Leppard Skin

Want to win a barroom wager with a saloon full of rock fans? Just ask ‘em what album has spent the most weeks in the Billboard Top Ten this year.

You can bet most fans will guess Michael Jackson’s “Bad” blockbuster--but they’d be wrong.

The winner? Def Leppard’s “Hysteria,” which is entering its 49th week in the Top Ten--and has finally made it to No. 1, dislodging Van Halen from the top spot. (By comparison, John Cougar Mellencamp’s “The Lonesome Jubilee” spent 27 weeks in the Top Ten, Pink Floyd’s “A Momentary Lapse of Reason” spent 15 weeks and Bruce Springsteen’s “Tunnel of Love” spent nine weeks.

To call “Hysteria” the unsung hero of this year’s charts would be an understatement. With only a smattering of media coverage (and a lukewarm reaction from critics) the album has quietly sold 5.3 million copies, with band manager Cliff Burnstein predicting it will reach 7.5 million by the end of the year. What makes its showing so surprising is that after Def Leppard’s first single stiffed, industry insiders were predicting a flop.

“People did write off this album, especially when the first single came out and was dead after two weeks,” Burnstein said. “People love to bury you. If you’ve had one success, people love to come after you the second time around. I think the record company (PolyGram) was concerned too. But we told them, ‘Look, we have another single, so let’s do the best we can.’ And it turned out that we had a single after that, and then another. . . .”

Burnstein acknowledged that Def Leppard’s four-year hiatus from recording hurt the group. “A lot of hot bands came along while they were away--Bon Jovi, Cinderella--so we had to prove ourselves all over again. Our plan was to put out six singles, work the album for 18 months and have two Christmas periods (to market the album). And just because the first single flopped, we didn’t lose sight of the overall goal, so we stuck it out.”

In fact, what’s particularly unusual is that each single has performed better than its predecessor. The first one peaked at No. 80, the second (“Animal”) made it to No. 20, the third (“Hysteria”) went to No. 10, the band’s fourth (“Pour Some Sugar”) is now at No. 2--and a fifth song, “Love Bites,” is due out in early August.

“We call it our Woody Hayes strategy--three yards and a cloud of dust,” said Burnstein. “We just kept grinding it out. Listen, four years is a long time between albums. So we had a lot of time to plan what we wanted to do with this record--and it paid off.”