Introduction

DREAM POLICE (1979)
1) Dream Police; 2) Way Of The World; 3) The House Is Rockin' (With Domestic Problems); 4) Gonna Raise Hell; 5) I'll Be With You Tonight; 6) Voices; 7) Writing On The Wall; 8) I Know What I Want; 9) Need Your Love.
Apparently, The Holy Trinity of classic Cheap Trick albums was meant to be a quaternity, but the unexpected success of Budokan led to the label delaying the release of the fourth studio album, and now it always gives off the impression of a «transition» between classic Trick and broken down Trick. It does have its own flavor, of course — namely, the addition of loud keyboards and strings that puts it more in line with mainstream arena-rock and dance-pop of that period — yet essentially, Dream Police still gives us the Trick we have grown to love, just the way they are: loud, reckless, humorous, sarcastic, and generally hooky.
So it may be a bit of a step down: there's nothing here that gets under your skin the way ʽHeaven Tonightʼ gets under it, and there is no blatantly successful generational anthem like ʽSurrenderʼ — the closest thing to a generational anthem would probably be the title track, which went on to become the band's last commonly recognized classic hit. Stylistically, it sounds not unlike Alice Cooper circa Billion Dollar Babies, a gruesome Orwellian nightmare story with Zander pulling a paranoid type to the best of his ability (I do have to say that he does much better when imperso­nating homicidal maniacs) and perfect climactic bits from Nielsen's synthesized strings. It's lots of theatrical fun, to be sure, but not really on the level of the band's top pieces — you don't get to feel true paranoia here, more like a funny caricature of it.
On the other hand, this is a pretty caricaturesque album in general, and I'll certainly take the joking nature of it over the band's Eighties' «seriousness» any time of day. And sometimes the goofiness really pays off well — ʽThe House Is Rockin'ʼ plays out like a straightforward head­banging rock'n'roller alright, until you remember the subtitle ʽ(With Domestic Problems)ʼ and understand that the song actually impersonates being pissed-off at the breakdown of a family relationship. Alternating between hilarity in the chorus ("oh boy, oh boy") and moments of see­mingly real anger (exacerbated every time Nielsen takes to soloing — it's not every day that he gets to being that batshit crazy on his solos, and if the studio version is not enough for you, there's an early live version appended to the CD reissue where he's even crazier), it's one of their greatest pure glam-rock songs, with the entire band at its tightest (Bun E. Carlos gets a special medal of honor for keeping that complex beat throughout, unflinching), angriest and funniest at the same time.
Other times, the goofiness takes some getting used to: ʽI Know What I Wantʼ used to irritate the crap of me before I understood that they gave it to Tom Petersson to sing for a reason — there was no way Zander could have sung it in such a dorky manner. Clearly, it's a parody of a cheap arena-rocker, performed in such a way that it should be impossible to take the lead singer serious­ly as he wheezes his way through "it was love at first sight, when I looked in your eyes, I was blinded by the feelings in my heart..." like Don Kirshner with a clothespin around his nose. Of course, then the joke eventually wears thin, and unless you have new neighbors to irritate, you probably won't want to be enjoying it forever and ever.
The actual «progression» on the album comes in the form of large epics — each of the album's two sides ends with an extended number, and I'm guessing that this was not due to a lack of new material, but rather to Nielsen's desire to try and experiment with his guitar playing and the arran­gements in various ways, stretching out like an art-rocker, but without any exaggerated virtuosity. I must say that it works, both times. ʽGonna Raise Hellʼ incorporates elements of disco (one more reason why it is so long — typical of dance-pop numbers of the era), both in terms of rhythm and orchestration, but Nielsen really shoots in all directions here, with hard rock riffs, blues licks, funky syncopation, and Beatlesque stretches of melodicity, and as repetitive as Zander's chorus seems to be, I have to say that few rock vocalists are capable of bellowing it out with as much conviction as the man does — you really do get to feel like the overtly patient bartender who'd like nothing as much as to toss that guy out the door, only he's a little afraid to do that...
