Friday, March 21, 2003 Hot Ticket: Def Leppard '80s rockers take the Palace throne By Alan Sculley / Special to The Detroit News Def Leppard 7:30 p.m. Thurs. Palace of Auburn Hills Tickets are $37.50-$47.40 Call (248) 377-0100 On the surface, Def Leppard's latest CD, "X," looks like a carefully orchestrated attempt to revive the career of a band whose fortunes have faded sharply since the 1980s, when the group racked up sales in the tens of millions. On one hand, the song "Unbelievable" finds Def Leppard teaming with songwriters Andreas Carlsson, Per Aldeheim and Max Martin -- the tunesmiths who helped bring Bon Jovi back to that band's platinum-selling ways with the hit "It's My Life" from the 2000 CD "Crush," and who have written multiple tracks for teen stars Britney Spears, the Backstreet Boys and *NSYNC. Def Leppard also joined forces on three tracks with Marti Frederiksen, the hit-making songwriter who has become Aerosmith's primary collaborator of late. Def Leppard guitarist Phil Collen realizes that such collaborations seem to follow a record company blueprint for crafting a hit album. But he says that belief misses the point. "It wasn't the record company's idea. It was my idea," says Collen in a phone interview, mentioning Def Leppard's previous studio effort. "It was essential that we used new blood. I think it was great. I actually think we probably wouldn't have done the record had we not done that." For the band, which includes Collen, singer Joe Elliott, bassist Rick Savage, drummer Rick Allen and guitarist Vivian Campbell, the past decade has been a period of adjustment after the '80s albums "Pyromania" and "Hysteria" sold more than 20 million copies combined, and the band lost original guitarist Steve Clark to a drug overdose. In 1996, Def Leppard tried to adapt to grunge with the stripped down CD "Slang." Fans of their patented pop metal sound rebelled, so the group reverted to their classic sound on "Euphoria" in 1999. "The 'Euphoria' album, looking back on it, was very clinical in its approach," Collen says. "We tried to make a pastiche of our career basically. We tried to make an album that sounded like (the group's greatest hits CD) 'Vault.' " Collen characterized "X" as a reaction to the two recent CDs. The collaborations, in particular, bring out new directions in the band's music. "Unbelievable" -- a power ballad in the mold of Aerosmith's "I Don't Want to Miss a Thing" that was written by Aldeheim, Carlsson and Martin -- is the biggest departure. The three tracks written with Frederiksen -- "Now," "You're So Beautiful" and "Everyday" -- rock harder but also have more of a burnished pop feel than the band's '80s hits. In fact, it's not until six songs into "X" that the CD yields a classic- sounding Def Leppard track with "Four Letter Word," a sugar-sweet rocker in the tradition of hits such as "Photograph," "Pour Some Sugar on Me" and "Animal." "With the 'X' album, we said whatever the song needs," Collen says. "If the song needs a bank of backing vocals, and we need to record in a process (with) programmed drums, then go for it. If it needs live drums, great. It still works on the same record, and it did. So that to us was the freedom thing, and it (the "X" CD) did come easier because it was a fun process." Alan Sculley is a free-lance writer. You can reach him at alanlastword@earthlink.net. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Copyright © 2003 The Detroit News. Use of this site indicates your agreement to the Terms of Service (updated 12/19/2002).