Def Leppard - ‘Yeah!’ (Mercury) Released 22/05/06

Labelled as “a hard rocking tribute to their musical heroes of the late ‘60s and ‘70s” Def Leppard’s cringingly titled ‘Yeah!’ should have actually been promoted as the comedy album of the year. It’s one of those things that’s so bad its good. Everything you’d expect is there, over blown soft-metal solos, bad “you sing like my dad” karaoke vocals and the destruction of some of the best songs of the era. It’s like the worst soundtrack to the worst 80s movie never made, the kind of thing that’ll make you switch over or hide behind your duvet because you can’t take the embarrassment.

Take for instance the covers of Blondie’s ‘Hanging On The Telephone’ or ‘Waterloo Sunset’ by The Kinks, both are robbed of their simple pop brilliance and replaced with pompous hair riffs and over the top production. Play. Stop. Regain composure after laughing fits. Play. It took us five listens to get all the way through either track. It doesn’t stop their, no we’re treated to fourteen covers in all from David Bowie’s ‘Drive-In Saturday’ to ‘20th Century Boy’ by T-Rex - all hilariously funny in a car-crash kind of way.

We don’t think Def Leppard quite set out to make us laugh but boy have they done that, a lot! 47 minutes of the Sheffield rock behemoth packs more punch lines than a month spent watching Friends re-runs on E4. Even if you don’t rush out to buy it Gigwise urges you to at least take a sneaky peak at the sleeve notes in your local CD jungle. If Towers of London think they’re a hair band they should think again, they ain’t got nothing on Rick Savage!