Pyromania

Pre-production began in Sheffield in January 1982. At Lange's suggestion the band gathered guitar riffs and vocal ideas rather than finished songs, and chose the best ones with him in London. In a 2024 interview for the album's 40th anniversary the band said Lange had told them not to worry about finishing songs, that they spent nearly three weeks shaping material before they entered the studio, and that 60 to 70 percent of the guitar parts were close to final when they went into Battery. The recording followed a plan: bass and guitars to a click track from a Linn LM-1 drum machine, drums last, which left room to rearrange as they went. The band had a hard time getting the guitar sounds they wanted, going through several Marshall amplifiers. At one point they wanted to burn all of them, and that gave the album its title.

Pete Willis's rhythm guitar is on every track. After he was fired on 11 July 1982, Phil Collen added solos on tracks one to three, six and seven. Collen recalled that Lange told him to have fun, be a lead guitarist and go nuts. Rick Allen recalled that he and Lange clashed a little on some passes while he recorded cymbal parts, and that Lange told him, "when I want your opinion, I'll ask you for it." Thomas Dolby played keyboards, credited as Booker T. Boffin, and John Kongos programmed the Fairlight CMI. The cover shows a cartoon flame rising from a skyscraper with a bullseye aimed at it.

Reception

The album reached the top ten of the Billboard 200 on 12 March 1983 and peaked at two on 14 May. It spent 123 weeks on the chart, reached 4 in Canada and 18 in the UK, and sold six million copies in the United States in 1983. In the UK Rock of Ages reached 41 and Photograph 66.

David Fricke of Rolling Stone said the guitars of Clark and Collen were more emotionally charged than most of the synthesized disco that passed for modern music, and that Lange's mix brought Elliott's vocals into focus. Rolling Stone ranked it 384 in its 2003 list of the 500 greatest albums and 52 in its 2017 list of the 100 greatest metal albums, and Q put it at 35 in its 2006 list of the 40 best albums of the 80s. Louder called its creation "ridiculously fraught" in a review of the 40th anniversary box set, which appeared on 26 April 2024 with rarities and a Dortmund live set from December 1983.