CHEAP TRICK: CHEAP TRICK (1997)
1) Anytime; 2) Hard To Tell;
3) Carnival Game; 4) Shelter; 5) You Let A Lotta People Down; 6) Baby No More;
7) Yeah Yeah; 8) Say Goodbye; 9) Wrong All Along; 10) Eight Miles Low; 11) It
All Comes Back To You.
Yes, it's that time of the year — exactly
twenty years after you had first appeared on the screen, go back, refresh,
renew, and reboot yourself by trying to recapture that old vibe. It certainly
took them longer than one could expect, what with the synth-pop and hair-metal
trends effectively reversed around 1991 or so, but better late than never, and
with a new producer and a new (small) record label, Cheap Trick '97 is able not only to capitalize on the faint promise
made by Woke Up With A Monster, but,
in fact, to finally take this band off life support.
Definitively objective fact: at the very least,
this is the best-sounding Cheap Trick album since 1979. Each and every song
builds upon the original, most efficient components of the band's sound — crisp
and crunchy electric guitars from Nielsen; crackling, punchy, serviceable
acoustic drums from Bun E. Carlos; sneering lionine roar from Zander;
occasional piano and cello overdubs to introduce an art-poppier texture — and
new producer Ian Taylor (with whom they'd already worked briefly during the One To One sessions) is clearly such a
big fan of the classic 1977-79 records that he does not lift a finger to make
the sound more «modern», at the risk of making these guys lose momentum. In
this particular respect, this is as strong a comeback as could ever be
expected.
Whether the songwriting is up to par with the
sound is a much more difficult question. Whatever we might feel or think, those
guys did get older in twenty years, and furthermore, when you have been through
a ten-year period of relentless yellow fever, you can hardly expect it to go
away for good without leaving any lasting side effects whatsoever. These side
effects are tricky, though: we cannot blame Cheap Trick '97 for any embarrassing power ballads (there are
none!) or disgusting wear-your-cock-on-your-sleeve exercises in loud and tuneless
salaciousness (instead, there are just a couple fast-paced old-style garage
rockers with misogynistic overtones). We can only say that, perhaps, these new
songs are not as immediately captivating or as brimming with youthful passion
and snotty sarcasm as it used to be — yes, Cheap Trick's songwriting skills
have been somewhat irrepairably impaired, but then, frankly speaking, twenty
years of scooping ideas from your well of thoughts might do that to anyone,
regardless of whether you have been to The
Doctor in the interim or not.
Thus, the opening track ʽAnytimeʼ has a great
sound: the guitars roar with just the right degree of menace, Zander goes from
«evil clown» vocals in the verse to an all-out roar in the chorus with gusto,
and the good old need-your-love-so-bad-it's-driving-me-crazy vibe is honored
throughout with the highest honors. But as a respectable composition that
should take its rightful place next to ʽHot Loveʼ or ʽBig Eyesʼ... well, it
would at least need a great riff, or a more interesting chorus than "I
need your love, I need your love". As it is, it is hard to get rid of the
feeling that they are simply exerting their craft to the max in order to sound
like they did in 1977... well, apparently, which is what they really do, but
sometimes you can make it seem very natural (like you've really been visited by
your muse again, first time in ages), and sometimes not, and this is one of the
sometime nots. But if you love that overall sound — and I do — you'll pardon
them anyway.
Plus, there are much better songs here than
ʽAnytimeʼ: if not in terms of great guitar riffs, then at least in terms of
singalong choruses. ʽHard To Tellʼ is a great example — the way "it's not
that easy, baby, it's not that hard to tell..." resolves into "life
is hell — but I do it well!" is a good setup for an ecstatic reaction,
because few people can scream the word "hell" with such a good
mixture of pain and anger as Robin does, and then he contrasts it masterfully
with the optimistic swerve of "I do it well", and you get a good
charge of frustration and hope in one package. It might all be a little more
serious and introspective and «grounded» than the lighter, funnier stuff on the
classic records, but hey, that's how human beings usually get as they grow
older.
In terms of creativity, ʽCarnival Gameʼ
combines Revolver-style vocal
harmonies with a cool wah-wah solo; ʽYou Let A Lotta People Downʼ sounds like a
trademark pissed-off solo Lennon number, with Zander borrowing quite a few of
John's classic vocal moves (well, maybe that's not all that creative, but it's
been so long...); and ʽEight Miles Lowʼ is the album's most
experimental-psychedelic number, though certainly not in a Byrdsey way — its
main point is the curious "dream the dream the scream the scream"
chorus, a modest, but successful experiment of giving a falsetto voice to the
darker undercurrents of your subconscious.
And then there are the ballads, all (both) of
them tastefully arranged and pleasantly delivered — ʽShelterʼ, an acoustic
song adorned with some cello and steeped in self-misery and self-irony; and ʽIt
All Comes Back To Youʼ, which is not
about successfully recapturing the musical vibe that once used to inspire and
support you, but rather about one last recollection of your meaningless life before
kicking the bucket — sung with just a small pinch of pathos and plenty of
humility, as Nielsen quietly picks the acoustic and tiny splashes of pianos and
strings punctuate Zander's trembling vocals at the right intervals: a perfect
finale for an album that seems so perfectly well aware of its limitations, yet
still honestly tries to work them to best effect.
All in all, even though neither the LP nor its
lead single (ʽSay Goodbyeʼ, another pretty, but not instantly memorable power
pop single with a touch of nostalgia and a touch of Lennon) managed to properly
chart, we don't need to pay much attention to that circumstance in 2016 —
instead, I am just glad to give the record a well-deserved, if modest, thumbs up
and heartily recommend it to anybody who loves the classic era of Cheap Trick
so much that he/she'd gladly welcome a somewhat inferior, but fully effective imitation
for the collection. Besides, who knows, you might even like it better than the
old stuff as you grow older — there's all this nostalgic vibe here that don't
work that well when you're twenty, but whose chances of hitting you right in
the guts increase with each passing year. I'm not quite up to that stage yet,
but let me revisit this in a decade or so and then we'll see clearer.
This is no imitation; it's genuine maturity. They finally got back into their own skins just in time for middle-age retrospection, and the album sounds emotionally sincere in a way that almost none of their material had before. (At what other point in their career could the slide guitar in "Say Goodbye" have been recorded?) At the same time, it also kicks butt like Cheap Trick should. The songwriting is still a notch below [insert your favorite '70s Cheap Trick album] thanks to filler tracks like "Baby No More" or "Wrong All Along", but the gentler, grown-up band it showcases makes it as much a peak as anything pre-1980.
ReplyDeleteThat said, "imitation" does describe the 21st-century stuff, unfortunately.
This is the only Cheap Trick album where they sound like they mean anything seriously.
ReplyDelete