Cheap Trick is Energized with Dream Police

Cheap Trick has been around for a long time--even though the band was formed in the seventies in the American midwest, you can hear a lot of British influences in their music, particularly in the vocal inflections of Robin Zander. Cheap Trick has been classified as a "power pop" band, and I would tend to agree with that assessment, with one caveat--Cheap Trick is a big "power pop" band, exploiting a huge guitar sound and a tendency to jam just a bit to make their brand of music a little more distinctive than the rest of the field. When I listen to Cheap Trick, I hear hints of The Beatles, Badfinger, The Who, Jeff Beck, and any number of influential British musicians.

Dream Police is some of Cheap Trick's earliest work--released in 1979, this album is a nine-track set of music that doesn't fit any concept. It's just a good, compact offering of the style of music that Cheap Trick excelled at performing. The band had just come off of their legendary Budokan concert, and as a result Dream Police has the feel of a new direction, but to me it's just an expansion of the rock 'n roll staples that have come to make Cheap Trick one of the most enduring acts in the business.

The members of Cheap Trick are:

Robin Zander, vocals and rhythm guitar
Tom Peterson, bass, 8 and 12 string bass, vocals
Rick Nielsen, guitars, mandocello, vocals
Bun E. Carlos, drums and percussion

My Take On The Music

Dream Police is the title track, featuring Rick Nielsen's big guitar against a synthesizer backdrop, along with Robin Zander's best Roger Daltrey impersonation. Way Of The World is an upbeat rocker with a driving beat accompanied by some fantastic harmonies, while The House Is Rockin' (With Domestic Problems) offers a wry and somewhat humorous look at relationship problems in a rock 'n roll context. Gonna Raise Hell smells faintly like a tame stab at AC/DC, and it works pretty well as a jam exercise with bluesy overtones, but at over nine minutes, it jams a bit too long. I'll Be With You Tonight has a lot of energy that reminds me of the Budokan set--the urgency that's the theme of the song is adequately expressed, both vocally and musically.

Voices is decidely Beatlesque, with it's acapella vocal introduction and sweet high harmonies, while Writing On The Wall is electrifying with a screaming guitar intro and an almost thrash tempo. I Know What I Want contrasts power chords with restraint to make a solid musical statement--the "quiet" verses become much more relevant when compared to the big sound of the choruses. Need Your Love has a murky guitar intro that eventually resolves into some semblence of structure, but over seven minutes of languid music sort of takes the energy out what Cheap Trick has set up in the previous tracks--I think this song should have been in the middle of the album instead of at the end. It doesn't kill the album, but it does deflate it just a bit.

Dream Police is a good album--I don't listen to it as often as I do something like the Budokan set, but it has that good Cheap Trick energy that's so appealing. I just wish they'd reprogram the album to move the last track to the middle and close the album with, say, I'll Be With You Tonight.

Thanks for reading.