When Def Leppard's Phil Collen gets home from tour, the first thing he does is crank up CDs of the latest shred-guitar monsters, right? Well, not so much. "In general, that's not really what I'm all about," he says. "If you look at my record collection, you might see Parliament-Funkadelic next to Wes Montgomery. On my iPod, you've got dance music and R&B. I don't spend a lot of time checking out my peers."

The axe superstar describes his tastes as being "all over the map," and he says that he's always found room for a wide range of music on his playlist. "I remember when the Sex Pistols came out," he says, "and I got into them just like my friends did. But that didn't mean I threw out my Genesis records. Good music is good music."