Vinyl Tap: Cheap Trick - Heaven Tonight
Published August 15, 2006
I get a new turntable and dust off some old records. Vinyl Tap #23:
If Cheap Trick’s assaultively exuberant Rockford from earlier this year is rightly considered a return to feisty form with its successful recapturing of the group’s late ‘70s gritty and giddy heyday, it’s worth a wayback-machine revisit to the power-pop pinnacle of that era, 1978’s classic Heaven Tonight.
So surrender, surrender – your post Dream Police heavy-handed-osity and insipid power ballad bombast have no powers here.
Actually, the triple-treat opening songs on Heaven Tonight, a trifecta of infectiousness replete with nooks and crannies of seemingly effortless hooks and handily executed songwriting craft leave you no choice but to acquiesce. “Surrender,” “On Top Of The World,” and “California Man” coalesce into swooning Beatle-esque duck-and-cover calls-and-response between lead singer Robin Zander, the backing vocals, and the solid guitar onslaughts and embellishments from the Huntz Hall of rock ‘n’ roll, Rick Nielsen.
Cheap Trick displays not only a deft canniness in covering “California Man” by the under-appreciated '60s U.K. band the Move – the immovable anti-Invasion group having resisted the force to tour America – they are playful enough to tuck in a couple sluggish riffs from the heavy metal-ish sludge-pit Brit hit “Brontosaurus” before moving on a couple songs later to the hard-edged blitzkrieg pop of “Auf Wiedersehen.”
Things verge on the menacing in the turgid and churning title song with its cautionary admonition that “you can never come down.” But close on the heels of this unsettling word to the unwise is the sassy smack of jagged effrontery of “Stiff Competition” in which – even though it’s a world where “I screw you, you screw me, they screw us” – we “have so much fun, so much fun / When we’re together.” Further along the pendulum swing is the almost toe-tappingly jaunty musical question “How Are You?”
To which tuning into the tuneful “On The Radio” may provide an answer. This marvelous bite of ear-candy – which fades out in ragged Small Faces-style glory with the not-so-dulcet tones of the Real Don Steele urging you to “go with it, go for it, go nuts, go completely wild!” – is not only a salute to “All of the rock ‘n roll DJs” who “play the songs that make you and me feel so good.” It also offers a little solace with each palliative pop pulsation that soothes with just the asking: “Hey, mister on the radio / Please play my favorite song / The one where she didn’t go away.”
An entreaty that could be as easily made to Cheap Trick, with similarly obliging and heartening consequences for a sublime slice of pop-rock heaven tonight.
Gordon Hauptfleisch, alias Neanderthal Hawthorne, is a Blogcritics Books Editor, free lance writer, and book reviewer for the San Diego Union Tribune. He's also an enigmatic visionary of unfathomable secrets and many a guise, or at least he plays one in his delusions of grandeur. His mandate also includes weird bugs.
In a previous life he was a leprous horse thief. 
- Vinyl Tap: Cheap Trick - Heaven Tonight
- Published: August 15, 2006
- Type: Review
- Section: Music
- Filed Under: Music: Pop, Music: Classic Rock and Oldies, Music: Rock
- Part of a feature: Vinyl Tap
- Writer: Gordon Hauptfleisch
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Mr. Saleski!!! Wazzup wi' dat?!?! You absolutely MUST get the CD reissues with the bonus track - ESPECIALLY THE FIRST ALBUM - possibly the most underrated debut album ever!!! Punk / pop / hard rock & art rock all merged into one at a crossroads in rock music history.
i know. crazy isn't it? a loooong time ago i started (like just about everybody) with the original Live at Buddokan.
i've been happy with the first box set (Sex, American, Cheap Trick) but have never gotten around to the first three.
i'll get 'em, honest!
Mark--couldn't say it better than Vern. In addition, In Color and Heaven Tonight are also worth it for the bipolar cover photos of the quintessential golden rock gods--Zander and Petersson, front and center--with Bowery Boyish Nielsen and Bun E. Carlos, who looks like an accountant, relegated to the back of the cover.
I'm ashamed of anyone who hasn't or doesn't own the first three CT albums! Shame on you! Honestly, what kind of rocker are you to have missed these?
Gordon already heard most of my schoolgirlish squeals of delight over discovering CT in his music collection. I'll just leave it at that for now.
This AM I got up early an played the CD reissues of Dream Police & All Shook Up. All Shook Up is a perpetually misunderstood album - I ignored it at the time because all the critics said it was terribly overproduced, but in retrospect, it's not much different than its predecessors. I think manybe people were waiting for them to slip up, and decided this was their time.
All Shook Up also has the single from the Roadie soundtrack and the 4 song EP Found All the Parts. Aw, heck, just go out and buy Dream Police & All Shook Up as well as the first three. And the Complete Budokan.
Vern--you got me all shook up about All Shook Up enough to seek it out. So Cheap Trick's sophomore backlash didn't happen until their fifth release?
