Def Leppard 2000 – Present
 On September 5, 2000, Def Leppard were inducted into the Rock Walk of Fame, on Hollywood's Sunset Boulevard by their friend Brian May of Queen.
In 2001 VH1 produced and aired Hysteria - The Def Leppard Story, a biopic that included Anthony Michael Hall as Mutt Lange and Amber Valletta as Lorelei Shellist (Steve Clark's girlfriend). The docudrama covered the band's history between 1977 through 1986, recounting the trials and triumphs of Rick Allen and Steve Clark. The July 18 broadcast still produced some of the channel's highest-ever ratings and is available on DVD.
A side project at the time consisted of Joe Elliott and Phil Collen teaming up with members of the Spiders From Mars (David Bowie's former band), minus the late Mick Ronson, naming themselves the Cybernauts. The group played several shows, covering Bowie's Ziggy Stardust-era songs.
Def Leppard's tenth album, simply titled X, was released in July 2002. It saw the band's musical direction moving more towards pop and further away from the band's hard rock roots. In fact, some tracks were produced by the hit factory behind Britney Spears and the Backstreet Boys.
Although greeted with generally positive reviews, X quickly disappeared from the charts, ultimately becoming the band's least successful release. However, the accompanying tour played to the band's strongest audiences since Adrenalize.
An expanded and updated best-of collection, Best Of, was released in October 2004 internationally. The North America-only version, Rock Of Ages - The Definitive Collection, was released the following May. Def Leppard would participate at the Live 8 show in Philadelphia, and toured in the summer with Bryan Adams. 2005 also saw the band leave their longtime management team, Q-Prime and sign with HK Management.
On May 23 2006, Def Leppard released an all-covers album titled Yeah!. The disc pays homage to classic rock songs of their childhood, originally recorded by David Bowie, The Kinks, Blondie, and Badfinger among others. It debuted at #16 in the US, their tenth consecutive Top 20 album and has scanned more than 140,000 copies to date.
The band, along with Queen, Kiss, and Judas Priest, were the inaugural inductees of VH1 Rock Honors on May 31, 2006. During the show, The All-American Rejects paid homage to the band with a cover of Photograph. Soon afterwards, they embarked on a successful US tour with Journey. That October, Hysteria was re-released in a two-disc deluxe edition format, which combined the original album, remastered for the first time, with b-sides, remixes and bonus tracks from single releases.
Def Leppard began their latest tour, the 52-date Downstage Thrust Tour, on June 29, set to take them across the US and Canada. The openers are Foreigner and Styx (with the addition of REO Speedwagon or Kim Mitchell on some dates). The band's upcoming album is tentatively titled Songs From The Sparkle Lounge and is scheduled for release in 2008.
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