Tag: Standing on the Edge

Cheap Trick – ‘The Complete Epic Albums Collection’ (2022) – Box Set (The Cheap Trick Collection Series)

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Back in 2013, Legacy, Epic Records and Sony released a CD box set that contained all albums in Epic Records from the band’s debut album all the way up to 1990’s album ‘Busted’. In 2022, the box set was reissued on Music on CD, Legacy, Epic & Sony and that is the box I have in my collection. You get 14 CDs in all including the full Budokan show on 2 CDs along with the E.P. ‘Found all the Parts’ that was only available on Vinyl and cassette until 2003 when there was a Japanese release on CD.

The albums from the debut up to ‘All Shook Up’ were original remastered and reissued back in 1998 with bonus tracks and that is what we have here with those albums. If what I am reading is correct, the remaining albums were remastered for this box set but there is a debate on whether or not that is true as the sound quality isn’t as great as the earlier albums. For me, it doesn’t bother me one way or the other as I’m not going to sit and listen to all 14 discs in a row where I would notice and differences. I am just happy to have all the albums on CD as I had them all on vinyl, so I needed the CDs.

For those of you that need to know this, Cheap Trick is from Rockford, Illinois and consists of Robin Zander on Vocals, Rick Nielsen on guitar, Bun E. Carlos on drums and there are two different people on bass. First is Tom Petersson from Discs 1 – 8 and then back again on 13-14 while Jon Brant is on Discs 9-12 as Tom left for a spell and thankfully returned. They have been labeled as the American Beatles which is high praise especially considering the band was heavily influenced by The Beatles.

The first half of their catalog is amazingly strong and they have one of the best live albums of all time with ‘At Budokan’. The last half of their catalog is a little weak at times, but still some great classics on each album. The band is still going strong today and still frequently releasing quality material that any band would be proud to call their own. They have not rested on their past and always strive to be better. This is a large taste of the band if you aren’t familiar and unless you buy the Vinyl, this CD set is pretty reasonable as I picked it up for around $45. Not bad for 14 CDs. Let’s take a look.

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Cheap Trick – The Best & Worst Song from Every Album

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Last month, I did a post on the Best & Worst songs from every Judas Priest album. I really enjoyed doing that so I thought I would continue that process and this time we would go through every Cheap Trick album and see what is the best song and the worst one off each album as well. Cheap Trick has 20 studio albums to go through so sit back and take it all in. Now, let’s preface this with the fact that these are my choices and not necessarily yours as we can have different opinions. If you watched the show you will see that sometimes my worst song was their favorite so you never know what people like and we all like different things or this would be a very dull world. I hope you enjoy!!

CHEAP TRICK (1977)

BEST SONG – “ELO KIDDIES”: The song is telling kids to fuck school and go out and be nuts. It is a blast of a track with a catchy ass chorus and a Rick Riff that is memorable and you’re able to singalong and that is a good riff if you can do that. What teenage kid doesn’t think that school is a waste, but only Cheap Trick has the balls to tell you it’s true. This to me is a pure punk attitude.

WORST SONG – “MANDOCELLO”: The song sucks the energy right out of the album. With a heavy bass line and and slowed down tempo, the song drags along while Robin’s angelic singing style doesn’t actually breathe any life in to the song. The chorus though feels like the Beatles with the harmonies and is almost a saving grace but not quite.

IN COLOR (1977)

BEST SONG – “SOUTHERN GIRLS”: This album is perfect and so hard to pick a favorite or a worst for that matter as there isn’t any. But I had to pick a favorite and this was my choice. Now, this isn’t about “Southern” girls from the deep South in the U.S. Nope! This is Canadian Southern Girls. Didn’t know there was any such thing. The beat is perfect for hand clapping as it bounces along and feels you with joy. It is pure pop fun with a little gritty guitar work thrown in for good measure along with some playful piano fills.

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Cheap Trick – The Albums Ranked Worst to First (The Cheap Trick Collection Series)

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Welcome to the final post in the Cheap Trick Collection Series. We are going to rank all 20 of their studio albums from their worst to their absolute best. I am sure there will be some disagreement, but these are my choices and not necessarily yours so it is okay to disagree. I have spent the last 9/10 months going through every piece of Cheap Trick music in my collection and that gave us 37 posts so my choices are well documented and please check them all out if you have time.

