High 'N' Dry catches Def Leppard mid-transformation, Robert John "Mutt" Lange scrubbing the grime off their NWOBHM origins and buffing them into something American radio could stomach. The guitars still crunch on Let It Go, but Bringin' On the Heartbreak revealed the blueprint: power ballads with stadium-sized choruses that MTV would canonise.

What seemed like commercial compromise in 1981 became prophecy once Pyromania made them superstars. Lange's obsessive layering turned Sheffield scruffs into architects of Eighties arena rock, proving accessibility and heaviness weren't mutually exclusive.