And I do like this version of ʽNeed Your Loveʼ more than the even longer Budokan rendition. Zander's vocals, benefiting from the studio mix, sound even more psychedelic here, whereas the rhythm and lead guitars sound even scarier, especially as the song kicks into overdrive in the middle, and the whole thing becomes a pseudo-improvised jam with Nielsen trying out a new riff or solo every minute, almost like a tribute to a live Who track circa 1970. What is the song even about? Another psychotic outburst — the hero torn between maniacal pleading tenderness and a mad killing spree on which he embarks once the object of his passion has fled his grasp? Seems like it, in which case Nielsen's extended solo is a shooting spree, and Zander's final "need... your... love..." are the protagonist's last words before he puts the last bullet in his own head. There, I think that's all the enticement you need to go listen to that one again.
Putting it roughly, the album's not that serious, but all the songs are fun — and I haven't even mentioned the catchy (and sometimes deliciously trippy, particularly on the "world goes round... world goes round..." bit) ʽWay Of The Worldʼ, the psychedelic love ballad ʽVoicesʼ and those two other songs, I think one's poppier and the other's rockier, but both are good. So perhaps there's just fewer truly outstanding moments, but there can be no denying that this is still classic Cheap Trick classically doing what they do best — tossing off pop hooks, rocking their heads off, and putting a witty, humorous touch on all sorts of everyday situations like there was no tomor­row. With the fourth studio LP in a row delivering the goods, it's as if they just couldn't fail, right? No matter what happens? Thumbs up for eternity guaranteed? Oh boy, if only we could have foreseen what the Eighties would bring... then again, we'd probably either have to shoot ourselves dead, or everybody else dead. But then, it might not just have been the Eighties — see, Dream Police was essentially the last Cheap Trick album that the band made before they became mega­stars. And mega-stars, as it happens, no longer belong to themselves.
ALL SHOOK UP (1980)
1) Stop This Game; 2) Just Got Back; 3) Baby Loves To Rock; 4) Can't Stop It But I'm Gonna Try; 5) World's Greatest Lover; 6) High Priest Of Rhythmic Noise; 7) Love Comes A-Tumblin' Down; 8) I Love You Honey But I Hate Your Friends; 9) Go For The Throat; 10) Who D'King; 11*) Everything Works If You Let It.
The Eighties are upon us, and this is the beginning of the end, right from the very first track. "Well I can't stop the music, I could stop it before...", Zander flings at us accappella-style, in a perfectly serious, quasi-operatic tone — something far more suitable for Foreigner's Lou Gramm or some other vocally endowed brawny, but sentimental arena-rock hero than for Cheap Trick, the (former) kings of friendly irony and muscular intelligence. As the instruments kick in, the whole thing gets no better — a stiff pop-rocker, largely dependent on keyboards and simple, straight-jacketed power riffs. Throughout, Zander yells, bawls and weeps as if he were totally serious about this exploding love affair, the vocal harmonies sound like underpaid extras in a power metal ballad, and the guitar sounds like a complete waste of Nielsen... and he wrote the song! And they released it as a single! And it charted super-low! And it was totally justified, be­cause it was honestly the weakest Cheap Trick single to date.
The horrible thing about the album is that, alas, it does not get much better than that. It does get better, occasionally, and much worse things were around the corner, but the sober truth is that somehow, in some way, the evil fairy visited Rick Nielsen in his bedroom one night (probably on the very night that he forgot to take his ward-off-evil baseball hat and bowtie to bed with him), and he lost most of his songwriting talent overnight — not all of it, charging the unfortunate fanbase with the need to filter out the small bunches of gems from the large pools of dreck, but most of it, for sure. How the heck did that happen, so quickly?
The blame is sometimes transferred onto the producers — nowhere more so than on All Shook Up, which was produced by George Martin, no less. Now it may have been inevitable that Cheap Trick, Beatles admirers extraordinaire, would eventually team up with Martin, but the thing is, Cheap Trick music was really midway between the Beatles and the Stones, combining Beatles-style pop hooks with raw rock'n'roll energy, and it should have been clear from the beginning that Martin's production would suck out most of the raw rock'n'roll energy. I am not aware of any particular animosity between Martin and the boys during the sessions for the album (most likely, they were just way too awestruck by the opportunity), but Martin's «clean» production certainly does not agree with what the boys do best.
