Track Listing

1. 20th Century Boy
2. Rock On
3. Hanging on the Telephone
4. Waterloo Sunset
5. Hell Raiser
6. 10538 Overture
7. Street Life
8. Drive-In Saturday
9. Little Bit of Love
10. Golden Age of Rock 'N' Roll
11. No Matter What
12. He's Gonna Step on You Again
13. Don't Believe a Word
14. Stay with Me

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #42872 in Music
• Released on: 2006-05-23
• Number of discs: 1

Customer Reviews

Leppard re-gain their spots
It is so easy to criticise Def Leppard. OK..there are few cheesier rock singers than Joe Elliott and Rick Savage really should find a haircut that sits well in the 21st century. But scratch beneath the surface and they are one extremelely talented and credible outfit. There are few better lead rock guitarists than Phil Collen and Viv Campbell and put them together and you have a very sophisticated but melodic guitar sound. When i heared however that they were recording an album of cover versions, I feared the worst. But this is no lazy 'can't be bothered to write our own music' job. It becomes very obvious that these boys really do truly love the songs they are covering. That should be applauded if anything. There is a real arrogant attitude towards cover versions in this country but what's wrong with Joe Elliot wanting to champion his boyhood heroes Mott the Hoople ? Take or leave covers of well known songs like Waterloo Sunset and Hanging on the Telephone, the real delight of this album is hearing songs that have fallen by rock's wasteland. David Essex's Rock On sounds fantastic here, as does No Matter What. Own up, how many of us have heared Badfinger's original ? Well here it is and it sounds bloody good. It's time Britain embraced Def Leppard a bit more.

Yeah?
Ever since the mega-success of their 80s albums, Hysteria and Pyromania, Def Leppared have had considerable laurels to rest upon. Some might say a covers album was them doing exactly that.

But actually it's good to hear them cut loose on some of their favourite tracks - the rock band that only occasionally surfaced on X (Four Letter Word, mainly) is here a lot more often.

And their song selection is pretty solid. I don't know all the originals, but where I do these come across as being mostly pretty faithful but better recorded versions (stand up Waterloo Sunset, Hanging On The Telephone, etc).

The album is worth the price of entry for two tracks - Mott's Golden Age Of Rock and Roll and T-Rex's 20th Century boy. These sprint out of the starter's blocks and display far more energy than the originals ever did.

Biggest dissappointment of the album for me was HellRaiser - the Sweet song is fantastic but the Leppard cover version feels like it's missing something (I think it's in the verse guitar parts) and Justin Hawkins (of squeaking for The Darkness fame) performs pretty woefully.

But overall it is a good listen, you can easily have it on and not feel the urge to skip any tracks, which has to be a good thing.

H Denton
I love this album. I grew up during the 70s listening to the bands who influenced Def Leppard and in my opinion the songs have been covered brilliantly. This is a fun album which transports those who heard the tunes the first time around right back to the 70s and shows those who weren't around then, just what they missed! My only complaint is that the bonus tracks available on the American versions of the album aren't on this one. Whether a Lep fan or not this is one of the best cover albums I've heard and it will be played until the CD wears out!