Cheap Trick: Christmas Christmas

CHEAP TRICK: CHRISTMAS CHRISTMAS (2017)

1) Merry Christmas Darlings; 2) I Wish It Could Be Christmas Every Day; 3) I Wish It Was Christmas Today; 4) Merry Xmas Everybody; 5) Please Come Home For Christmas; 6) Remember Christmas; 7) Run Rudolph Run; 8) Father Christmas; 9) Silent Night; 10) Merry Christmas (I Donʼt Want To Fight Tonight); 11) Our Father Of Life; 12) Christmas Christmas.

General verdict: Not so much a ʽChristmasʼ as a ʽmeta-Christmasʼ album — whether this is enough to make it artistically interesting is another matter, though.

Whatʼs an Elder Statesman of pop/rock without a Christmas album? Absolutely nothing, so it seems; thus reasoned Zander and Nielsen, enriching the bottomless pool of already released Christmas gifts (I swear, even if you limited yourself to rockers alone, you could have yourself a non-stop Christmas soundtrack throughout the whole year without repeating). The basic model remains conventional — take Christmas-related songs written by other artists and put your own unique spin on them. In the case of Cheap Trick, we are, of course, talking a bottle spin — hard liquor preferably, but cheap champagne will do just as well, provided it fuels you hard enough to annoy the hell out of your neighbors and throw all the empty bottles over their garden walls.

That said, there is a slightly unusual decision here that makes the record stand out among its peers. Namely, the cover material here consists not so much of golden Christmas standards (ʽSilent Nightʼ is the sole exception) as it does of Christmas songs written by rock artists over the past half century or so. Zander and Nielsen go through their dusty LP shelves quite meticulously, honoring Chuck Berry (ʽRun Rudolph Runʼ), the Kinks (ʽFather Christmasʼ), Roy Wood (ʽI Wish It Could Be Christmas Every Dayʼ), Harry Nilsson (ʽRemember Christmasʼ), the Ramones (ʽMerry Christmasʼ), and even, ugh, Jimmy Fallon (ʽI Wish It Was Christmas Todayʼ). This does make for a somewhat special Christmas experience — you could even say that the band is trying to make an ambitious move towards uprooting the fossilized canon and building up a new, far more modern one in its place. They are bound to fail, of course, but it never hurts to try.

On the listening rather than overthinking front, the album is straightforward rockʼnʼroll fun — nothing less and nothing more. Zander is in good shouting shape, Nielsen is in good hellraising shape, the rhythm section is stable, and if you are too young for the authentic Chuck Berry sound, this heavy-driving, thick-muscled version of ʽRun Rudolph Runʼ might become your favorite instead. But on the other hand, having artists as diverse as the Ramones, Wizzard, and the Kinks reduced to pretty much the exact same sonic formula can rather quickly wear you down (though, for some strange reason, on ʽMerry Christmasʼ Zander adopts a more Johnny-Rotten-type than a Joey-Ramone-type persona — something I could understand if he was British, but last I checked, Illinois was still closer to Queens than to London).

The monotonousness only breaks down on ʽSilent Nightʼ, when the rhythm section goes away and Zander sings the track as a gospel anthem, backed mostly by thick feedback from Nielsenʼs power chords (think Metal Machine Music-lite — very lite); and, later, on the self-penned ʽOur Father Of Lifeʼ, where Nielsen switches to acoustic and the vocals are provided by a childrenʼs choir while Zander goes to the bathroom. Both are pleasant enough diversions, but they will not detract us from generalizing the recordʼs spirit — this is, after all, the kind of Christmas album that is meant for somebody whose goal on Christmas is to visit each single open bar in his part of town and then pass out one minute before midnight, so as to not have to go through the ʽAuld Lang Syneʼ ritual, because who the fuck needs that, really.

Summing up: this is a record that I will probably never listen to ever again (not for Christmas, not for anything), but at the very least it does its best to avoid opening its bare chest to the throwing knives of sarcastic criticism. They probably should not have recorded it, but they have not tainted their reputation by recording it — the track selection is a neat (cheap) trick that allows them to save face at the last moment.

Cheap Trick: We're All Alright!

CHEAP TRICK: WEʼRE ALL ALRIGHT! (2017)

1) You Got It Going On; 2) Long Time Coming; 3) Nowhere; 4) Radio Lover; 5) Lolita; 6) Brand New Name On An Old Tattoo; 7) Floating Down; 8) Sheʼs Alright; 9) Listen To Me; 10) The Rest Of My Life; 11*) Blackberry Way; 12*) Like A Fly; 13*) If You Still Want My Love.

General verdict: By-the-book power pop that is only recommendable to those who listen to nothing but power pop.., but who ARE those people, anyway?

I seem to recall that sometime around the release of Bang, Zoom, Kerplonk Nielsen and Zander went on record, proudly proclaiming that they are going to put both their peers and the youngsters to shame by returning to the time-honored custom of releasing a new album each year — a pro­mise that they overkept in 2017 by releasing not one, but two albums, and then broke in 2018 by not releasing anything that year... so it sort of evened out, and now we will have to see how well it goes in 2019, and whether they will have to bring in any more relatives to help keep up. But in any case, their ability to keep up is not the point. The point is that no amount of grueling self-discipline can bring back the magic if the magic is no longer in the air.

One really good thing that I can say about this period in Cheap Trick history is that they have seemingly locked themselves into this never-win-never-lose mode where, as long as they keep pushing in this manner, they are never going to release anything that is not loud, fun, and in generally good, old-fashioned rockʼnʼroll taste. Gone forever are the days of The Doctor and other awful projects where the band was forced by the times to sound like musical clowns drowning in makeup. Unless, of course, they repeat the same kind of blunder and decide to «modernize» their sound by embracing trap and outsourcing their songwriting to Max Martin — but something tells me that if this has not happened in twenty years, there is absolutely no reason for it to happen now. The guys are just having fun making their own music, purely and sincerely, and I am very happy for them.

The only problem is, none of these songs mean anything. Breaking the Beatles / Stones cycle, the boys here have come up with another loud, headbanging album — rocker after rocker after rocker, the only point of all these rockers being to raise the roof and nothing else. I do not even care to bother remembering where all those riffs come from: off the top of my head, ʽLong Time Co­mingʼ plainly rips off The Kinksʼ ʽAll Day And All Of The Nightʼ (hey, itʼs more than fifty years old, who the hell remembers it anyway?), ʽRadio Loverʼ uses the chords of AC/DCʼs ʽThunder­struckʼ (or, if not, then some other AC/DC song for sure), and the aptly-titled ʽBrand New Name On An Old Tattooʼ is strikingly similar to Aerosmithʼs ʽSight For Sore Eyesʼ... but, again, the devil here is nowhere near the details, it is simply in the fact that songs which used to count as filler on Cheap Trickʼs classic albums — songs that had nothing but the most basic rockʼnʼroll drive and acted as fun interludes in between the somewhat more meaningful stuff — now form the basis and essence of any Cheap Trick record.

