A couple of years ago, a band named Bon Jovi put out an album called Crush that was intended merely to promote some live shows overseas and pay off a few mullet-replacement-surgery bills. Instead, the recording became their first American hit in years, thanks to the single co-written by Swedish popmeister Max Martin, "It's My Life." Naturally, their fellow Eighties hair-bangers sat up and took notice. So X is Def Leppard's own version of Crush, complete with a Martin power ballad: a big fat Swedish meatball called "Unbelievable." But since the Lepsters always had catchier beats and craftier tunes than the metal competition, they adapt to global pop with their signature sound intact, and X may be their niftiest since Adrenalize. You've heard it before: "Four Letter Word" and "Everyday" shamelessly rip "Photograph," "Torn to Shreds" revamps "Hysteria," and "You're So Beautiful" sounds exactly like "Animal." But what the hell — "Animal" deserved to chart a lot higher than Number Nineteen back in 1987, and it will only be cosmic hair-metal justice if Def Lep score a comeback hit with this one.

“Let My Love Open the Door”

A peppy, hopeful love song, "Let My Love Open the Door" became a U. S. Top Ten hit for Pete Townshend in 1980, anchored by the kind of repeating synthesizer figures that he'd used in some of the Who's recordings in the previous decade. Although Townshend brushed the song off as "just a ditty" in Rolling Stone shortly after its release, in 1996 he revealed it was about love of the holiest sort. "It's supposed to be about the power of God's love," he remarked. "That when you're in difficulty, whether it's major or minor, God's love is always there for you."