That said, no amount of sterile production could explain the fact that on All Shook Up, what we have is Cheap Trick 2.0 — but, as I already began to say in the Dream Police review, their new­ly found superstardom sure can. It is almost as if the band now saw themselves burdened with a new «responsibility» for their fans, and dropped a large part of its too-smart-for-its-own-good act in favor of a simpler, more straightforward approach; and the simpler it got, the less true it rang. Simply put, Robin Zander as a heart-on-sleeve lyrical troubadour, or, vice versa, Robin Zander as the basic, brawny, KISS-style cock-rocker just does not work after four albums in a row where we had Robin Zander, the demolition man for pop music clichés. Or was it his original intention to demolish all the clichés just so that he could immediately start rebuilding them from scratch and dust? And don't even get me started on Nielsen, who pretty much betrayed himself on this album — just how many good, let alone great, riffs can you count? Or, in fact, how many tracks that are distinguishable by some above-average guitar work in general? On Dream Police, one could complain that ʽGonna Raise Hellʼ and ʽNeed Your Loveʼ overstayed their welcome, but at least it was for a reason — so that Mr. Nielsen could have ample time to toy around with his instrument, and every once in a while, get a brand new, awesome noise out of it. On All Shook Up, experimental guitar playing is replaced by professional sterilization.
Some lines of critical or fan defense have been put up around the album, claiming that it was simply more «quirky» and «experimental» than their previous releases. Well, the only «quirky» thing about ʽStop This Gameʼ is that it seemingly fades in on the same piano chord on which Sgt. Pepper had faded out thirteen years earlier — which is a fun idea in theory, but a disgrace in practice: ʽStop This Gameʼ relates to ʽA Day In The Lifeʼ in about the same way in which a Dimitri Tiomkin soundtrack would relate to a Beethoven symphony. Other «quirky» elements include: (a) symmetric sound effect overdubs in the bridge section of the otherwise generic glam rocker ʽBaby Loves To Rockʼ — "in the morning!" accompanied by cock-a-doodle-doos, "in the evening!" by chirping crickets (for some reason, "baby loves to rock" everywhere but "not in Russia!" — which, I daresay, is a blatant lie!); (b) robotically encoded vocals on the chorus sec­tion of the dark sci-fi rocker ʽHigh Priest Of Rhythmic Noiseʼ, one of the few songs here, perhaps, that could feel at home — with different production — on earlier records; (c) an obvious parody on the mid-Seventies sound of Rod Stewart (ʽHot Legsʼ, etc.) called ʽI Love You Honey But I Hate Your Friendsʼ, a little out of time since Rod Stewart's sound had already deteriorated even way beyond that barroom boogie level by 1980; (d) a ridiculous mash-up of Fleetwood Mac's ʽTuskʼ and Queen's ʽWe Will Rock Youʼ, called ʽWho D'Kingʼ and possessing neither the humor and menace of the former nor the true stadium power of the latter.
It's not all bad — there are still some fast 'n' catchy power-pop numbers like ʽEverything Works If You Let Itʼ (actually, a bonus track on the CD re-issue, from the soundtrack to the movie Roadie starring Meat Loaf — fine, healthy company for the boys!); a cleverly built-up power ballad (ʽWorld's Greatest Loverʼ) with Zander at his absolute vocal best — even if you generally hate the bombast of power balladry, you still have to admit that the man shows a master class in self-winding-up here; and if you ever wondered what it would have been like to take a circa-Flick Of The Switch AC/DC rocker and run it past the magic hands of George Martin, ʽLove Comes A-Tumblin' Downʼ will give you the answer — I'd still take AC/DC's ʽLandslideʼ over this any time of day, but it is a curiosity, and it's at least fun. (For the record, the connection is not spurious: lines like "From the cabaret to the highway of hell / Had a monkey on his back it was easy to tell" clearly suggest that the song was intended as an obituary — and the fun thing is, Flick Of The Switch hadn't even come out yet, so you could say AC/DC themselves were influenced by Cheap Trick in 1983. Also, the song sounds much better in concert without the George Martin production).
But even with all the excuses, there is no denying it: Cheap Trick are trying to go way too serious on our asses, and this is a negative influence on their songwriting. A major part of the band's charm was precisely in the fact that they could take the popular genre conventions of the mid-Seventies and play around them with sly wit and intelligence — now, it seems, they are begin­ning to succumb to them, and the arena-rocker masks are beginning to stick to their faces way too seamlessly for comfort. Simply put, I don't need Robin Zander to educate me that "everything'll work out if you let it / Let it in your heart"; I'd rather prefer him to spoof that banal premise. And somehow it seems to me that, perhaps, he'd prefer that, too — but now they had this moral res­ponsibility for all their post-Budokan fans, you know, or at least that's what they (and/or their recording industry superiors) thought at the time — ironically, the more serious they got, the fewer records they sold.
