Cheap Trick
Cheap Trick
In Color (In Black and White)
Heaven Tonight
At Budokan
Dream Police
Cheap Trick (Epic ‘77) Rating: A
This was a prime hard rock album by a band that started out great, though many have forgotten this due to their putrid decline later on. Featuring flashy guitar playing by prime songwriter Rick Nielson, some wicked bass by Tom Petersson, a thumping drum assault by Bun E. Carlos, and brilliantly idiosyncratic vocals from poster boy frontman Robin Zander, this album is pure fun. In fact, it rocks harder and with more raw energy and abandon than any of their subsequent studio albums. The band’s strategy was to mix The Beatles' melodicism with heavy metal, and the irreverent end result sounds as fresh today as the day it was released. Part of the band’s unique appeal is their lyrics, which are alternately funny (“He’s A Whore,” which is about gigolo), twisted (“The Ballad Of TV Violence” and “Daddy Should Have Stayed In High School” are about a serial killer and pedophile, respectively), and sad (“Oh Candy” is a sad lament about a suicide victim). Some of this stuff would be absolutely chilling if it weren’t so tongue in cheek, and if the hard-hitting music wasn’t so catchy. Among the highlights are “Hot Love,” which starts things off with a horny rocker that could give Kiss or Aerosmith a run for their money, while “He’s A Whore” and the campy chants of “ELO Kiddies” are other hard rocking highlights. Elsewhere, “Taxman, Mr. Thief” memorably bashes the I.R.S. with a wonderfully melodic chorus, while “Mandocello” and “Oh, Candy” are airy ballads that are almost perfect examples of power pop. In short, after listening to these 10 really good and sometimes great songs it's easy to see why Cheap Trick would years later be embraced by a generation of alternative bands such as Nirvana, Smashing Pumpkins, The Posies, and Weezer.
In Color (In Black and White) (Epic ‘77) Rating: A-
Though some of these songs still have the oddball edginess that distinguishes Cheap Trick from other Beatles influenced bands, the group’s pop tendencies generally come to the fore on this batch of consistently hooky tunes. Producer Tom Werman helps clean up the band’s sound, which is still fittingly loud but given a sugary coating, and “Downed,” “Oh Caroline,” “Southern Girls,” “Come On Come On,” and “So Good To See You” are among their best (and catchiest) songs. Not content with merely being power pop masters, the band also rocks furiously on “Clock Strikes Ten” and “Hello There,” the latter of which is merely a cheesy (but fun) intro on which Zander asks: “are you ready to rock?” Apparently the band was, at least on “Big Eyes,” which carries a particularly heavy thump, and “You’re All Talk,” which improbably matches a danceable beat to boogie-based metal. The album’s biggest disappointment is how stiff and wimpy the studio version of “I Want You To Want Me” is, and the album on the whole seems a tad tame compared to its more exciting predecessor. However, the songwriting on this more pop oriented outing is equally outstanding. Cool album cover, too; it features the good looking guys (Zander and Petersson) sitting on motorcycles on the front cover, which is in color. The dumpy Carlos and the nerdy looking Nielson grace the black and white back cover, but on bicycles and looking awfully uncomfortable. The main reason I mention this is that Cheap Trick’s contrasting visual appearances played a major part in crafting the band’s unpretentious commercial appeal.
Heaven Tonight (Epic ‘78) Rating: A-
Some more great songs here further up the pop quotient while basking in a punchier production. Although not as consistent as their first two albums, even the lesser songs here get by on the band’s ever present energy and charisma, as the band playfully recycles The Beatles, The Who, and The Move (covering the latter’s “California Man”) while adding the trademark Cheap Trick crunch and warped worldview. The ballsy rocker “Aur Wiedersehen,” which pokes fun at suicide (with tongue planted firmly in cheek) by signing off in several different languages, showed that the band’s skewed sense of humor was still very much intact, while the atmospheric (almost gothic) title track, the anthemic rocker “On Top Of The World,” and the singable “Taking Me Back” were other highlights. However, the classic here is the leadoff track, “Surrender,” on which our young narrator wakes up to find his parents smoking weed on the couch to his Kiss records, accompanied by a wacky chorus that won’t ever leave your head (just ask Mike Dimone). Rock n’ roll simply doesn’t get any better than this power pop classic (probably the best rock song about parents ever), and Heaven Tonight continued the band’s winning ways without much tinkering with their successful formula.
At Budokan (Epic ‘79) Rating: A-
This storming live album broke the band big in the United States. As you can tell from the ridiculous crowd shrieking throughout, they were already big stars in Europe, or at least in Japan, where this album was recorded. Delivering raw and noisy live versions of 10 songs, 5 of which were culled from In Color, one can feel the highly charged atmosphere of these concerts, which saw a great band playing at the peak of their powers. A good new song (“Lookout”), a barnstorming romp through Fat Domino’s “Ain’t That A Shame,” and a punchy hit version of “I Want You To Want Me” that blows the doors off the original all helped make this one of the ‘70s best live albums, a few Spinal Tap-ish song introductions aside. The rest of the songs are also well executed, including “Come On, Come On,” the 9-minute “Need Your Love” (soon to appear on the Dream Police album), “Clock Strikes Ten,” and, of course, the surging power pop perfection that is “Surrender.” Although all band members put in strong performances, drummer Bun E. Carlos especially stands out, while Rick Nielson plays plenty of enjoyably unhinged lead guitar, particularly on “Need Your Love” and “Ain’t That A Shame.” And though “Hello There” is included and reprised as “Goodbye,” At Budokan still clocks in at a concise 42 minutes, during which time this clever band pulls out all the stops on one of the few necessary live documents. Note: In 1998, the remastered 2-cd set Cheap Trick At Budokan: The Complete Concert added nine songs and reshuffled the song order to match the actual tour.
Dream Police (Epic ‘79) Rating: B
On this album Cheap Trick are armed with a bigger, more ambitious production. Unfortunately, aside from the terrific title track, the album lacks the killer songs that had characterized the band’s previous albums. The melodic (if schmaltzy) ballad “Voices” and “I Know What I Want” match the band’s former flair, but Nielson’s songwriting is growing increasingly formulaic. Hard hitting rockers such as “The House Is Rockin’ (With Domestic Problems)” get by on energy and enthusiasm, and the experimental disco metal of “Gonna Raise Hell” is interesting at first but drags on for 9 indulgent minutes. Elsewhere, the band delivers some hooky tunes, but the album as a whole, which is too heavy on synthesizers and production tricks and too light on great songwriting, simply isn’t up to their previous standards. Unfortunately, this album is considered by most to mark the end of the band's "classic period," as their artistic stock would soon plummet, though they would years later hit the top of the charts with “The Flame,” a lame power ballad that became their signature song for newer fans who didn’t know any better. My advice: forgive the band for selling out since in the long run it hurt their own reputations more than anything else, and go straight to the classic early albums reviewed here.
send me an email
Back To Artist Index Home Page