Hilariously, midway through the record it looks like somebody actually realized the problem and slapped himself across the wrinkled forehead — "hey, these songs of ours really all sound the same now, we gotta do something about it quick!" — and so they threw in ʽFloating Downʼ, a mega-clichéd psychedelic pop song if there ever was one (heavy phasing on guitars, multi-tracked falsetto vocals, the word ʽfloatingʼ in the title)... too bad it still ends up sounding more like Boston meets The Beatles rather than just The Beatles, period. But we have a remedy for that, too! The next one, ʽSheʼs Alrightʼ, actually sounds like The Beatles circa 1965-66, though, for some reason, with Dylanish rather than Lennonish vocal intonations. But then it is back to business, and ʽListen To Meʼ once again dips into Angus Young waters.

The expanded version of the album, with three more bonus tracks, has a passable cover of The Moveʼs ʽBlackberry Wayʼ (for the small surviving bunch of Cheap Trick fans who have forgotten what the original sounded like) and a song called ʽIf You Still Want My Loveʼ — which makes about as much sense as seeing Paul McCartney include a song called ʽEleanor Rigby Got Marriedʼ on his latest album. (I know I should rather be talking about the music, but I cannot remember a thing about that darned song, other than that it was cumbersomely slow).

Do not get me wrong: I liked the record — it rocked my presumably rockist boat and everything. But I do not believe, not for one second, that Nielsen and Zander, even at this respectable old age, are incapable of coming up with something at least a wee bit more interesting. Mind you, I donʼt want much, I just want a little bit — a teeny-weeny bit of songwriting that is not entirely based on rehashing classic riffs, lyrical clichés, and pompous attitudes. They still had that extra bit going for them as late as Rockford; it is pretty sad to see them transformed into this stereotypical rocking machine — even if the machine is still well-oiled, and even if, I am guessing, they have fairly few competitors in the old-fashioned power pop genre who could outdo this kind of quality in 2017. But In Color and Heaven Tonight still have a good chance at becoming temporarily immortalized; Weʼre All Alright!, despite its arrogantly self-referential title (and, partly, because of it), seems to have been forgotten a few days after its release. 

Cheap Trick: Bang, Zoom, Crazy... Hello

CHEAP TRICK: BANG, ZOOM, CRAZY... HELLO (2016)

1) Heart On The Line; 2) No Direction Home; 3) When I Wake Up Tomorrow; 4) Do You Believe Me?; 5) Blood Red Lips; 6) Sing My Blues Away; 7) Roll Me; 8) The In Crowd; 9) Long Time No See Ya; 10) The Sun Never Sets; 11) All Strung Out.

And the story goes on. In one of the most crass acts of nepotism in rock history, Zander and Niel­sen kicked Bun E. Carlos, the one and only «Bookkeeper-Drummer» of all time, out of the band, replacing him with Rick's son, Daxx Nielsen. Allegedly, this might be part of a far-reaching plan to ensure the immortality of the band (Ian and Holland Zander should probably be getting ready, too, once their father's vocal cords finally give way), but in the short term, this was a rather nasty story, rife with lawsuits and shattered friendships... and what for?

Honestly, Cheap Trick's latest record (more precisely, the one that replaces The Latest as, well, the latest) is not all that drum-dependent, as they return once again to the overproduced style of Rockford. It seems as if they have developed this alternating pattern, late in their lives — one album Beatles-style, one album Stones-style — and this, once again, puts us into non-stop head­banging mode, just to assure the population that no energy has been dissipated since Rockford brutally kicked our asses exactly ten years back. No more psychedelic excursions, no more or­chestration, just bombastic, glam-tinged rock'n'roll and power pop all the way.

Consequently, everything grumbly that I have said in reference to Rockford applies to this album as well. It is one half fun and one half an attempt to prove to the world that they still got it, and every once in a while the second half obscures the first half with its obnoxiousness — but if you get it out of your mind and trample on the context, then it's just another set of big, brassy, brawny rock'n'roll for those who can't get enough of it. They can still play, Robin can still sing (although I sure wish they gave him a little breathing space every now and then without clogging all the frequencies with fat, distorted guitar overdubs), the new drummer can keep time — what else do you need for happiness? Psychological depth? That was last year's model.

As a little bit of nostalgic surprise, another veteran hero, Wayne Kramer of the MC5, joins the band on ʽDo You Believe Me?ʼ for some hystrionic guitar pyrotechnics — just in case 2016 came along and erased your last memories of what it used to be a «guitar hero» — and, as an even odder nostalgic surprise, they do a hard rock version of ʽThe In Crowdʼ, a song originally per­formed by Dobie Gray but possibly even better known to audiences through the Mamas & Papas cover. No idea whatsoever about the motivation — but the song's sarcastic tone and ridiculing of trends and fashions agrees perfectly fine with Cheap Trick's conservative ideology, and Zander gives a spirited, tongue-in-cheek performance. He can still sound cocky and smart at the same time — too bad this here album usually puts cocky first and smart last.

Everything else basically sounds like a mix of... well, I'd say AC/DC (ʽLong Time No See Yaʼ), Slade (ʽBlood Red Lipsʼ), T. Rex (the album closing ʽAll Strung Outʼ is a dead ringer for Bolan's ʽ20th Century Boyʼ), and even Bowie — ʽWhen I Wake Up Tomorrowʼ has a tinge of that old Ziggy melancholia lurking in the back of Zander's voice. Once or twice, we still get psychedelic vocal harmony overdubs (ʽThe Sun Never Setsʼ), almost like a leftover from the previous album, but this does not upset the prevalent party spirit. If you do not set your expectations too high, Bang, Zoom, Crazy, just like Rockford before it, will be perfectly enjoyable and one more proof that you can still produce «authentic» 1970s style glam-rock in 2016 (well, you can pretty much produce anything in 2016), but I couldn't swear that the record made that much of an impression on me as a whole, and somehow I hope that they still have it in them to come up with a less slight swan song for their career, unless they really plan on gradually passing on the banner to succes­sive generations of Zanders and Nielsens.

Cheap Trick: Sgt. Pepper Live

CHEAP TRICK: SGT. PEPPER LIVE (2009)

1) Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band; 2) With A Little Help From My Friends; 3) Lucy In The Sky With Dia­monds; 4) Getting Better; 5) Fixing A Hole; 6) She's Leaving Home; 7) Being For The Benefit Of Mr. Kite!; 8) Within You Without You; 9) When I'm Sixty-Four; 10) Lovely Rita; 11) Good Morning Good Morning; 12) Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (reprise); 13) A Day In The Life; 14) Medley: Golden Slumbers / Carry That Weight / The End.

Okay, so this is the weirdest one yet. As if the innumerable quotations, periphrases, hints, and other types of Beatles influence (along with the occasional direct cover like ʽDay Tripperʼ) did not suffice; as if they needed something very direct, very blunt to confirm the title of «American Beatles»; as if work on The Latest stimulated their nostalgia glands to the point where itching gets dangerously close to bursting — Cheap Trick went ahead and did it, climbing up on stage and pulling a one-time Phish on us by covering Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band in its entirety, in commemoration of the 42nd anniversary of its release, because who the heck cares about round dates? The urge is all that matters.

Actually, we learn from the liner notes that they were doing this as early as 2007 (when there was a round date after all), first with the LA Philharmonic Orchestra, then with other orchestras in different venues — the liner notes do not specify when and where this particular recording was made, but the orchestra is the New York Philharmonic — including a two-week run at the Las Vegas Hilton in September 2009: a royal venue for a royal album! Curiously, they did not follow it up with a medley of Elvis hits, as much as some of the regular patrons would love to hear that, I'm pretty sure.