We started back in 1977 with their debut and finished with their latest studio album, 2021’s ‘In Another World’. We didn’t hit everything in between because I missed a few live albums and a ton of greatest hits compilations, but it was still a pretty immersive catalog to go through. Cheap Trick’s core group was always Robin Zander, Rick Nielsen, Tom Petersson and Bun E. Carlos with changes here and there, but those are the original guys we all know and love.

Their Beatles influences, pop-punk style was all their own. You heard a Cheap Trick song, you basically knew it was a Cheap Trick song. Robin Zander’s vocals have never aged a bit and at times sounds even better today than 45 years ago. Rick’s crazy guitars weren’t to make up for the fact he can’t play because he sure as hell can as he filled every album with some great solos and killer riffs. Tom Petersson’s bassline was the driving force behind the rhythm section and with Bun E Carlos on drums, that rhythm section was pretty freakin’ tight. These four guys could produce a lot of sound and gave us a lot of great music. Let’s celebrate now with the Ranking from Worst to First!!

THE WORST – ‘THE DOCTOR’ (1986):

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Cheap Trick – “Tonight It’s You” (1985) – 7″ Single (The Cheap Trick Collection Series – Bonus Edition)

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The Cheap Trick Collection Series is about all things in my collection that are Cheap Trick related and this time around we are looking at a 7″ Single I picked up over the past year. The single is for the song “Tonight It’s You” off their album ‘Standing on the Edge which we reviewed last week. The song was the only single off the album and sadly, it didn’t break the Top 40, stalling out at #44. The song was written by Rick Nielsen, Robin Zander, Jon Brant and the song doctor Mark Radice who we talked about during the album review.

The Single is an edited and re-mixed version of the album cutting off over a minute of run time. The album version sits at around 4:47 and the Single edit is at 3:10. Basically they cut off a lot of the end that is repetitive as well as tightening it up to fit the short attention spans of the radio listener. The B-Side is off the same album and is the final song called “Wild Wild Women”.

My version is the standard U.S. Single, nothing special. I do love the cover and how it is the album cover but using the orange tint. Not original, but still looks good.

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Cheap Trick – ‘Standing on the Edge’ (1985) – Album Review (The Cheap Trick Collection Series)

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I can’t believe we are already on the band’s 8th studio album. We are slap dab in the middle of the 80’s and Cheap Trick were still going, but I wouldn’t say they were still going strong. I say that because for this album, the band did something that hand’t done much of prior. They had a song doctor come in and help with the songwriting process. This was becoming very common back in the day. The song doctor was Mark Radice and he has 8 co-writes on the album which I feel is a little disappointing. Has the band lost its edge?

The line-up was consistent as we still have Robin Zander, Rick Nielsen, Bun E. Carlos and Jon Brant who is the newest member and he has some writing credits on this album as well. That part I like as it is great to see him now contributing to the creative aspect of the band. The band brought back a familiar face to produce the album, Jack Douglas. If you follow this site at all recently that name will sound familiar as not only has he produced prior Cheap Trick albums, he has also produced many of Aerosmith’s best albums which we have reviewed in the Aerosmith Collection Series we are also doing here at 2 Loud 2 Old. Big connection between the bands.

The band worked on the album during 1984 and 1985 and it finally saw its release on July 19, 1985. The album ended up not sounding like the album intended by Jack Douglas because he was unable to mix the album. Due to some legal complications he was having with another artist (Yoko Ono), he couldn’t mix it so Tony Platt was brought in. Tony didn’t have Jack’s vision of a harder, rawer sounding album, but instead went with the sound of the 80’s and added some keyboards and drum machines much to the dislike of Bun E. As a result, I think we get an album that doesn’t have the edge, the pizazz that we needed from Cheap Trick. The band ended up only releasing one single off the album and it didn’t even crack the Top 40. Cheap Trick were starting to be forgotten.

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