Introduction

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.
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 Pepper'>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?..
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.
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.

Part 6. The New School (1989-1998)

THE CARDIACS