The choice of Sgt. Pepper was probably quite deliberate — apart from continuing to exist as the quintessential Beatles / quintessential art-pop record in the communal mind, it was also the one album that most glaringly symbolized rock music's transition from stage-based to studio-based: all the innumerable studio tricks that gave Pepper its otherworldly, psychedelic sheen could not be replicated on stage, even if somebody had solved the screaming girl issue. At the same time, Sgt. Pepper was the first Beatles album that was put together as a continuous, quasi-conceptual suite of songs, with an intro and an outro, and thus, deserved to be performed as a single piece. And so here we are — who but Cheap Trick, these reputable «American Beatles» who'd worked so much out of the direct shadow of their UK predecessors, to try and realize that dream? Parti­cularly now that they have already realized theirs, and are left with nothing much to do?

And yet, there's a problem. If they are doing an «authentic» Beatles-like vision of Sgt. Pepper, then this record has to be considered a failure, because, honestly, it does not sound that much like the Beatles (see below on the major discrepancies). But if they are doing a «Cheap Trick inter­preta­tion of the Beatles' Sgt. Pepper» — then, in my opinion, they are not offering enough Cheap Trickery to make it significantly different. In other words, the performance may have been fun to attend in person, but as an album release, it kind of slips through the cracks, and does not intrigue me all that much to warrant subsequent listens.

The songs are, indeed, played as close to the original as they can be — but within the context of a standard four-piece rock band, expanded with an additional keyboardist, a couple extra backing vocalists, and an orchestra. (I don't know who plays the Indian instruments, but maybe a few members of the orchestra were switching between Western and Eastern ones); there is no specific goal of perfectly recapturing the Sgt. Pepper ambience, so you don't get much by way of weird effects on the guitars, and there are no backing tapes whatsoever, either, so you don't get the kaleidoscopic dazzling patterns on the instrumental parts of ʽMr. Kiteʼ. In other words, the classic colorfulness of Sgt. Pepper is here, if not exactly turned to monochrome, then at least greatly re­duced, which only goes to confirm the legend of the album's irreproducibility (is that a word?) in a live setting (unless you do use backing tapes, but that's cheating).

Another problem, from that angle, is Zander's performance. He has to take on the roles of both John and Paul, and while he's largely doing alright as John (and even as George on ʽWithin You Without Youʼ), his impersonation of Paul fails quite miserably — he consistently oversings and adopts a more «rocking» tone than necessary, even for such songs as ʽWhen I'm Sixty-Fourʼ, and as a crooner, he is not particularly fit for ʽShe's Leaving Homeʼ, either. I'm not saying that Paul himself always does a great job on these songs when he is performing them live, but come on now, you just can't have the exact same person be John and Paul at the same time. They should have really found a different vocalist for those songs.

Now if you look at it from a different angle — imagine that this is Cheap Trick's reinterpretation of Sgt. Pepper as would be more fit for, say, a late Seventies audience (the same one who was instead cruelly tortured by the Sgt. Pepper movie back in the day) — then the whole thing makes a little more sense, but only a little. Here the chief point of interest would be Nielsen and his guitar work, as he transforms the majority of Pepper's guitar (and not only guitar) styles into variants of his own screechy rock'n'roll idiom. You get that screechy rock'n'roll style in the coda to ʽLucy In The Sky With Diamondsʼ, you get it in the jumpy, echoey finale of ʽLovely Ritaʼ, you even get it on soft numbers like ʽWith A Little Help From My Friendsʼ, with plenty of distorted block chords, 100% Cheap Trick rather than Lennon/McCartney. Does it work? Well... maybe, but it's not as if we're adding to the depth of the original here — rather, we're subtracting from it by reducing too many different things to the same common invariant. As much as I like the basic power pop format, it is only when you begin honestly applying it to music like Sgt. Pepper that you truly begin to dis-appreciate its sonic limitations.

Still, I think we should be generous and rank the results as at least a tiny notch above the level of «ridiculous one-time curiosity». At the very least, Cheap Trick's long history of Beatle-influenced work guarantees that this is not just a posh cash-in, but a truly heartfelt tribute to their idols. To be fair, I think they could have done a much better job with an album like Revolver, which was much more oriented at heavy guitar rock than Sgt. Pepper and which, on the whole, was far more influential on Cheap Trick's entire career (beginning with ʽTaxman Mr. Thiefʼ) than Sgt. Pepper, but I guess «Revolver Live» would have sounded less appealing to people who only remember the Beatles by their #1 album as per the average mainstream rankings. (They do, however, offer us the final part of the Abbey Road medley as an encore — so why not throw in ʽTaxmanʼ and ʽShe Said She Saidʼ?). Anyway, they do have a very close affinity with the material, although, dear friends, there is no need to rub it in our noses so bluntly — for instance, by boasting that, this time around, they were privileged to work with Sgt. Pepper's recording engineer himself, Geoff Emerick, to ensure further «authenticity» of the experience. Really, guys. The only thing missing was to pull out those Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts' Club Band uniforms out of the moth closet — for some reason, they didn't even bother to have their own copies made.

Cheap Trick: The Latest

CHEAP TRICK: THE LATEST (2009)

1) Sleep Forever; 2) When The Lights Are Out; 3) Miss Tomorrow; 4) Sick Man Of Europe; 5) These Days; 6) Miracle; 7) Everyday You Make Me Crazy; 8) California Girl; 9) Everybody Knows; 10) Alive; 11) Times Of Our Lives; 12) Closer, The Ballad Of Burt And Linda; 13) Smile.

Hmm, this does not at all sound like Rockford. One point off for the way too careless album title (which became completely false in 2016), but other than that, the record, being just as nostalgic as Rockford, actually sounds lovingly nostalgic — it's not so much about «let us go back to be­ing the circa-1977 Cheap Trick because this is what everybody expects of us» as it is about «let us ignore all trends and fashions and make some music in those styles that inspired and influenced us in the first place, because we don't really owe anything to anybody». With a few exceptions, Rockford was a balls-out rock'n'roll album, disappointing because they did not quite have the energy and inspiration for it. The Latest, also with a few exceptions, is a psychedelic pop album that should have been dedicated to «The Two JLs», John Lennon and Jeff Lynne; and it succeeds where Rockford failed because (a) it does not actually require as much energy as a rock'n'roll album to be convincing, (b) it finds the writers and the players in a more inspired state of mind, and thus, features slightly more creative melodies and arrangements.

There are only two or three Rockford-style fast tempo pop-rockers, which means they have a better chance to stand out among the crowd, and ʽCalifornia Girlʼ does stand out a little — al­though it may simply be due to the title's analogy with ʽCalifornia Manʼ, with which it shares some irony (but not the outstanding hook — this one's more of a generic rockabilly pastiche). But the bulk of the record places its trust in handsome vocal melodies and lush arrangements, some­times bordering on «symph-pop» and often featuring psychedelic overtones, taking you all the way back to the age of Revolver and Sgt. Pepper. Sometimes it goes a little too far with the ado­ration — a song like ʽTimes Of Our Livesʼ literally sounds like a variation on several of Pepper's themes, including direct musical quotations from ʽWithin You Without Youʼ, etc. But I'd still rather have their expert take on this idiom than watch them churn out monotonous (non)-riff-rockers for the rest of their lives.

