Cheap Trick

Certain Songs #191: Cheap Trick – “Lookin’ Out For Number One”

May 13, 2015 by Jim Connelly

Album: One on One.

Year: 1982.

The unexpected success of Cheap Trick Live at Budokan was an interesting phenomenon to watch, as it wasn’t even released here until after it sold 30,000 copies and was already getting significant radio airplay. But while it made sense to the general public as a great introduction to Cheap Trick, it has always left me cold, and I got incredibly sick of hearing Robin Zander intone “I want YOU … to want ME!” every five minutes on the radio.

Certain Songs #190: Cheap Trick – “Auf Wiedersehen”

May 12, 2015 by Jim Connelly

Album: Heaven Tonight.

Year: 1978.

One of the greatest songs about suicide ever written – along with The Replacements “The Ledge” and Big Fun’s “Teenage Suicide (Don’t Do It)” – “Auf Wiedersehen” gets across on sheer power and conviction. As big-sounding as Cheap Trick ever got, the verses are Robin Zander singing various phrases for “goodbye” and then describing the consequences of death.
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Certain Songs #189: Cheap Trick – “Surrender”

May 11, 2015 by Jim Connelly

Album: Heaven Tonight.

Year: 1978.

Here’s another one that’s difficult to write about. I loved “Surrender” unconditionally the very first time I heard it – probably on KKDJ – and have never ever gotten sick of it for even a moment all these years later. If The Jam were able to emulate the style and sound of mid-1960s Who with their early albums, then “Surrender” packs nearly everything I loved about The Who’s entire first decade – power chords, teen anthem lyrics, drum roll hooks, even the synthesizer – into a single song.

Certain Songs #188: Cheap Trick – “Southern Girls”

May 10, 2015 by Jim Connelly

Album: In Color.

Year: 1977.

Let’s talk about The Handclap Rule. The Handclap Rule – which was handed down by the gods of rock ‘n’ roll – goes like this: “Handclaps always make a good song great and a great song immortal.” And there may not be a song that invokes The Handclap Rule as well as Cheap Trick’s “Southern Girls.”

So when “Southern Girls” launched into its chorus:

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Certain Songs #187: Cheap Trick – “He’s a Whore”

May 9, 2015 by Jim Connelly

Album: Cheap Trick.

Year: 1976

I’m not a particularly big fan of Steve Albini. While he’s produced several records that I’ve loved, and came across as thoughtful – and walking it like he’s always talked it – in Sonic Highways, purists of any stripe have always been anathema to me. The world is compromise (and carnage.)

That said, there is one thing on which I would for sure agree with Mr. Albini: the awesomeness of Cheap Trick’s “He’s a Whore,” which Big Black covered relatively straight (and relatively awesomely) in the mid-1980s.

Certain Songs #48: Big Star – “In The Street”

December 15, 2014 by Jim Connelly

Album: #1 Record.
Year: 1972.

The Power Pop Influence

That beautiful, totally new and instantly familiar guitar riff plays.

R.E.M. The Posies. Cheap Trick. The Bangles.

23 Musical Moments to Die For, Part 2

October 3, 2008 by Jim Connelly

NOTE: Because of a godsdammed bug between Flash and Firefox for Windows, I’ve had to break this up into two parts in order for the players to work for those with that particular configuration. Stupid internets.

If you’re running Firefox and get stuck on “buffering,” restarting your browser should work.

Are Downloads Licensed Music or Traditional Record Sales?

June 23, 2006 by Jim Connelly

According to at least one major label, they are both!! It just depends on whether you’re an artist or a consumer . . .

I know that it’s old news that Cheap Trick and the Allman Brothers are suing Sony over download royalties: a while back, Kassia did an excellent analysis on it.

The other day, however, I came across a posting on P2Pnet.net (love that name!) that discussed this very topic. The posting had an excerpt from an article in the Internationl Herald Tribune that reminded me just how two-faced the record companies really are when it comes to this issue, and why you have to take it with a grain of salt when they say that they’re (all together now) “just trying to protect the artists” with their draconian download restrictions.

This Lawsuit Isn’t Just A Cheap Trick

April 28, 2006 by Kassia Krozser

Way back in the early eighties, a revolution happened. Giddy with the power of new technology, motion picture studios rushed to release their back catalogs on the new-fangled videocassettes (and some on laser discs, but that’s a story for another day). They knew full well that this was a foolhardy decision, but with dollar signs in their eyes, how could they resist this new revenue stream?

Why foolhardy? Because the existing agreements with talent, from a participations and residuals perspective, didn’t cover this new distribution channel. With residuals, somehow the studios won and were allowed to continue to calculate payments as a percentage of a 20% royalty calculation. As I noted earlier this week, the guilds aren’t likely to take this forever.