Def Leppard – Yeah! (CD)
Sound: B-
Music: C-
When Def Leppard first arrived, they became yet another
music act that were dubbed “the next Led Zeppelin” and after their first two
albums, that actually was an idea that held some water. But when they started to become a hardcore
version of teenaged girl pandering hair bands, they started to get into
trouble. After the Rick Allen car
accident, they never did get back on track.
Since then, they have been resurfacing in endless hit sets and would-be
revivals. Well, that must have finally
worn thin, because they have a new covers album called Yeah! And after
listening to it, no one but the most diehard fans will be yelling out that
title.
It was bad enough Rod Stewart abandoned real Rock for bad
Pop in the 1980s and old standards recently, joining Barry Manilow’s awful
1950s kick, Michael McDonald’s spree of butchering Motown classics and the ever
insidious Michael Bolton desecrating Frank Sinatra classics. However, in all those sad, terrifying cases
of good music mutilated, they never claimed to be anything more than retro
trips. In Def Leppard’s case, they
think they are doing justice to music they like. Yes, the choices are inarguable, but the horrid recordings are
far from it.
T. Rex’s 20th Century Boy sounds like
“18th Century Boy” in this awful rehash of the Mark Bolan hit, while
their cover of David Essex’s Rock On makes the 1989 hit version by soap
opera actor Michael Damian (from that awful Corey Feldman film Dream A
Little Dream, which we call “barf a little barf”) seem ambitious by
comparison. Neither have the ironic
distance of the original and there are those younger listeners out there who
might think the group has lost their mind doing “that soap opera guy’s” hit.
And it gets worse.
When they next take on the Blondie classic Hangin’ On The Telephone,
you’ll be wishing for a disconnect! For
Elliot, it is some of his worst-ever vocal work. The Kinks’ Waterloo Sunset cannot set fast enough in their
hands. As for Hell Raiser by the
great Rock/Pop/Glam band The Sweet, the song sounds more like it came from hell
than raised any. The common
denominator? A lack of energy,
excitement and enthusiasm. Did they
think covering the songs would give them some legitimacy they lacked before?
Electric Light Orchestra’s 10538 Overture, Roxy
Music’s Street Life, David Bowie’s Drive-in Saturday, Free’s Little
Bit Of Love, Mott The Hoople’s Golden Age Of Rock ‘N’ Roll and Thin
Lizzy’s Don’t Believe A Word (appropriate for the liner notes) are also
done with hardly any point or real love of the material. But the last two litmus tests are the
clinchers.
Badfinger’s No Matter What is attempted with awful
harmonies and is somewhat mind-numbing.
At least when Joe Jackson’s Breaking Us In Two sounded like Badfinger’s
Day After Day, it had as much heart, soul and mind. That Leppard botched a direct remake is
stunning. Finally, that leaves Faces’ Stay
With Me, the final track in this torture test. Even at his best, Elliot was no Rod Stewart when Rod was still a
rocker (we’ll even count the disco Do Ya Think I’m Sexy?, which seems
like Maggie May as compared to anything here) up to Hot Legs. To even think he could do a Stewart classic
at Rod’s best at this point of his career is a big mistake, much like this
whole venture. Maybe they still have it
live, but this is easily their nadir and another reason the Rock genre has
stayed in a coma for too long.
The 2.0 PCM 16bit/44.1kHz Stereo is not a bad recording,
but not as good as it should be, with a lack of depth and sameness in the
production and engineering that make a bad situation worse. Roman McHugh seems to think that a lack of
effort on the band’s part and lead singer Joe Elliott in particular can be
glossed over by just making every other song sound like their ever-obnoxious
career-suicide track Pour Some Sugar On Me. This is a long way from the glory of Pyromania and if they
wanted to be honest about the content here, this critic would like to suggest a
better title for the album:
“Noooooooooo!”
- Nicholas Sheffo