On ʽSick Man Of Europeʼ (a title that goes all the way back to those days when Cheap Trick were not called Cheap Trick yet), they seem to be issuing their own local manifesto — "This ain't the new, it's the old generation / It's all real, not a cheap imitation" — and almost gleefully reveling in their own nostalgic stubbornness; but in all honesty, after two decades of some of the most horrendously embarrassing sucking up to fashions, they have nothing left to do but to look up to the distant past for future inspiration. And God bless them for that, because an anthemic ballad like ʽThese Daysʼ, had it been written around 1990, would have born the Diane Warren seal of approval — here, even though it is still set to a muscular power-chord guitar backing, the rhythm section sounds alive, the lead counterpart is represented by electric jangle rather than corny synths, and the chorus has a wonderful melodic lilt where Zander shows how he can still be mad­deningly passionate without drowning in vocal bombast à la ʽThe Flameʼ.

If, after the speedy onslaught of Rockford material, you find yourself initially bored by the pre­ponderance of loud, slow, dreamy ballads, don't give in — a couple listens into the record was all it took to convince me that they have really nailed this vibe, even if there is so little originality or freshness about it that memories of these songs will not hold for long. But while the material is playing, it sounds awesome — ʽThe Ballad Of Burt And Lindaʼ, for instance, with these ʽRainʼ-style vocals (the Beatles' ʽRainʼ, I mean), really makes you want to close your eyes and gently rock to and fro in sync with the vibe. Just a perfectly balanced sound, guitars, keyboards, strings, vocals, the works.

Let nobody be fooled by the fact they are covering a Slade song here — ʽWhen The Lights Are Outʼ is a power pop classic from 1974, representative of the sunny-side-up facet of Slade rather than their gritty barroom attitudes, and it perfectly fits in with the Beatlesque vibe of the album. And although it is the Lennon part of that vibe that they adore the most, the record still ends with a lovable McCartney-style ballad (ʽSmileʼ); again, they may go a bit too far with these lyrics (come on now guys, you're not that idealistic under your skins to invite us to "take a look around the world, it's a wonder" — leave that to Paul and put some barbs on it, woncha?), but in this case, old age works in their favor, because Zander's sentimentality feels more natural and «excusable» as he grows older, and there's nothing like a bunch of Magical Mystery Tour-like string arrange­ments to make it seem even more authentic, too.

Yes, I do believe that I won't remember much about this record when I wake up next morning, but as long as the dream is not over, let me still fix a thumbs up here, because I really dug the experience: every single song had something to offer by way of pure emotion. Bottomline: when Cheap Trick in 2006 want to sound like Cheap Trick in 1977-78, they fail, but when Cheap Trick in 2009 want to sound like the Beatles in 1966-67, they sort of succeed. So what exactly does this prove?..

Cheap Trick: Rockford

CHEAP TRICK: ROCKFORD (2006)

1) Welcome To The World; 2) Perfect Stranger; 3) If It Takes A Lifetime; 4) Come On Come On Come On; 5) O Claire; 6) This Time You Got It; 7) Give It Away; 8) One More; 9) Every Night And Every Day; 10) Dream The Night Away; 11) All Those Years; 12) Decaf.

Finally, Cheap Trick score one with critics and veteran fans alike. Returning to their home base to write and produce their next album, they simply decided to cut the crap and give the people what they want — an «authentic», no-frills, classic-style power-pop Cheap Trick album, all balls and energy and catchy anthemic choruses and raw distorted guitars and even an album cover that pictures all four band members just the way they are supposed to be, smartly disguised through a cartoon perspective that successfully hides their age from inquisitive minds.

Everybody fell for this: where critical reception for Special One was lukewarm at best, Rock­ford was hailed as a true return to form — and it does not take long to see why, because upon first listen, it really sounds like the good old Trick has returned, and that long, strange, embarrassing trip they'd been on since 1980 is finally over. The album truly bursts with energy, as most of the songs are taken at moderately fast tempos, and all four band members, despite any potential age issues, sound just as youthful and enthusiastic as if it were 1977 all over again. The production is excellent — just the right balance of sound between guitars and vocals, and Bun E. Carlos' mule-kicking drumming is completely free of any distracting post-production effects (granted, neither did we have any problems with the production on Special One). And, like most veterans, they have that elusive «authenticity bonus» — unlike the youngsters of today, they can allow them­selves the luxury of keeping it simple, idealistic, and Beatle-copping, and feeling all happy and glowing about it rather than embarrassed.

And yet, as much as I actually enjoy listening to these twelve songs (and I do, really), I would have to insist that, in terms of the general curve, Rockford is a serious slide down in substance, if not superficial quality, after the modest comeback of Cheap Trick '97 and even Special One. The reason is simple: neither of those two records felt like a conscious effort to go back to being the Cheap Trick of '77. What they did was try to make things right by returning the music to those styles and values that justify Cheap Trick's existence — but the first one of those also made allowances for the band's age, sounding a bit more mature and introspective than usual, and the second one at least tried to branch out a bit, experimenting with moods and textures on ʽPop Droneʼ, ʽSorry Boyʼ, ʽBest Friendʼ, and yes, even the ʽLow Lifeʼ joke.

More precisely, Rockford suffers from two pervasive (and somewhat connected) problems. First, the music is downright lazy. We may enjoy the kick-ass energy all we want, but is there even a single classy, original guitar riff from Nielsen? 90% of the time he is relying on simplistic guitar patterns, each and every one of which has probably already been used up dozens of times by power-pop and punk-pop bands around the world. I think that the only guitar melody on the entire album that got my ears perked up was the funny funky weave on ʽOne Moreʼ, which reminded me a little bit of the various ways these guys used to fool around in the past (especially on tracks like ʽGonna Raise Hellʼ). Everything else had a cool sound, but lacked memorability.

Second, there's just too much emphasis on the «having a good time» vibe. Classic Cheap Trick could turn into wild (but benevolent) party animals and rock'n'roll shamans at a moment's notice, but they also had that adventurous, cynical, dangerous side to them — the edgy side that pro­duced such classics as ʽBallad Of TV Violenceʼ, ʽHeaven Tonightʼ, ʽYou're All Talkʼ, ʽGonna Raise Hellʼ, etc. The Cheap Trick of Rockford, in comparison, is a big, burly, friendly beast that can smother you in a well-meaning hug, but is incapable of trampling you under its hooves. The above-mentioned ʽOne Moreʼ is the only thing on the album that spices it up with a little aggres­sive negativity, but even that one is disappointing — first it cons you into thinking that Zander is going to throw one of his classic tempers, impersonating a "gonna raise hell" type of a guy, but then it merely turns into a timid variation on the subject of ʽI Can't Get No Satisfactionʼ (subject-wise, not musical). Everything else, song after song after song, is imbued with the optimistic spirit — which would be fine if the songs were at least easily distinguishable from each other in terms of melody, but no. Half of these tunes begin and I'm all like, "Wait, you just sang about that in your previous number, do you think I was dumb enough to not get it the first time?"

