10 Amazing Covers Albums In Rock And Roll Music

At the turn of the '00s, most of the career trajectories of hair metal bands had seemed to switch. Even though they started out writing a summer jam and touring around it, most of the veteran acts like Poison were just making a record every now and again while touring the nostalgia circuit. Being creative wasn't really a priority anymore, but Def Leppard had a little something different in mind for Yeah!.

Despite being greeted with lukewarm reviews at the time, this was Leppard's opportunity to revisit some of the first records that made them want to be rock stars, and the lineup is fairly stacked. While it would make sense for a band with this vocal range to cover something like Queen, most of the track listing is the kind of '70s British pop that feels right at home in the early days of glam rock, from the Ziggy Stardust era of David Bowie to beefing up David Essex's Rock On to stadium sized proportions.

This isn't just "Def Leppard Sings the Oldies" or anything though. From one song to the next, Leppard are just paying their respect to the early days of rock songwriting, back when it was a lot closer to pop music like the Kinks' Waterloo Sunset or Mott the Hoople's The Golden Age of Rock and Roll. Leppard could have easily been on retirement mode by now, but this feels like a reimagining of the early days of rock and roll refined for a whole new generation of listeners.