ONE ON ONE (1982)
1) I Want You; 2) One On One; 3) If You Want My Love; 4) Oo La La La; 5) Lookin' Out For Number One; 6) She's Tight; 7) Time Is Runnin'; 8) Saturday At Midnight; 9) Love's Got A Hold On Me; 10) I Want Be Man; 11) Four Letter Word.
A temporary, if not completely satisfactory, rebound, with the band going through some signifi­cant changes. First was Tom Petersson leaving the group, replaced first by Pete Comita and later on, by Jon Brant, arriving just in time for the early sessions for this album. More importantly, not being worthy of two albums in a row produced by George Martin, they were teamed up with Roy Thomas Baker, who at that point was mostly famous for producing the majority of Queen's al­bums, but also heavily invested in the New Wave sound — his hand is right there on all four of the The Cars' first albums, as well as on Alice Cooper's Flush The Fashion, one of the funniest and overall most successful criss-crosses between Seventies' glam rock and New Wave produc­tion techniques, and it is quite possible that this was precisely what Cheap Trick had in mind when they entered the studio with him at the end of 1981.
Production values aside, One On One was decidedly less innovative and experimental than All Shook Up — I guess you could qualify it as «a return to their rock'n'roll roots», with most of the songs being loud, braggartly, and often quite vulgar, as if the band were consciously afraid that All Shook Up made them look softened and sissied up, and now, before it was too late, they just had to do some serious penance at the altars of KISS and AC/DC. Unfortunately, this was not exactly a way to recapture the magic of In Color or even of Dream Police: not only did Baker's production tone down the former raw power of Nielsen's guitar, no matter how frantically the guy still tore at the strings in the studio (and let's not even talk about the obligatory electronic effects on the drums, reducing poor Bun E. Carlos to the same cyborg status as... well, almost everybody else at the time), but, aside from production issues, the band's mentality itself seems to have suf­fered — One On One relates to the 1977-79 records more or less the same way as The Stones' It's Only Rock'n'Roll relates to their 1968-72 records. Something, some of that barely tangible vibe that separates inimitable class from crafty professionalism, was irrevocably lost in the tran­sition between 1979 and 1980, and no conscious effort could help regain it.
Nevertheless, in terms of consistency and gut level enjoyment One On One is still a big im­provement over the stiff seriousness of All Shook Up. At its core lies a series of brash, sex-crazed musical explosions that are at least closer in spirit to classic feel-good Trick than songs like ʽStop This Gameʼ or ʽCan't Stop It But I'm Gonna Tryʼ. We got back some noise, some cat­chy choruses, some headbanging fun — at the expense, however, of a serious headache from too much headbanging: track after track, the roof is brought down with so much verve that you can't shake loose the feeling that these guys actually stormed the local tavern with a straightforward intention of raising hell... well, that's what they promised us on Dream Police, wasn't it? With songs like ʽI WANT YOU!!!ʼ, ʽOO LA LA LA!!!ʼ, ʽLOOKIN' OUT FOR NUMBER ONE!!!ʼ, and especially the anti-grammatical apeman anthem ʽI WANT BE MAN!!!ʼ (and yes, they just as well might have been spelled in all caps on the original release), we are given a whole lotta Zan­der at his most throat-tearin', though, I am afraid, not a whole lotta Nielsen at his most guitar-lovin' — he doesn't solo all that much, and the riffage is way too often reduced to hard rock, rockabilly, or punk clichés. Again, you could blame Baker's production for the «plastic» sound of Rick's guitar playing, but essentially, it's a matter of Nielsen not trying too hard. Even the best melodies sound oddly derivative — for instance, the opening riff of the title track is basically a variation on AC/DC's ʽWhole Lotta Rosieʼ! The song is still fun, but the downside is that it will never be half as fun as ʽWhole Lotta Rosieʼ anyway.
Of the two singles that charted, ʽShe's Tightʼ was just one more of these rockers — okay, but in­substantial, a mix of Ramones-like guitar chords with Cars-like bubbly synths whose title can't help reminding me of contemporary Stones songs like ʽShe's So Coldʼ or ʽShe Was Hotʼ, girl-crazy material, high on testosterone, but strictly B-level. The bigger hit was ʽIf You Want My Loveʼ, the album's only ballad where they try to invoke the Beatle muse with moderate success; I wouldn't exactly call the song «magic», but it is hard not to get infected by Zander's exuberance, and a few well-placed falsetto wooooohs never hurt anybody. Besides, it is probably the best composed song on the album — several sections, ascending-descending patterns, a mix of simple romance, desperation, and anthemic catchiness: everything a decent power ballad needs to be, even if they would very soon forget about all these ingredients.
