Cheap+trick

The Doctor is the ninth studio album by Cheap Trick, released in 1986. Since the beginning of the 1980s, Cheap Trick saw increasing pressure from their label, Epic Records, to produce material that was more commercial. In 1985, the band successfully gained a commercial comeback with the Top 40 album Standing on the Edge. For that album, the band had planned on returning to the rough sound of their 1977 debut, but producer Jack Douglas backed out of mixing process due to the legal issues he was having with Yoko Ono. Mixer Tony Platt was called in, and as a result, the album's production featured keyboards and electronic drums more prominently than the band and Douglas had intended.

At Budokan unexpectedly made Cheap Trick stars, largely because "I Want You to Want Me" had a tougher sound than its original studio incarnation. Perversely – and most things Cheap Trick have done are somehow perverse – the band decided not to continue with the direct, stripped-down sound of At Budokan, which would have been a return to their debut…

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…

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…

Cheap Trick brings the first single collection. Disc 1 (Blu-spec CD2) includes all the tracks from their singles released in Japan in their EPIC era (1977-1990). Track list of them are listed in order of their release dates, and they are the US original versions. Also, the tracks features 2017 DSD mastering. Disc 2 (DVD - NTSC/Region 0) includes all the music videos released their EPIC era, including clips from "at Budokan." Comes with a booklet with cover artworks of all the singles.

Cheap Trick's comeback album is by no means a return to the creativity and vitality of their glory days. But even though Lap of Luxury is largely formulaic, the band's strongest collection of material in some time fills that late-'80s pop-metal formula quite well. Combining grandly romantic power ballads ("Ghost Town") with catchy hard rockers ("Never Had a Lot to Lose"), Lap of Luxury consistently delivers strong hooks and well-crafted songs, proving that Cheap Trick were still capable of outdoing many of the bands they helped inspire. The album produced two Top Five singles in a cover of Elvis Presley's "Don't Be Cruel" and the band's first number one hit, "The Flame."