Cheap+trick

Cheap Trick - The Essential Cheap Trick (2 CD)
APE+CUE+LOG or mp3 CBR 320 | Covers | 1 GB or 366 MB
Genre: Rock / Hard Rock / Power Pop

Although multiple Cheap Trick collections have been released, the two-disc ESSENTIAL is an excellent compilation for those wanting more than just a cursory overview of the Illinois quartet's work. The band's masterful combination of harmonies, hooks, and crunchy guitar riffs has influenced a legion of younger artists – including Guns N' Roses, Material Issue, and the Smashing Pumpkins – and this hard-rocking mix is on full display throughout the album. The amazingly catchy radio hits – "Surrender", "Dream Police", and "I Want You to Want Me" – are all here, along with lesser-known tracks such as the Beach Boys -flavored "Southern Girls" and a rollicking reading of the Move's "California Man". ESSENTIAL also presents a live version of the melancholy "Mandocello" (with special guest Billy Corgan) and other concert performances, proving that Cheap Trick are a formidable power-pop band both on the stage and in the studio.

The Doctor is the ninth studio album by Cheap Trick, released in 1986…

While their records were entertaining and full of skillful pop, it wasn't until At Budokan that Cheap Trick's vision truly gelled. Many of these songs, like "I Want You to Want Me" and "Big Eyes," were pleasant in their original form, but seemed more like sketches compared to the roaring versions on this album…

Tom Petersson left Cheap Trick following the George Martin-produced All Shook Up, and the band was somewhat left in a lurch, recording 1982’s One on One largely without a bassist; eventual replacement Jon Brant is on record and on the cover, but he’s obscured by a picture of Rick Nielsen, possibly because the guitarist handled the bulk of the basslines on the LP. In any case, One on One finds Cheap Trick rebounding from Martin with a slick, punchy, AOR record, hemmed in a bit by stiff sequenced rhythms – you can almost feel Bun E. Carlos straining against the metronome – but sparkling in its analog synths and pumped-up guitars.

In most bands, there's someone who saves everything – the set lists, the fliers, the photos, the board tapes (or CDs), the T-shirts, and the minutiae that add up during a group's career. In the Beatles it was Ringo Starr, in the Velvet Underground it was Sterling Morrison, and while playing drums with Cheap Trick throughout most of their history, Bun E. Carlos was also the band's pack rat, keeping track of the group's artifacts and holding onto copies of their demos and outtakes. Carlos helped annotate and provided the tapes for many of the tracks on The Epic Archive, Vol. 1, a collection of odds and ends from Cheap Trick's peak creative period of 1975 to 1979. The set opens with three songs from a demo the band cut at Memphis' Ardent Recording in 1975 (power pop devotees can pause to wonder if they bumped into Alex Chilton, who was recording Big Star's 3rd that same year), while also delivering a handful of session outtakes and demos, live tracks from a 1977 gig at the Whisky, a clumsy single edit of "Ain't That a Shame" from At Budokan, rude alternate versions of "I Dig Go-Go Girls" and "Surrender," and three tracks from their 1979 return to Budokan.

Heaven Tonight, like In Color, was produced by Tom Werman, but the difference between the two records is substantial. Where In Color often sounded emasculated, Heaven Tonight regains the powerful, arena-ready punch of Cheap Trick, but crosses it with a clever radio-friendly production that relies both on synthesizers and studio effects. Even with the fairly slick production, Cheap Trick sound ferocious throughout the album, slamming heavy metal, power pop, and hard rock together in a humongous sound.