It does not help life much that there are numerous intentional self-references here, along with un­intentional rip-offs of their own and others' musical moves. ʽWelcome To The Worldʼ was de­scribed by Nielsen as an update of the message and structure of ʽHello Thereʼ (except that it replaces the funny irony of ʽHello Thereʼ with a much more straightforward and optimistic greeting), but it also cops a part of the ʽDream Policeʼ solo. ʽCome On Come On Come Onʼ clear­ly references ʽCome On Come Onʼ (now you will spend the rest of your life trying not to confuse the two), but its chorus lacks the call-and-response excitement and aching yearning of the classic oldie. ʽO Claireʼ is a Lennon-style ballad with some delicious falsettos in the chorus, and it has nothing to do with the self-mocking ʽOh Claireʼ joke of Heaven Tonight, but, naturally, the title was intended to look as if they'd finally gotten around to turn that one into a real song. (And now they've also loaded you with the responsibility of remembering the difference between ʽOh Claireʼ and ʽO Claireʼ — they could have at least come up with another C-name).

Speaking of titles in general, they are really running out of imagination: anybody who has four songs in a row titled ʽGive It Awayʼ, ʽOne More Dayʼ, ʽEvery Night And Every Dayʼ, ʽDream The Night Awayʼ should probably be forced to memorize Ulysses in its entirety as adequate pu­nishment. And they hunt for Beatles-related inspiration so avidly that eventually they do not even notice themselves that they begin sounding like Jeff Lynne's ELO instead — the "lonely lonely lonely lonely night" bit on ʽAll Those Yearsʼ, for instance. (For that matter, the "it could happen to you, it could happen to you" bit on ʽDecafʼ is exactly the same as it is on Paul McCartney's ʽTo Youʼ from Back To The Egg, but let's chalk this one up to coincidence).

Cutting a long story short, Rockford is superficially enjoyable — you can headbang to it, you can sing along to it, you can even try to forget how derivative and forced it is if you are a big, big fan of the band — and despite all the harsh criticism, I still give it a thumbs up because relative­ly well done nostalgia for a great past is still better than a poorly done, embarrassing attempt at harnessing a progressive future. But this is precisely what it is: an age-defying attempt to bring back a 1977, polished and updated for a 2006. I will never be the biggest fan of that, and would not advise anybody to frantically search for a justification of why Rockford is «simply a little different» from In Color. It is different, and not in a satisfactory manner.

Cheap Trick: Special One

CHEAP TRICK: SPECIAL ONE (2003)

1) Scent Of A Woman; 2) Too Much; 3) Special One; 4) Pop Drone; 5) My Obsession; 6) Words; 7) Sorry Boy; 8) Best Friend; 9) If I Could; 10) Low Life In High Heels; 11) Hummer.

So, having just summarized the first quarter-century of their career, Cheap Trick are left free to turn over the page, clean up that slate, and embark upon the difficult journey of proving their ongoing relevance to the 21st century — something that is hard enough to do even for Radiohead, never mind a band that had always preferred to look back to the past rather than forward into the future for inspiration. And how do they fare?

Judging by contemporary reviews, not too good: most critics viewed Special One as a serious disappointment, bombarding it with one bad rap after another, and as I am quickly browsing through the various assessments, I find myself a little stumped, because, as far as my ears tell me, the worst thing that can be deduced about Special One is that there is nothing particularly special about it — and that might be a good thing, too, since we don't really want Cheap Trick to be in­fluenced by Radiohead or the Beastie Boys or Godspeed You! Black Emperor; we just want them to turn out juicy, crunchy, reliable, old-fashioned power pop if they still can. And that is pre­cisely what they do here, for forty-six minutes.

Make just one little amendment: we want power-pop with just a few subtle deviations from a narrow formula every now and then, so that we can slap a «creativity» label on the record, and in that regard, Special One does deliver. There's electric pop and there's acoustic pop; there's faster and slower tunes (maybe with a little too much emphasis on slow); there are tinges of psychedelia, there are violations of the classic pop structure, there's some humor, and there are no power bal­lads whatsoever. Throw in decent production standards and the fact that all the band members are still in good shape (Zander's roar is as roar-ish as it ever roared), and what else do you want?

What I believe is that few reviewers ever really made it past the opening track. ʽScent Of A Womanʼ is not the worst Cheap Trick song ever written, but it takes its subject way too seriously, and it does make Zander sound a bit like Roger Daltrey, as suggested by some of the reviewers, only while singing lyrics that were sure as hell not written by Pete Townshend: "A man don't add up to much next to a woman / A man can't ever forget the taste of a woman" — silly and gross, especially when it is sung without the least bit of irony in the singer's voice. You'd think these words and that exuberance would fit in just all right on any of their pompous glam-Eighties albums, but now it is not clear what they are doing at all in the middle of a perfectly valid power pop track, other than prove that when Cheap Trick are committed to show themselves as old-fashioned, they go all the way, warts and all.

Really, though, Special One is much more than just ʽScent Of A Womanʼ. The acoustic-based tracks, for one thing, are quite lovely — and, for that matter, Cheap Trick are rarely ever remem­bered for the beauty of their acoustic melodies. But the title track has an excellent slide lick cut­ting across its gentle stomp, and the song has an aura of gallant delicacy, rather than blunt crude­ness of the past; and ʽWordsʼ is arguably the best imitation of Lennon's balladry style that they had managed to turn out at that point.

On the noisy rocking front, ʽPop Droneʼ, ʽSorry Boyʼ, and ʽBest Friendʼ all qualify, but pay special attention to ʽBest Friendʼ — foregoing the verse/chorus structure, this song gradually un­furls as a nasty egotistic paranoid crescendo, vocals and instruments going hand in hand, until, for the last two minutes, it simply becomes a hail of grinning "yeah yeah yeah"'s and Zander's hys­terical screams of "leave me alone, I'm my best friend!". If you let yourself caught up in this, it's one hell of a way to disperse frustration, and as for the lyrics, even if they give the impression of being largely improvised on the spot ("I can't slow down cuz down we'll go / Where I step you don't wanna know"), they do generate an atmosphere of mean, sickly craziness of a thoroughly confused and pissed-off mind, which seems so welcome in 2016. And although some probably find the slow, murky, distortion-drenched progression of ʽSorry Boyʼ a disappointing example of alt-rock influence on the boys, I hear echoes of genuine ruthless cruelty (of course, in a thorough­ly ironic presentation) in the song and think that it passes the basic quality test.

The funniest, if not necessarily the best, is saved for last: nobody ever pays any attention to ʽLow Life In High Heels / Hummerʼ, probably brushing it away as a 7-minute long musical joke that overstays its welcome to the point of aural cruelty, but I love it. It's one of those ʽWhy Don't We Do It In The Road?ʼ thing throwaways, where the success/failure of the joke crucially depends on the quality of its underlying groove, but this here groove is flawless — the band tightens itself up to AC/DC level and somehow makes the repetitiveness of Zander's ʽhmm-hmmʼ seem cool all the way. Along which way Nielsen hits upon quite a few extra cool riffs (the six-note pattern which he runs through four different octaves is priceless!), and Cheap Trick's rhythm section earns an extra star for making even a dead man tap his toes. It might be the silliest thing they ever did in their career up to that point — but it's actually surprising that it took them so long to get around to it, considering that the Beatles always were their main idols, and the Beatles were always game for some delightful silliness.

