Cheap Trick – The Doctor (1986/2015)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 40:05 minutes | 863 MB | Genre: Rock
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Epic – Legacy

If any one record sums up all the ludicrous indulgence of ‘80s record-making it’s The Doctor, Cheap Trick’s utterly botched ninth album. The band managed to navigate new wave with the assistance of Todd Rundgren, and even scored a slick AOR hit in 1985 with “Tonight It’s You,” but all their commercial instincts soured on The Doctor just as Rick Nielsen entered into a significant songwriting slump. Of the two problems, the former is the hardest to bear, as the very sound of The Doctor is egregiously unpleasant. Cluttered with cacophonic electronic drums and clanking with cheap overdriven synths, the record is cavernous and hollow, every instrument echoing endlessly in a fathomless digital stage. As sonic archaeology, this holds some interest, as it contains every bad record production idea of the mid-‘80s — it’s as garish and ugly as its record cover — but even then the relentless march is wearying, as it’s married to an exceedingly weak set of songs. Whenever Rick Nielsen and Robin Zander have a good idea — the cheerful sleaze of “Good Girls Go to Heaven (Bad Girls Go Everywhere),” the slow grind of “Take Me to The Top” — the song is bludgeoned by Tony Platt’s production, making The Doctor a memorably unpleasant album. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine

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Cheap Trick – Standing On The Edge (1985/2015)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 39:54 minutes | 858 MB | Genre: Rock
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Epic – Legacy

Standing on the Edge’s only highlight comes from the silvery-sounding “Tonight It’s You,” which peaked just outside the Top 40 at number 44 in the fall of 1985. Like 1983’s Next Position Please, Standing on the Edge finds the band without any pizzazz or rock & roll exuberance. The tracks are dull and colorless, with only the single sporting any signs of enthusiasm from any of the band’s members. Sleepers like “This Time Around,” “How About You,” and the ridiculous “Wild Wild Women” are subpar considering what Cheap Trick’s capabilities are. Both Zander and Nielsen lack the cohesion that they usually have, and the writing comes off as weak and disregarded. Although Todd Rundgren tried his hardest to get 1983’s Next Position Please off the ground, Cheap Trick opted for producer Jack Douglas this time around, whose efforts fared quite the same. It wasn’t until 1988’s Lap of Luxury that Cheap Trick was finally back on track, scoring their first number one hit with the dreamy-sounding ballad “The Flame.” ~ Mike DeGagne

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Cheap Trick – One On One (1982/2013)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 34:27 minutes | 782 MB | Genre: Rock
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Epic – Legacy

One On One is the legendary rock band’s Gold-certified classic. Cheap Trick is listed as one of VH1’s “100 Greatest Artists of Hard Rock” and have often drawn comparisons to the Beatles.One On One was a pivotal release by Cheap Trick and was an instant favorite. It features the standouts “Saturday At Midnight,” “If You Want My Love” and “She’s Tight.”

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Cheap Trick – Next Position Please – The Authorized Version (1983/2015)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 58:18 minutes | 1,23 GB | Genre: Pop
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Epic – Legacy

Cheap Trick attempted to ride the new wave on 1982’s One on One, but wound up with a wipe-out, so they recovered by hiring Todd Rundgren, one of the few ‘70s album-rockers who proved that he knew how to negotiate the treacherous waters of the early ‘80s, for 1983’s Next Position Please. Rundgren wielded a heavy hand during his production, pushing Cheap Trick toward making a record that could easily be mistaken for a Utopia record — so much so, the Todd composition, “Heaven’s Falling,” slips onto the second side without calling attention to itself. The bright surfaces with the guitars and keyboards melding so tightly with the vocal harmonies they’re inseparable, produce a sound that is uncannily reminiscent of Oops! Wrong Planet, but Rundgren also helps keep an eye on quality control, letting Robin Zander’s terrific “I Can’t Take It” open the album, coaxing the band to cover the Motors’ “Dancing the Night Away,” and editing Rick Nielsen’s best set of songs since Heaven Tonight. Next Position Please is still very much a new wave-era Cheap Trick album — this is shiny surfaces, not kicks to the gut — but it’s the best of the lot, and one of their best-ever albums. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine

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Cheap Trick – Lap Of Luxury (1988/2015)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/44,1 kHz | Time – 42:21 minutes | 484 MB | Genre: Rock
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Epic – Legacy

This was Cheap Trick’s comeback album after a commercially fallow period, and deservedly so. The songs (not all penned solely by the band, which some hardcore fans objected to) are almost uniformly smart, hooky pop rockers in the best Trick tradition.

The album yielded two hits, a clever cover of Elvis Presley’s “Don’t Be Cruel” (done somewhat in the style of Queen’s “Crazy Little Thing Called Love,”) and the power ballad “The Flame,” which holds up better than you might expect. Other highlights include the opening “Let Go,” a fantastic rocker mixing the riff from the Beatles “If I Needed Someone” with glam-rock saxophones in the chorus, and the attractively Cars-ish “Space.”

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