and Def Leppard had something in common.

I saw the videos again and slapped myself in the head. What was I thinking?! This band was great! The videos for "Photograph," "Rock of Ages" and "Foolin'" had everything a boy could want: pointy guitars, leaps from the drum riser, swords, switchblades, and submissive women in too much eyeshadow.

My parents were reluctant to buy me rock records, so for my 12th birthday I asked my friends to get me Pyromania and Thriller, as those records were the phenomenons of 7th grade. At last I was inside the forbidden temple of rock! On a trip to Perimeter Mall I was ecstatic to find a Def Leppard song book that included a thing called tablature that told you exactly where to put your fingers on the fretboard by numbers. What a find! Finally I could play my friends something besides "The Yellow Rose of Texas," I knew the opening riff to "Photograph"! At Christmas came the crowning acquisition, a British flag muscle shirt just like Joe Elliot wore in the "Photograph" video!

Then one day Scott turned the universe inside-out. He said Def Leppard was old news, and there was a "new" band called Van Halen. He had been turned on to them by a friend's older brother and had already bought their entire discography. He put headphones on my head and turned on Diver Down to prove these guys blew Def Leppard away. I wasn't convinced, it sounded like it was recorded on a 4-track in a garage, but he let me borrow the tape and the song "Hang `em High" got me wondering.

Four years went by and I thought Lep had broken up. Then the news came a new CD was on the way. Oh, boy! They would show these new bands how they did it in `83! Hysteria finally arrived and...wow, what a dropoff in quality! I couldn't discern a true song in any of those singles, it sounded like random ideas held together by studio effects. The rest of my school didn't seem to notice it blew, though, and Hysteria went on to shake the earth. Most of the people who were into them now were people who didn't seem like true music fans, though, it was the jock and preppy types who Def Leppard was now dressing like; no more leather jackets or flag T's. Lep had sold me out musically and in who they seemed to stand for. I was eventually conned into buying Hysteria myself and after two listens determined I was right in the first place; I had just wasted $15. Soon alternative rock came along and it didn't matter what Def Leppard or anyone else did, that shit was over.

Here in the MP3 and used CD shop era I've finally dug back to Leppard's pre-Pyromania albums and discovered High 'n' Dry. WOW! One of the most perfect rock records ever. I had seen the lapel button in `83 but I figured that was a "meager beginnings" record, but actually it's their best. On Through the Night is meager beginnings, but still pretty good.

So after a 26-year-layoff I've rejoined the Def Leppard fan club, as long as you're talking about `79-`83 Leppard (You Tube is a treasure trove of great early demos and videos!). I haven't listened to their latest, Songs from the Sparkle Lounge, but I read it's surprisingly good.

Oonta gleeten glowten globen!