ound for pound, Def Leppard was the best massively popular hard rock band of the ‘80s (and they did alright in the ‘90s, too, albeit getting a little too reliant on ballads for hits). They had better hooks than Mötley Crüe, better sing-along choruses than Van Halen, and were more poptastic than Judas Priest. Plus, they’ve always seemed like guys you’d wanna hang out with. Lead singer Joe Elliott might well be the finest blue-collar singer of his caliber to come along in—Lord, who knows? Since Paul Rodgers? He’s accessible; you feel like you can relate to him based just on that voice. It’s also richened and deepened over time, and from day one it’s been the perfect complement to the Def Lep sound. Rick Allen’s one of the best drummers around, disability or no, as well. And it doesn’t hurt that they spent the ‘80s with one of the finest purely commercial producers behind their board, Robert John “Mutt” Lange, better known today as Mr. Shania Twain. [And while we’re on the subject, tell me that the drums on Shania’s “Any Man of Mine” don’t scream Lep. Dare you.] Their hits speak for themselves, a canon any band would—or should—be proud to strut. Now there’s a collection befitting their legacy.

Rock of Ages: The Definitive Collection (what else could it possibly be titled?) is, for once in this realm, truth in advertising. Across the 35 selections found on two discs are every hit, plus plenty of great album tracks and lesser-known shoulda-beens (along with the obligatory new song, in this case a fine, chewy-poppy cover of Badfinger’s power-pop chestnut “No Matter What,” taken from Lep’s forthcoming covers album). The discs are roughly split into hits/the rest; disc one opens with the wham-bam of “Pour Some Sugar On Me” (one of the greatest single-entendre hits of all time—peaches and cream, anyone?) and their U.S. breakthrough “Photograph,” followed by their only U.S. #1, the triumphantly non-wussy ballad “Love Bites.” From there we get track after track of honestly classic hard rock with a delicious pop center, sprinkled with the occasional ballad: “Let’s Get Rocked,” “Two Steps Behind” (much more moving than it has any right to be), “Animal” (possibly the[ir] definitive single from their definitive album, 1987’s world-beater Hysteria), “Foolin’,” the greatly glammy “Rocket,” “Armageddon It” (dumb joke, great single), the Bryan Adams manqué of “Have You Ever Need Someone So Bad,” “Rock of Ages”… and that’s only half of ‘em.

Disc two opens with the Pyromania AOR fave “Rock Rock (Till You Drop)” and encompasses concert favorites, tracks from the more recent albums (read: non-hits, such as ‘99’s return to greatness “Promises” and the title track from ‘96’s experiment Slang, and shoulda-been-singles like the opening salvo from the Hysteria campaign, the superb ode “Women” (which was a video but not a single, back when putting singles on sale actually mattered). A few of these weren’t singles for clear reasons of quality (“Rock Brigade” seems to embarrass even the band these days), but others were simply a bit out of their time, or ignored by a public who’d unfortunately forgot about one of the finest rock bands of the past 25 years (yep, it’s been that long). This disc also points out that Def Lep isn’t all party anthems, either—they can do political tunes, too, such as “Paper Sun” (about the Omagh bombing) and “Die Hard the Hunter” (taking on war generally and the Falklands in particular). As if all that’s not enough, the liner notes, featuring the band members talking about each of the songs here, are stellar and actually enlightening, and the booklet’s loaded with vintage photos. A quarter-century of fine hard rock (and pop) is nicely summed up here, no f-f-f-foolin’.