On the other hand, the record is not entirely gaffe-free: ʽSaturday At Midnightʼ is not only a weird leftover from the disco era, but its chorus fairly openly and directly rips off ABBA's ʽSum­mer Night Cityʼ, and the tune in general is a messy oddity — when Nielsen hits you with that guitar break in the middle, it sounds like basic rock'n'roll, but the rest of the song is crude dance-pop, and rather obnoxious at that. I, for one, much prefer ʽTime Is Runnin'ʼ, with its subtle nods to Roy Orbison in the harmonies, and the pop-punk stride of ʽLove's Got A Hold On Meʼ that surround ʽSaturday At Midnightʼ on both sides — each of these songs could have made for a much better single. The last two tracks also leave something to be desired: the mantra-like "I wanna live in your body! I wanna live in your body!" at the end of ʽI Want Be Manʼ is not as bad as you could think it is (it's a song about robots who want to be people and about people who want to be robots), but the entire tune is too loud and brawny to qualify as a sci-fi parable and ends up sounding stupid; and ʽFour Letter Wordʼ (L-O-V-E, in case you're worried) ends the album on a really dumb cock-rock note with fake arena applause, «guitar hero» steroid riffs and way too much overscreaming.
Altogether, this is a weird proposition — pushing the balance so far in the direction of the rocking side that for every real good track, there's one another that teeters on the brink of self-parody. Still, as far as unreasonable disbalances go, I certainly prefer a rockier version of Cheap Trick to a poppier version of Cheap Trick, and the album does get a thumbs up: ʽSaturday At Midnightʼ, ʽFour Letter Wordʼ, and the awful dumb vocalise on ʽOo La La Laʼ aside, you can still have a light-headed fun romp through most of the other tracks.
NEXT POSITION PLEASE (1983)
1) I Can't Take It; 2) Borderline; 3) I Don't Love Here Anymore; 4) Next Position Please; 5) Younger Girls; 6) Dancing The Night Away; 7) You Talk Too Much; 8) 3-D; 9) You Say Jump; 10) Y.O.Y.O.Y; 11) Won't Take No For An Answer; 12) Heaven's Falling; 13) Invaders Of The Heart; 14) Don't Make Our Love A Crime.
Ironically, what is probably the best Cheap Trick album of the Eighties does not sound that much like Cheap Trick — courtesy of the band's third «one-guy-per-album» producer in a row, Mr. Todd Rundgren himself. Although Todd Rundgren is no stranger to heavy rock, with which he had toyed around sufficiently over the previous decade and a half, his typical preferences are for a cleaner, more polished and controlled sound; unlike George Martin, however, he had a better idea of how to make that sound actually work for Cheap Trick, rather than simply destroy them as a meaningful musical entity — and over the course of twelve songs (fourteen if you count the two extra tracks on the CD version), that idea is applied so consistently that, for the first time since Dream Police (and, unfortunately, for the last time in a long, long time, if not ever), what you get is a Cheap Trick album that is enjoyable all the way through.
This is really electric guitar pop — thick, brawny, distorted guitar tones have been removed al­most completely, with maybe two or three exceptions (like ʽ3-Dʼ), and the cock-rock flavor of One On One has been generally replaced with a more romantic attitude; however, neither Niel­sen nor Rundgren ever allow that romanticism to run over into exaggerated dramatic sentimen­tality, with nary a single power ballad to be found anywhere. And best of all, the melodic hooks are back for a while — with Rundgren stripping the band's sound down to bare essentials, refu­sing to succumb to generic synth-pop or pop-metal coatings, there's nothing to offer the listener but sheer melody, and this implies a last-minute effort from Rick, who rises to the task so admi­rably you'd almost be ready to apologize for the disparaging assessment of his remaining pool of talent on the All Shook Up disaster.
