Did you know that there was a time where I considered a Def Leppard song (Pour Some Sugar on Me) to be the greatest thing I would ever hear from a band in my entire life?

OK, so I was eight years old and, admittedly, rather naive about music. But Def Leppard long remained one of my favorite bands along with Bon Jovi, up until about 1993. I bought the b-sides disc RetroActive and after that, I pretty much gave up on Leppard. By that time I was immersed in the Seattle scene and Stone Temple Pilots, who sounded so much cooler to me.

I did buy Leppard's greatest hits disc though, and listening to it reminded me what I loved about the band: immaculate pop hooks done with loud guitars and big bombastic choruses.

So when I saw X, the band's latest release (2002), sitting on the library shelf, I figured "ah what the hell." I had really liked the one song I had heard from the album, the first single, Now. It was a tad different from previous Leppard hits, in that it started off acoustically tinged and was kind of a softer number until you hit the chorus. The loud production was gone, this was just a bit of a stripped down number and it sounded pretty good.

Now is the first song on the album. By the thirty second mark of track two, Unbelievable, well, "Houston, we have a problem." The band worked with Max Martin on this song, yes, the same Backstreet Boy hitmaker Max Martin. And after hearing this song, I realized it was a sad day for me: the band had willingly turned themselves into a boy band, even if just for one song. I mean, they SOUND like the frickin Backstreet Boys on this song, it is a terrible song. Even worse, other cuts like Long Long Way to Go and Everyday sounded like Max Martin songs even though he had nothing to do with them. Wasn't this Def Leppard?

I got my answer as I went on deeper into the disc. This band was never the deepest band lyrically, and that was fine with me. With Def Leppard it was more about the hook than what was said. But throughout this album, the lyrics are so disgustingly bad and sappy, I feel like I'm revisiting an old Primus album title; yes, I felt like I was sailing the seas of cheesy lyrics.

3/4 of this album are soft midtempo numbers or ballads. I felt like I was listening to an adult contemporary album. Hell, Kenny G has rocked harder than this. Even when the band begins to rock out, such as on the intro to Four Letter Word, you're soon thrown into the same old same old: abhorently bad lyrics with hooks that aren't very well put together or catchy in the least. Sample lyric: "I've found a new four letter word, sweetest sound I ever heard."

I'm not against Def Leppard doing ballads. Hell, I think they've had some great ones in their career. But those were GOOD songs with GOOD hooks. It seems to me the only thing the band hoped to hook with this was a bunch of teenybopper fans, even though it's obvious top 40 radio wouldn't touch these guys with a 25 foot pole.

The second half of the album is a bit better than the first half. Both Love Don't Lie and Cry are bearable songs, although neither of them are anything terrific, especially Love Don't Lie. Sandwiched in between these two songs is Gravity, a song with so much kitschy pop production behind it that it sounds like anything but a Def Leppard song.

In fact, the only other song on this record I find myself enjoying in the least is the closing track, Scar. Scar sounds like an Adrenalize (the band's 1992 album) outtake to me, but it's decent. It's actually got a good classic Leppard chorus to it, and some really nice guitar work from Phil Collen.

Outside of that song and Now though, there is not a single song on here that I consider a true keeper. Yes ladies and gentlemen, Def Leppard, the co-kings of pop metal with Bon Jovi, the band who wrote two of the all time greatest rock anthems ever in Photograph and Pour Some Sugar On Me, have lost their colletive testicles. I give this album 1.5 stars, rounded down to 1 for working with Max "the antichrist" Martin. It is exactly as my esteemed colleague Matt_Stein put it: Rest In Peace boys.

Recommended: No