Probably a few of the songs still qualify as filler, and probably none of the good songs are on top level when it comes to sharpness, poignancy, relevancy, and depth for these guys; and maybe this is not quite up to the level of middle-age maturity that they displayed on the 1997 album. But it should, by all means, qualify as a solid, thoughtful entry into the catalog, and for what it's worth, I actually like it more than the somewhat overrated Rockford, so thumbs up it is.

Cheap Trick: Silver

CHEAP TRICK: SILVER (2001)

1) Ain't That A Shame; 2) I Want You To Want Me; 3) Oh, Candy; 4) That 70's Song; 5) Voices; 6) If You Want My Love; 7) She's Tight; 8) Can't Stop Fallin' Into Love; 9) Gonna Raise Hell; 10) I Can't Take It; 11) Take Me To The Top; 12) It All Comes Back To You; 13) Tonight It's You; 14) Time Will Let You Know; 15) World's Greatest Lover; 16) The Flame; 17) Stop This Game; 18) Dream Police; 19) I Know What I Want; 20) Woke Up With A Monster; 21) Never Had A Lot To Lose; 22) You're All Talk; 23) I'm Losin' You; 24) Hard To Tell; 25) Oh, Claire; 26) Surrender; 27) Just Got Back; 28) Day Tripper; 29) Who D' King; 30*) Daddy Should Have Stayed In High School; 31*) On Top Of The World.

Two live albums in a row? The easiest thing is to interpret this as a sign of senility, but, in all fairness, post-Budokan Cheap Trick only really put out live albums for special occasions — thus, Music For Hangovers celebrated the re-release of the «classic four», and now, a year later, comes this posh, almost luxurious celebration of the band's 25th anniversary, staged by the band in style, as they return to their native town of Rockford, Illinois (probably the only place in the world where they can still sell out the largest venue without any problems) and, local royalty-style, not only surround themselves with a pack of illustrious (and not-so-illustrious) guests, but also insist on presenting a panoramic view of the band's entire 25-year old career.

Among other things, this means revisiting every single Cheap Trick album ever — yes, even in­cluding The Doctor and Busted. With thirteen studio albums behind their belt already, this is not an easy task, and even given the mammoth duration of the show (almost two and a half hours), they are unable to tackle all the highlights, especially since they are so obsessed with completism here, they even perform one song from Robin Zander's solo career (ʽTime Will Let You Knowʼ), as well as the theme song from That 70's Show (a reworking of Big Star's ʽIn The Streetʼ), and two Beatle-related tunes: ʽDay Tripperʼ, which they sometimes did in concert in the old days, and even Lennon's ʽI'm Losing Youʼ — a song on which they almost got to back John back in 1980, even though their version ultimately did not make it onto the final cut of Double Fantasy (but you can still hear it on Lennon's Anthology boxset: I like its hard-rocking crunch, but I can also see how the sound would be considered too harsh and too «retrograde» for John's New Wave-leaning tastes circa 1980).

The good news: this ensures that Silver is at least not completely expendable, coming right off the heels of Music For Hangovers — this is an entirely different concept, and although there is, inevitably, some overlap with the old numbers, there is a whole ton of live stuff here that you have never heard before unless you were an avid concert goer or bootleg collector. (Even in terms of the old Seventies' stuff, you still have performances of ʽVoicesʼ, ʽI Know What I Wantʼ, ʽYou're All Talkʼ, and, tacked on as bonus tracks on the 2004 re-release, ʽDaddy Should Have Stayed In High Schoolʼ and ʽOn Top Of The Worldʼ that were never previously available live). The bad news: do we really want to sit through an endless set of reminders of how subpar the band's 1980s — 1990s material was, compared to the classics? Even if they really go all the way to weed out the embarrassments and concentrate on the decent stuff, there's no way you could shove Silver into somebody's face as an introduction to Cheap Trick. It may be historically truth­ful and all, but it just isn't really that fun.

There does seem to be a certain ideological point here: it's as if with this release, Nielsen and the boys are trying to officially legitimize and redeem all of their past. Case in point: having carefully back-scrutinized The Doctor and extracted what is almost certainly the best-written song on there (ʽTake Me To The Topʼ), they perform an exuberant acoustic performance of the tune to a see­mingly enthusiastic audience, upon which a cockily satisfied Nielsen goes, "now who said The Doctor was a bad album? Only every critic in the United States, but what do they know?" Some rather crude revisionism out there, Mr. Nielsen — now go ahead and stun your listeners with a kick-ass version of ʽMan-U-Lip-U-Latorʼ, I dare you. But the illusion cannot be held forever even by the band members — at one point (right after the conclusion of ʽThe Flameʼ, a song that Rick himself never seemed to have much love for), Nielsen states that "okay, we've had enough of these ballads", and eventually the band gets back on track with some real good stuff.

The guest stars do not make that much of a difference: many are just relatives (like Robin's daughter, Holland, and Rick's son, Miles), some are old friends and colleagues (Petersson's for­mer replacement on the bass, Jon Brant, makes a guest appearance on two of the songs he origi­nally played on), and then there's the ever-present Billy Corgan (ʽJust Got Backʼ) and Art Alexa­kis of Everclear (ʽDay Tripperʼ). The biggest star of 'em all is Slash, who gives a dutifully ec­static solo turn on ʽYou're All Talkʼ, but I am not sure that Cheap Trick done Guns'n'Roses style is a particularly thrilling idea — serious generational gap out there. Now if only they could get Angus Young, we'd be talking! But it's a long way from Australia to Illinois.

Other than that, what is there to say? The band remains in very good form (ʽGonna Raise Hellʼ is especially diagnostic for all members of the band, from vocals and guitar to bass and drums, and here they pass the test with flying colors), Nielsen's sense of humor is intact, and, after all, it does make sense to give those subpar songs an extra chance when they are separated from crummy Eighties' production and transferred to a healthy live environment (also, despite the hoarse over­tones, Nielsen turns in an impressive vocal performance on ʽWorld's Greatest Loverʼ). There is also a DVD release of the concert, but I'm not sure if you should go for this — Nielsen was still in his ridiculous braided beard and dark glasses stage at the time, and it just don't work that well without the bowtie and baseball cap delivery body image. If it ain't broke, don't fix it — good title for a potential Cheap Trick hit, by the way.

Cheap Trick: Music For Hangovers

CHEAP TRICK: MUSIC FOR HANGOVERS (1999)

1) Oh Claire; 2) Surrender; 3) Hot Love; 4) I Can't Take It; 5) I Want You To Want Me; 6) Taxman, Mr. Thief; 7) Mandocello; 8) Oh Caroline; 9) How Are You?; 10) If You Want My Love; 11) Dream Police; 12) So Good To See You; 13) The Ballad Of T.V. Violence; 14) Gonna Raise Hell.

Nobody really needs more than one Cheap Trick live album in the collection, and I don't need to tell you what live album that should be — but it is also true that Cheap Trick hadn't released a follow-up to Budokan in twenty years (although they did release the previously unreleased second part of the concert separately in 1994 as Budokan II), and since we probably have to thank them for not doing this in the Eighties, it does make sense to give this one at least one spin to check how well they were faring in their «modest comeback» era.