Unfortunately, they made a wrong move with their first single — instead of releasing a Nielsen original, they went ahead with a cover of The Motors' ʽDancing The Night Awayʼ, a pop-punk nugget from 1977 that they slowed down, de-punkified, and «aggrandized» so that the entire group ended up sounding like a bit of a parody on the E Street Band (as in, «I wonder how Bruce Springsteen could have covered this tune? Maybe like this?»). Not coincidentally, it was the only track on the record that Rundgren refused to produce (since it was forced on the band by the label rather than by himself), and Ian Taylor's production makes it sound closer to the sound of One On One and to the sound of their next album, Standing On The Edge, at the same time. It's not really awful — the original was so good that it would take much more than bad production to spoil it completely — but the public seems to have smelled signs of fakeness, and the single did not chart (besides, it's rarely a good idea to release originally British nuggets as potential hit singles on the US market, and vice versa).
I suppose the disappointment instinctively carried over onto the reaction to their second single, ʽI Can't Take Itʼ — which is a completely different story, a spirited, uplifting power-pop ditty with lots of jangly, Townshend-esque electric guitar and a passionate vocal build-up all the way to the last line of the chorus. Interestingly, it is one of the very few songs in the Cheap Trick catalog that is credited solely to Zander, and indeed, the song gets by largely on the strength of the pulse of the rhythm guitar and the passion of the lead vocals — and as much as I hate to admit that Cheap Trickers could sometimes write great pop songs without a trace of smarmy irony in them, ʽI Can't Take Itʼ makes for one of the strongest cases. Why the hell did it flop as a single? It even had one of their most hilarious MTV videos ever, with people sticking pins in Zander's voodoo dolls and weird zombie/vampire references all over the place. Go figure.
Once we move past the obvious general complaint — yes, the songs are generally lightweight, straightforward, not too ambiguous, not too funny, and largely relate to «classic» Cheap Trick the same way, say, that post-1972 Ray Davies records relate to the classic Kinks period — there's very little by way of specific accusations that I could fling at specific tracks, because I like most of them. Melodic-romantic power-pop à la Roy Orbison? You have this in the form of ʽBorder­lineʼ, an escapist anthem whose verve makes it perfectly credible (hey, wait a minute — is this why they are parodying the cover of Born To Run on the front sleeve photo?). Odd mixes of lushly harmonized Europop with British pub-rock? That is more or less what they do on the title track, one of the album's few returns to pure sarcasm ("I wanna be the biggest gun in the world, I wanna see the tits on every girl!" roars Zander while impersonating the average exploited slob) that cleverly drifts between cocky verses and pleading choruses. Likewise, ʽYounger Girlsʼ offers a good way of glueing a generic blues-rock verse with a singalong pop chorus, and this juncture is actually more interesting than the song's salacious lyrics — hedonistic odes to group sex with teenage females may be a trademark of the Eighties, but it is the melodic structure of the tune, not its verbal message, that has a better chance of survival into the 21st century. (Not that I'm implying that group sex with teenage females has become completely irrelevant in the 21st century, mind you, but at least people tend to use different language to describe it now).
Even the album's lonely ballad, ʽY.O.Y.O.Yʼ, is a standout in their balladry catalog of the time: the emphasis is not on the «power» aspect, but on the melodicity of the lead vocal — Zander's "why oh why oh why can't I... be in love forever?" has a beautiful drawl to it, more of a combina­tion of satisfied purring and hazy laziness than operatic bombast, and somehow all the guitars and keyboards are wisely minimalized and restrained in the background, placing 100% emphasis on the echo-tinged vocals (and yes, Zander's vocals can be beautiful when handled properly). And the album's only song that was actually written by Rundgren, ʽHeaven's Fallingʼ (and sounds not unlike pop-era Utopia), is suitably anthemic and catchy, though, again, perhaps a little too idea­listic for a band like Cheap Trick.
Anyway, I do have to keep all the gushing in check: Next Position Please is highly consistent, but this does not necessarily mean that it is consistently great — much like Todd Rundgren's entire career, it is extremely solidly written pop, but it reflects craft rather than genius, and it is not often that you can instinctively perceive that the guys are really living out these songs or having fun with them. In fact, Rundgren's production precludes them from having fun: it goes in the opposite direction from One On One, where all the wildness sometimes seemed too exagge­rated and standing in the way of a good pop hook — and now that we've got pop hooks a-plenty, I'm starting to miss some of that wildness! You could say that some people are never satisfied, yet somehow they didn't seem to have a problem harmoniously merging the two sides on four albums in a row in the previous decade. And now they have it — still a thumbs up, for sure, but once your magic wand is broken, there's only so much you can achieve with duct tape.