Tremble…Sigh…Wonder…

by James Kenney

Some bands get famous. Others become legendary in smaller, more obsessive ways. Cheap Trick falls into that second camp. Their chart history only tells part of the story. What really matters is how deeply people stick with them. They’re the rare band that figured out how to weld hard rock to pure pop melody and make genuine “power pop.”

Cheap Trick was always built on contradiction. Rick Nielsen wrote songs that were weird, bratty, sometimes even kind of dumb—and clearly meant to be. Robin Zander sang them like his life depended on it. His voice could lean McCartney one second and Lennon the next, and it never sounded like an impression or parody. It just worked. Even the band’s look played into the tension: two conventionally handsome rock guys offset by two guys who looked like they wandered in from somewhere else entirely. Cheap Trick sometimes looked like a joke. The music never was.

And, my goodness, the hooks. Whether fast and feral (“He’s a Whore,” “Surrender”) or aching and slow (“Voices,” “If You Want My Love”), Cheap Trick could land a chorus that forgave almost anything. Yes, most albums had a couple of meh tracks. Yes, Nielsen’s lyrics could be thin, goofy, or emotionally opaque. But when the band connected, the sheer melodic force spoke to rock and roll perfection anyway.

I came to them in the mid-’80s via the indelible “Tonight It’s You,” which in retrospect marks the beginning of the end of Cheap Trick: Phase One. Bassist Tom Petersson left. The albums stopped charting. Production grew nervous and overcooked. Still, even their “worst” record of that era—The Doctor—has moments of real grace (“Take Me to the Top,” “It’s Only Love”) that kept me happy through high school even when no one else was listening.

Then came the weirdest twist of all. Epic Records figured out how to sell Cheap Trick again, and they did it with what is, frankly, their worst album: Lap of Luxury. Leading with the schmaltzy, worldwide smash “The Flame,” the label forced the band (with Petersson back) to squeeze themselves into the late-’80s shape dictated by Mötley Crüe, Poison, Warrant, Richard Marx, and the rest. It worked commercially—and artistically, it sucked. The follow-up, Busted, is almost as bad but not quite; with some chart success under their belt, the band seemed to wrestled back a little control. Tracks like “Had to Make You Mine” and “Rock and Roll Tonight” sound like actual Cheap Trick again, even if the leadoff ballad “Can’t Stop Falling Into Love” somehow manages to be worse than “The Flame” while also being, paradoxically and promisingly, more of a Cheap Trick song.

When that album stiffed, Epic dropped them for good. Thank God.

With Woke Up With a Monster, produced by Ted Templeman, the band entered Phase Two, the version of Cheap Trick we’ve been living with ever since. This era has never been revelatory. The eccentric wordplay of “Surrender,” “Dream Police,” “I Want Be Man” or “Downed” is gone, replaced by a lot more “love you / me too” lyricism than I’d prefer. But there’s something quietly admirable about a band that accepts who they are and just… keeps going. A new Cheap Trick album every few years. Ten solid songs. No delusions of reinvention or keeping up with fashion. But also no burnout. They make records because they like making them and know how. It’s like they’re keeping the promise to their loyal fans. We’re in it together.

Yes, Heaven Tonight or In Color will always be the high-water marks. But when I don’t feel like playing Heaven Tonight, it’s genuinely nice to have ten or so decent new Trick tracks waiting in the wings. It’s also wild that this “late” period has now stretched on for over thirty years, with Bun E. Carlos replaced by Rick Nielsen’s kid.

Which brings us to the new album, All Washed Up.

The title alone feels like a Cheap Trick joke—self-deprecating, stubborn, a little goofy. The record opens well and then does what Cheap Trick has always done best: it kicks in. Zander still sounds like Zander. The band still sounds like it enjoys rocking, not because it has to, but because it wants to.

The songs land somewhere between very good and perfectly adequate, which, at this point, is fine. There are hard rockers. There are Beatlesque ballads. It’s all there. Who’s complaining?

No, All Washed Up isn’t going to change anyone’s mind about Cheap Trick. It’s not trying to. It’s a record by a band that knows exactly who they are, and what they do well. The melodies are there. The crunch is there. The choruses still land.

Cheap Trick were never perfect but they allowed us who wouldn’t give ourselves over to nonsense like the Crue and Bon Jovi to have our own hard rock band fronted by long-haired pretty boys who were actually smart and talented. Unlike those guys, Cheap Trick is sublime. Even now, even all washed up, they still sound like Cheap Trick.