Apparently, this is not a reflection of a fully typical show — these fourteen selections are culled from a special live extravaganza in Chicago, where they were giving themselves a huge 20th anniversary celebration, and marking the re-release of the early catalog on CD by playing each of the first four albums in its completeness on four consecutive nights. And since the prospect of putting together a huge 4-CD set seemed too terrifying at the time (although it is highly likely that at some time we might be getting a Music For Hangovers DeLuxe as a limited-time down­load offer, because we have so little music to listen to in our spare time), well, they just took a few selections from each show, shuffled them randomly, and released a «sampler» of sorts.

As a result, this is a highly nostalgic affair (the only two post-1979 songs are ʽIf You Want My Loveʼ and ʽI Can't Take Itʼ, which they probably played for their encores), and the only question worth asking is — does this kick any sort of ass that would be comparable to Budokan? Well, I have to admit that, agist bias aside, it does: on the whole, the band sounds every bit as invigorated and ready to blow the roof as it did twenty years ago. The biggest worry could probably be Zander, but no need to wonder, really — just throw on ʽGonna Raise Hellʼ and you will see that he is still not only capable of the rabid bull-roaring attack, but he is still capable to deliver it seemingly effortlessly. In fact, he does it so well that, as it seems to me, the engineers see to it that his voice is consis­tently driven a little bit higher in the mix than it was on Budokan — playing the old and the new live versions of ʽSurrenderʼ clearly shows the difference, and since Robin's pipes and enthusiasm show no signs of wearing down, this might be one small argument why at least some of the tracks here might even be more fun to listen to than the Budokan ones.

As for the musicians, there is no deterioration in quality in Nielsen's guitar pyrotechnics or Bun E. Carlos' steady drum support either (I guess Petersson is doing all right as well, but the bass in Cheap Trick was never anything special in the first place). There's only a tiny bit of guest support, with Billy Corgan playing extra guitar on ʽMandocelloʼ and then D'Arcy Wretzky singing backup vocals on ʽIf You Want My Loveʼ (I had no idea that Smashing Pumpkins were such big fans of the Trick, but apparently they are, as Corgan also wrote some gushing liner notes for the album), but perhaps the band sensed that they did need it, since their own fanbase had already dwindled, and they definitely needed some public support from the younger generation (the concept would be further advanced on Silver).

It is important to note that the band did consider the possibility that the album would be unfavo­rably compared to Budokan — and for that reason, there is as little overlap as possible, with worn-out hits and classics largely ignored (on record) in favor of less overplayed tunes: the only three tracks that do overlap are ʽSurrenderʼ (because what's a live Cheap Trick album without ʽSurrenderʼ?), ʽI Want You To Want Meʼ (repeat question with substituted object), and ʽOh Caro­lineʼ, the latter quite legit because they do it in a revised acoustic arrangement. The good news is that we get to hear the mad live jamming on ʽGonna Raise Hellʼ, and a guitar-based rather than synth-based version of ʽDream Policeʼ (but why didn't they include ʽThe House Is Rockingʼ? That was, like, the most stage-ready number on the Dream Police album!). The bad news is that, for some reason, each performance fades in and fades out, giving that nasty «greatest hits live» scent — I guess they were honestly letting us know that these were cut-and-paste performances, but it's no great fun to endure moments of absolute silence when sitting through a live album.

Aside from that, though, it makes no sense to have anything but very minor quibbles with the record (such as its title — I mean, is a decibel-heavy, guitar-crunch-choked power pop album really the appropriate kind of music to treat a hangover? Shouldn't they have at least gone all MTV Unplugged on us to validate that title?). It can even provide a minor companion piece to Budokan, due to that minimal overlap; but it certainly played a bigger role in 1999 (proving the world that the Trick «still got it») than it does now.

Cheap Trick: Cheap Trick (1997)

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.

Cheap Trick: Woke Up With A Monster

CHEAP TRICK: WOKE UP WITH A MONSTER (1994)

1) My Gang; 2) Woke Up With A Monster; 3) You're All I Wanna Do; 4) Never Run Out Of Love; 5) Didn't Know I Had It; 6) Ride The Pony; 7) Girlfriends; 8) Let Her Go; 9) Tell Me Everything; 10) Cry Baby; 11) Love Me For A Minute.

Ugh, no wonder this album was a total commercial disaster — I mean, just look at that album cover: looks like a perfect one for a fetish porn movie soundtrack. Who the hell would buy some­thing like that in a music store? It's okay to opt for a little change after the last two records, where the boys' looks always reflected the degree of the musical inspiration, but not at such a terrible cost — just by looking at the sleeve, one already might experience visions of dusty, tattered, cracked CD cases in used bins with fifty-cent stickers on them.

Pitiful, that, because the record was actually an attempt at a fresh start. After Busted showed that ʽThe Flameʼ was really a fluke, and that the world was not particularly interested in putting Zander and Nielsen on the regular payroll for power balladeers — and after the grunge revolu­tion happened and burst the bubble of the hair metal era in general, the band gradually began coming back to its senses. For their next producer, they chose Ted Templeman (of Van Halen fame); the number of outside songwriters was seriously reduced, though questionable figures like Survivor's Jim Peterik still wound up on the list; and the emphasis was placed squarely on the heavy rock sound again, with adult contemporary overtones limited to an absolute minimum. Oh, and the keyboards are out — for good.

The problem is, having breathed so much poison over an entire decade, it's hardly possible to get it out of your lungs all at once, and the album still suffers from two serious problems. First, even despite the sparse and familiar instrumentation, the production is fairly shitty. Nielsen's electric guitars sound either overcompressed or just too glossy much of the time, and his sprightly acous­tic sound, reserved for the more sentimental tunes, consists of dull, bombastic power chords that anybody could have played — and Zander's vocals are often buried so deep in the mix, you'd think they were expressly interested in squashing his personality. (On the other hand, this might have been a good idea for some of the more sexually explicit numbers: the less lyrics of ʽRide The Ponyʼ you manage to make out, the better for your digestive system. Is it even grammatical­ly possible, let alone sexually, to "satisfy your funk"?).

Second, in Cheap Trick's endless battle of Irony vs. Sleaze, Woke Up With A Monster is still firmly on the Sleaze side — in a way, that album cover does reflect the fact that too much of the record still presents the band as intentionally «anti-intellectual» cock-rockers, pandering to an AC/DC-type audience but without the Spartan qualities of AC/DC that make the Young brothers such a delightful un-guilty pleasure for certain intellectual types as well. And I'm not mentioning AC/DC just like that, out of the blue: ʽGirlfriendsʼ, one of the record's hardest-rocking tracks, is basically just a minor rewrite of ʽBad Boy Boogieʼ (although the way they play the opening riff also reminds me that ʽBad Boy Boogieʼ itself had copped its riff from ʽRoute 66ʼ), so much so that, when after the guitar break Zander begins to sing the exact same vocal melody that Bon Scott does, the words "ain't the same old line from a rock'n'roll song!" have to be taken quite literally. The tight little number, with Bun E. Carlos kicking away like a trusty old packmule, is still fun — but when the very next one, ʽLet Her Goʼ, opens with a riff that is a minor variation on ʽDirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheapʼ, it's like, «No way! They can't be that obvious, can they?»