Actually, it started just a bit with Dream Police - and again, I dunno why - it's a decent album. But to this day the critics say it's a step down from Heaven Tonight - I say not, myself.
The "HOLY TRINITY" CT '77, In Color And In Black & White, Heaven Tonight....All three of these were made from 1977 to 1978 YES folks 1 year!!
Rick Nielsen said during this time EPIC Records was "printin' them as fast as we could make them!"
Cheap Trick
Cheap Trick
Cheap Trick
Cheap Trick
yea, i love Dream Police. never could figure out why it was supposed to be a step down.
TT64-good point. Being prolific and consistent were other trademark CT traits. Indeed, it was hard to pick which album to feature.
Mark--maybe the monster hit Live at Budokon, which preceded Dream Police, was Cheap Trick's "Frampton Comes Alive": any follow-up, no matter how good, was destined to trigger backlash. Of course, Dream Police was much better than Frampton's "I'm in You," bit still...
never thought about it that way gordon, but you're probably right.
uh...did you have to bring up "I'm In You"? ick.
;-)
come to think of it, I do have the title song stuck in my head now ("I'm in you, you're in me, blah,blah, whatever, whatever...") hopefully for not too long.
And somebody better not mention "Sometimes When We Touch, the honesty's too much..."
Uh, oh...
I remember Creem magazine ran the best headline for a review when the Frampton album came out - it read:
"Peter Frampton - I'm In You
QUICK - CALL THE EXORCIST!"
that's it gordon, you're going to hell for that one.
I didn't realize that Ann and Nancy Wilson were in Cheap Trick. What's the deal with Ann's hair?
Vern--jocularity!
Mark--don't worry, it'll be out of your head within a few days.
Duane--now that you mention it... I'll never look at Cheap Trick in quite the same way again...
I guess that's why I always preferred the decidedly un-glam back covers on In Color and Heaven Tonight
Awww...... be nice to the Wilson girls. I saw Heart on one of their first tours - they were the opening act. We had never heard of them - me & my friends were saying to each other, "Heart? What kind of a sissy name is that for a rock band?" Then when they came out, we said, "Chicks? Gawd, this is gonna be SOOOOOOO wimpy!"
Then they opened with "Barracuda" and kicked our asses for an hour.
For me it was the first five...everything up to Dream Police. Then it was like CT sorta shot their wad and it was all downhill from there. In Color is the best of the lot in my opinion with Heaven Tonight coming in close behind. The songs "Downed" from In Color and "High Roller" from Heaven Tonight are right up there with The Raspberries "Go All The Way" as power pop masterpieces.
-Glen
The Raspberries! Thanks, Glen, for the timely reminder--now there's a great but mostly overlooked band that had more gems than "Go All the Way." "I Don't Know What I Want (But I Want it Now)" is particularly a frenetic burst of power over pop.
Don't forget (I've mentioned this in BC threads before) their self titled Red Ant records release from the late 90's is an undiscovered gem - right up there with the classics. And this new album is suppsoed to be great, too.
Vern--"Rockford," the new Cheap Trick, is indeed beyond good--it is great, verging on essential. It's on constant rotation with the new New York Dolls on my CD player
Omygawd - the Dolls album is good too? Where'm I gonna find the $$$ to buy all this stuff?
I actually just dug out the last CT from the library (Special One?) - can't remember it's name because I couldn't listen to it. But yes, all reports say Rockford kicks major butt - I'll have to put away the home recording unit and spend sometime tracking down and listening to some of the new items, as well as some interesting recent reissues.
Thanx Mr. H for the heads up!
vern is right, that self-titled cd is fantastic (the one with all of the guitars on the cover). ditto on Rockford.
Whoooopeee! My copy of Rockford came in the mail yesterday - it's very, very good, and as was said, their best album in years.
But - I also got a copy of the last Steve Wynn album - tick tick tick - holy smoke! This is also the best thing he's done in years, and he's got a hot band to support him. Really - YOU GOTTA HEAR THIS ALBUM.
i would like to report that this very tuesday, while trolling for new releases (ok, Metheny/Mehldau), i also picked up the first three Cheap Trick cds.
fantastic stuff.
Excellent choices - you are a connaisieur, sir (even if my spelling en Francais is poor).
I was just listening to the original version of "I want you to want me" tonight - how would history have been changed if this version had come out as the single!
I was listening again to Rockford last night,and wondering if any of the songs were getting any radio airplay--I haven't heard any yet>
Not in this neck of the woods.
Vern: Just out of curiosity, if you don't mind--what neck/woods would that be?
Hmmm... I can;t really say on a public blog - and the reason is kinda funny, really. Email me at the most obvious addy & I'll tell you, if you're still curious.
That's cool, Vern. I usually operate on a "needs to know" basis (when my ever-changing moods don't dictate a don't know/don't care mode), and I don't need to know--just acting on impulse rather than curiosity (rooted, oddly enough, in an interest in geography more than anything else).
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i must hang my head in shame when i say that i do not own the first three Cheap Trick records.