649. Def Leppard / Yeah! 2006. 2.5/5

There is a certain art to preparing and recording a covers album. Obviously, in the majority of cases, the songs that you cover are going to be ones that influenced you at sometime in your life, whether it was to get you started into playing a musical instrument, or as a band influenced the way you go about writing your own songs. Whether those songs actually relate to your listening audience, and then translate into sales of the said covers album, is another thing altogether.

Def Leppard come from a different  set of influences than many of their so-called contemporary bands. That is very well defined by the selection of songs they perform on this album. It is an eclectic bunch of mostly early1970's bands, and the songs themselves are most often from the experimental psychedelic form of music that was still prevalent during the early part of that decade, or the straight rock variety. No metal or early forms of that music here, and that isn't surprising given the band's constant statement that they don't consider themselves a metal band of any description.
Quite simply, if you are of the band's vintage, then you too would have grown up with these songs, and you probably know them all, and have a very good chance of liking them. If you are a bit younger, and grew up listening to Def Leppard rather than the other way around, then you may well have missed most of this class of music. That doesn't mean you won't or can't like them, but it may not be a familiar style of music for you.
Songs like T.Rex's "20th Century Boy", Blondie's "Hangin' on the Telephone" (which is apparently by a band called The Nerve, but to me it will always be Blondie), Sweet's "Hell Raiser", Roxy Music's "Street Life", Thin Lizzy's "Don't Believe a Word" and David Bowie's "Drive-In Saturday" are the songs here that I find the best, the ones with a bit of rock about them. Some of the songs Def Leppard had no say over, because I have always hated David Essex's "Rock On" and every version of "He's Gonna Step On You Again".

Those who like this 70's music and enjoy Def Leppard will get the most out of this album. Those that don't may find it is boring and boorish. My advice is to give it a chance. because there are some gems to be found here, perhaps most of all Phil Collen singing "Stay With Me" by Faces (Rod Stewart's group for those not in the know). It's a great version, and well worth listening to. This album took me a few listens before I began to get much out of it, but once I was in I found that not only did it give me a better perspective of Def Leppard the band, but also of the artists they had covered. Again, as with all cover albums, it is rare that I pull this out to listen to. Now, however, i don't have any qualms about it when I do.