The one and only number that steps a little beyond the formula of the sentimental ballad and the cock-rocker is the title track — slower, moodier, with disturbing lyrics and a bit of creepy vocal acting from Zander; most memorable, of course, is the combination of its chorus riff with sup­porting vocals, sort of like a mix between the Beatles' ʽI Want Youʼ and a middle-Eastern ʽKash­mirʼ-like epic. The last time they tried something like that was probably with ʽHeaven Tonightʼ, although ʽWoke Up With A Monsterʼ is, of course, a far cry from the inspired melody and arran­gement of their creepiest song — among other things, it suffers from the same overcompression as everything else here, and it could certainly use a denser arrangement, maybe with some cellos thrown in for good measure. Still, as a conscious attempt to write an art-rock song, it is clearly a standout here, and how long has it been since we were able to talk about «standouts»?..

Other than that, well, bad lyrics aside, the album is generally listenable and occasionally enjoy­able. The upbeat power-pop tracks like ʽMy Gangʼ and ʽYou're All I Wanna Doʼ (ugh, that title!) work well, and even the few power ballads here are a big step up from the level of Busted — ʽNever Run Out Of Loveʼ has a thoughtfully crafted vocal melody with perfectly placed falsettos, a living-and-breathing rhythm section, and a gritty rather than pompous lead guitar part, and ʽTell Me Everythingʼ once again returns them to Roy Orbison mode, which is much better than the Michael Bolton mode anyway.

So, if anything, this record is in bad need of a complete re-recording — maybe throw away some of the worst lyrical offenders like ʽRide The Ponyʼ, correct production issues, and somewhere within this package lies a perfectly normal Cheap Trick album (much like The Doctor, although that one could only be salvaged with some top-level surgery). At the very least, there seems to be a near-common consensus that this was a major step up from Busted at the time, and I fully con­cur — too bad that the album flopped so badly (the band blamed Warner Bros. for lack of pro­motion, but I think there were deeper issues as well... then again, there's always that matter of the clown and the tattooed lady), although at least the flop did serve its purpose: it taught the band to finally stay away from big labels, corporate songwriters, and fickle contemporary trends.

Cheap Trick: Busted

CHEAP TRICK: BUSTED (1990)

1) Back 'n' Blue; 2) I Can't Understand It; 3) Wherever Would I Be; 4) If You Need Me; 5) Can't Stop Fallin' Into Love; 6) Busted; 7) Walk Away; 8) You Drive, I'll Steer; 9) When You Need Someone; 10) Had To Make You Mine; 11) Rock'n'Roll Tonight; 12) Big Bang.

Foreword/spoiler: I do indeed fully and completely conform to the general consensus that Busted is the worst Cheap Trick album, ever — with one important addition: most of the time, it does not even feel as if I'm listening to a Cheap Trick album here. This is more like a Bon-Jovi-meet-Michael-Bolton album, for some unexplained reason given to Cheap Trick to record. Where The Doctor was at least «rambunctious» — loud, cartoonish, irreverent, kicking up the dust, even if it did it all in a sonically disgusting manner — Busted is well-combed, sterile, polite, one hundred percent predictable adult pop. For all I know, these guys could get behind Celine Dion on one of her «rockier» nights out and nobody would even notice.

Of course, it all has to do with the success of ʽThe Flameʼ. The music industry saw that it was good (because it sold), and wasted no time in moving in for the kill, saddling Cheap Trick with tons of power ballads and sentimental rockers to confirm and expand the suave image — and no matter how much they would complain about it in the future, at the time they seemed happy to oblige, because much of that schlock was written by the band members themselves. Outside songwriters still remain involved on a casual basis, though, including Diane Warren, who gets the chance to rectify her silly mistake with ʽGhost Townʼ (i. e., writing a decent retro-pop song) and come up with a solid, bullet-proof, totally reliable musical atrocity called ʽWherever Would I Beʼ (amazingly, it didn't sell all that well — probably needed a brain-numbing Hollywood block­buster to go along with it, with Rick Nielsen starring as Bruce Willis).

The boys themselves turn out to be strong competitors for Diane the Terrible, contributing ʽCan't Stop Fallin' Into Loveʼ — never mind that "falling into love" is not wholly grammatical, but any romantic power ballad that begins with the line "hey little ladies, there's some cool young dude" is guilty before it has a chance to get to the bridge, let alone the chorus. That said, the chorus is an overblown nightmare in itself — bringing on visions of the National Football League singing it in unison at the Super Bowl rather than anything subtle and emotional. Not that subtle and emotio­nal had ever been Cheap Trick's forte, but this is the first album where their understanding of «love» completely eludes both subtlety and irony, leaving only power. If you were a girl and you had to marry Zander in 1990, I'd bet he'd never let you out of the gym.

Other notable details: (a) the first song is co-written with Taylor Rhodes, who later went on to co-write ʽCryin'ʼ with Aerosmith and some other shit with Celine Dion; (b) the fourth song is co-written with Foreigner's Mick Jones, who also plays guest guitar so that it would sound even more like Foreigner; (c) the ninth song is co-written with Rick Kelly, whose musical talents are described on his own website in the following words: "Rick Kelly has the kind of voice and a knack for melody that is both richly and warmly familiar, ranging from the pop styles of Adam Levine to John Mayer to Billy Joel". In case you might be wondering, the track itself (ʽWhen You Need Someoneʼ) does sound «warmly familiar» — as in, when you've just finished barfing and whatever you puked up is still warm on the floor... okay, sorry, got a bit carried away there.

So, anything good here? Well, if you put a gun to my head and demanded to extract at least one track for a comprehensive anthology or something like that, I would probably go along with ʽI Can't Understand Itʼ, free of outside songwriters and basically functioning as a normal power pop song, still spoiled by production (the drums are too loud, the guitars too out of focus, etc.) but at least upbeat, catchy, and mildly funny. Their cover of Roy Wood's ʽRock'n'Roll Tonightʼ, round­ing out the record, is also OK, although, unfortunately, it comes round way too late to save the day — it's in the vein of ʽCalifornia Manʼ, and it shows that the boys can still have moderately tasteful fun when they put their minds to it. Also, ʽWalk Awayʼ is sort of an okay ballad, with that nostalgic chord progression and retro-pop harmonies, arguably the only one that you can listen on here without getting the urge to... well, you know.

Interestingly, one of the guest stars is Sparks' Russell Mael himself, but his presence is largely wasted on the glam-rock swaggerfest ʽYou Drive, I'll Steerʼ (admittedly, this particular period was not the hottest one in the history of Sparks, either). All I manage to remember about the song is that every time Zander and Mael duet on the line "I'm in the lap of luxury", I always hear "I'm living at the grocery", which, if it were true, could, perhaps, partially explain the abysmal quality of the album — at least, you'd really have to give it away as a freebie at the local grocery to get anybody interested. Anyway, a complete and total disaster here, critical, commercial, and artistic, best summed up in the band's own words in the prophetic title track: "Busted, busted for what I did / I didn't think it so wrong". Thumbs down with a vengeance.