Cheap Trick “In Color…”

“and in Black and White” (also 1977) They made a mistake– the cute guys on the Harleys should have been in black and white and the nerdy guys on the mopeds in color. It’s PAINFUL to look at BOTH the cute guys being cute AND the nerdy guys being nerdy, which is interesting. It’s just painful. And it’s even MORE painful to look at the album fold-out where they are ALL trying to be cute.

I remember reading an article about these guys where they had stories about each being from some exotic locale, when in fact they were all from the asshole of the Midwest, northern Illinois. You can actually listen to this album, except for “I want you to want me”– which makes me glad I used my “At Bukokan” for skeet shooting. “Downed” holds up pretty well.

Cheap Trick

The fact that they named their band “Cheap Trick” leads you to believe that they were well aware that the gimmick of the two cute guys and two nerdy guys is fresh for about 45 minutes– or one album, if you’re lucky. That they kept it up after this record (from 1977) is a good illustration that there is no greater curse than success. But then, they are playing this New Year’s in Hawaii, while I’ll be scraping puke out of toilet stalls at the Sizzler in Cudahy, so I guess the joke’s on me.

I can’t listen to much of this anymore, but I still like “He’s a Whore” and “Taxman” (not the Beatles’ Taxman, this one’s better). There is a side “A” and a side “1”– I bet they were the only band to use THAT joke. Which is lost on a CD release, as of course is the charm of the two sides of albums. I don’t need to go on about THAT.

The Cars

This is the first Cars album from 1978. It sounded fresh then, and parts of it still sound interesting, but there is something about this record that bothers me. I don’t know what it is– I can’t put my finger on it. It’s like they knew too much exactly what they were doing. There is no element of chance.