Tonight's selections from Cheap Trick’s 1977 sophomore album, In Color.
As one who grew up in Illinois, aware of Cheap Trick a full year before the band’s Epic Records signing and February 1977 debut album, I was hearing songs from the first four albums as early as October 1975. It was then that, on a tip from a kindred musical spirit, I checked them out at a 150-capacity dive called the UpRising Tavern in the university town of DeKalb, Ill.
There, for a $5 cover that seemed steep at the time, one was treated to three sets, that lineup, that look, that logo, and, best of all, those songs.
The band’s 1977 self-titled debut album captured its edge, an unvarnished document of what we saw onstage around that time. Jack Douglas (credits: John Lennon and Yoko Ono, Aerosmith, New York Dolls) took the Rockford, Ill. band to New York’s Record Plant in fall 1976 and emerged with edgy power-pop songs like “He’s a Whore,” “Elo Kiddies” and “Taxman Mr. Thief.” Combined with the band’s unconventional look (two pretty boys, two nerds), the quirky songs turned heads and the album became a full-fledged critical sensation. Press buzz, however, did not necessarily translate to radio play. — Best Classic Bands
Southern Girls
At a time when heavy metal had lost its menace and was fading into side-show stupidity, Cheap Trick — a powerhouse that had long been dominating Midwest clubs and bars — blew out of Rockford, Illinois and set about proving that commercial rock writ large enough for football fields could also be wry, cavalier and sarcastic. Rick Nielsen stepped right through the guitar hero stereotype, wringing out glorious garbage while upholding the nascent punk ethos by refusing to take the pose seriously. Although the quartet for a time lost its way by buying into the expectations raised by large-scale success, Trick’s records and shows positively influenced several generations of future bands growing up American in the ’70s and ’80s. Post-punks from the Replacements, Soul Asylum, Das Damen and Redd Kross to Big Black (who went to the trouble of covering “He’s a Whore” on a 1987 single) took something from them; ’90s altern-icons like Smashing Pumpkins have paid their propers as well. While the brutally efficient Kiss also wielded major musical clout on impressionable youngsters, Cheap Trick managed to make rock stardom look like fun, providing a commendable archetype at a time when stardom was a near-certain guarantee of creative tedium and timidity.
Drawing its primary inspiration from the unexpected Anglo poles of the Move (weight and wit) and Beatles (melody and merriment), Cheap Trick came on hard, loud and smart, investing pure pop with thunder and playing gigs that, while formulaic and gimmicky in the extreme, had (and, in the 21st century, still have) all the punch and spirited good humor that older, tired arena bands lacked. — Trouser Press
I Want You to Want Me
In a way, Cheap Trick is Beatleesque. But not in the sense of the Raspberries or Elton John or (God knows!) the Bay City Rollers. What sets this group apart is that these guys actually imagine that the important music of the later Beatles was the almost heavy metal (but still melodic) hard rock of “Birthday,” “Helter Skelter” and “Back in the U.S.S.R.” on the White Album and “I Want You” and “Come Together” on Abbey Road.
Reference points are scattered everywhere: “Hello There,” the opening track, evokes the manic verve of “Birthday”; “Big Eyes” opens with a direct quote from “I Want You”; “Oh Caroline” and “So Good to See You” have the slightly narcotic feeling of Abbey Road‘s best rock. Nielsen is a superbly inventive guitarist, though, and while rhythm guitarist Robin Zander’s singing owes a large debt to both Lennon and Harrison, Trick isn’t merely derivative, Like Boston, Trick is more than the sum of the elements it manipulates, mostly because it manipulates them so skillfully.
A list of the group’s antecedents is surprising both for what it includes, but especially for what it leaves out: the Who and Yardbirds are obvious enough, as is certain garage — nee punk — rock, like the Music Machine’s “Talk Talk.” But there’s almost no reflection of Cream or Hendrix here, an amazing omission for a band so completely dominated by guitars (piano pops up on only a couple of tracks). Those omissions, though, are part of the strategy: Nielsen’s songs are tightly written, and the group’s arrangements place absolutely no premium on solos. Even Zander’s voice and the group’s excellent, tough harmonies are used instrumentally, rather than verbally; I’ve heard these songs 40 times and have no idea what the subject matter of any of them might be. But the sound of the voices and Nielsen’s seemingly inexhaustible supply of chords and effects keep you coming back. — Rolling Stone
Hello There
Imagine having your debut album released on a major label early one year then doing over 100 concerts during that year and THEN later that same year having to make another album after your first one flopped. That’s exactly what happened to Chicago, Illinois’s finest Power Pop/Rock act Cheap Trick back in 1977. You already know from my previous review of their first album what a crude, colorful, and rockin’ little donut it was. Now given what I’ve just told you shouldn’t their second album be a overly rushed, tuneless, flat, dry wank of a disc considering how many great aritsts have befallen the deadly “Second Album” too much, too soon follow-up virus?
NOT AT ALL. What you have with In Color is a devastating example of songwriting and arranging with supple, firm hooks brimming with attitude. You may not like hearing about the “mechanics” of being a rock artist (hey, I usually turn away when people talk about “songwriting” and “arranging” too.) But van dammit that’s exactly what’s on display here and it’s just incredible. The album clocks out after 30 minutes or so and what you’re left with is proof positive that Cheap Trick were (and still are for many) one of the best American bands ever. Okay you basically know the Trick’s sound by now right? dark, twisted, Glam Rock, unique Beatles-esque touches, blah, blah, blah (yep, nearly the same formula Oasis would later become enormous with.) Well after they let that sound loose with producer/engineer Jack Douglas on their debut they basically fine tuned it here with musician/producer/A & R guy Tom Werman (in fact he signed Cheap Trick to CBS.) You still get the same twisted humor and heavy chops of the first album only here with MUCH tighter arrangements and crystal clear mixing. You know what I’m talking about instantly when you look at the album cover. Sure, there’s lead singer Robin Zander & bassist Tom Petersson looking studly on motorbikes on the suave, airbrushed front cover. But on the reverse, there’s drummer Bun E. Carlos and main songwriter and guitarist Rick Nielsen looking weird and intense on "kiddie" bicycles and if that’s not strange enough the picture is upside down and as it says clearly “And In Black and White.” The pic of Carlos & Nielsen could almost have been a outtake from the first album cover sessions. — Head Heritage
Come On Come On
One afternoon, in the early summer of 1978, I was six years old and sitting in my cousin’s Camaro. He had painted it a glossy purple with metallic flake, and I thought it was so cool. That it sat on blocks in Grandma’s driveway most of the time didn’t diminish its draw for me at all. You see, it had a tape player, and on this particular day, it was introducing me to Cheap Trick’s In Color. There were men on motorcycles on the cassette cover, which I also thought was cool, and there was a thrum of pure excitement in my ears, which I thought was even cooler. Though I knew quite a lot about rock and roll and had a fairly wide variety of favorite music for one so young, I had not yet experienced true pop perfection beyond the Beatles. Cheap Trick was a revelation! The enthusiasm and energy were unmistakable. Even to untrained ears, the songwriting and performance skills were unparalleled. After playing the whole album over again, I began frantically rifling through the glove box for more and was rewarded with Heaven Tonight. I still sometimes believe there is no greater pop song than “Surrender.” All summer long, I’d ask to hear those tapes so I could again feel the rush that went along with those songs. A couple of years later, I purchased my own prized copy of Dream Police specifically so I could experience it whenever I wanted. — Pop Matters
Oh Caroline
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