Cheap Trick - Disc of the day

Cheap Trick
Cheap Trick

(Epic, 1977)

Pervy power-pop heaven.

The cover tells the Cheap Trick story. Singer Robin Zander and bassist Tom Petersson look like they’ve just surfaced after a night at the Playboy Mansion, with drummer Bun E Carlos the cab driver waiting to take them home, and guitarist Rick Nielson the asylum inmate on day release who starts licking the cab’s windscreen the moment they pull up at a traffic light. These strange men of Rockford, Illinois, were always misfits: too metal for punk, too punk for metal. Cheap Trick did big choruses and guitar solos - like touring partners such as Kiss or Ted Nugent - but everything they did was somehow twisted, odder, even a bit English; the result of Nielsen’s obsession with The Beatles and The Who. Being a greatest hits set with added screaming, Cheap Trick’s At Budokan live album has always overshadowed their studio output. Yet this debut (produced by Aerosmith’s guy Jack Douglas) showcases them just as well. It’s all here: Zander’s shameless Lennon impersonation (Taxman, Mr Thief), Nielsen’s garage riffing (Cry Cry), hooligan power-pop (He’s A Whore) and plenty of lyrical bad stuff (sexual predators on Daddy Should Have Stayed In High School, serial killers on The Ballad Of TV Violence). Out of time and yet weirdly timeless.

Mark Blake

Posted by Danny_Eccleston at 10:49 AM GMT 29/06/2008

Further Listening

Blue Oyster Cult – Spectres (CBS, 1977)

Cheap Trick – Dream Police (Epic, 1979)

Weezer – The Green Album (Geffen, 2001)

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Click here for House Rules

this album is fantastic. i love cheap trick such a shame they are outshone by weezer cos the trick are a huge influence on em.

Posted by at 10:00 PM GMT 02/07/2008 Report Abuse

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