Cheap Trick

Cheap Trick-At Budokan-24-44-WEB-FLAC-REMASTERED-2002-OBZEN
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/44,1 kHz | Time – 00:42:19 minutes | 482 MB | Genre: Rock
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover

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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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Cheap Trick – In Color (1977/2015)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/44,1 kHz | Time – 31:55 minutes | 358 MB | Genre: Rock
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Epic – Legacy

„Though Cheap Trick’s second album, In Color, draws from the same stockpile of Midwestern barroom favorites as their debut album, it was produced by Tom Werman, who had the band strip away their raw attack and replace it with a shiny, radio-ready sound. Consequently, In Color doesn’t have the visceral attack of its predecessor, but it still has the same sensibility and a similar set of spectacular songs. From the druggy psychedelia of “Downed” and the bubblegum singalong “I Want You to Want Me” to the “California Girls” homage of “Southern Girls,” the album has the same encyclopedic knowledge of rock & roll, as well as the good sense to subvert it with a perverse sense of humor. Portions of the album haven’t dated well, simply due to the glossy production, but the songs and music on In Color are as splendid as the band’s debut.“ (Stephen Thomas Erlewine, AMG)

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Cheap Trick – In Another World (2021)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/44,1 kHz | Time – 45:27 minutes | 589 MB | Genre: Rock
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © BMG Rights Management (UK) Ltd

In Another World is the upcoming twentieth studio album by American rock band Cheap Trick, due to be released on April 9, 2021.

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Cheap Trick – Heaven Tonight (1978/2015)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/44,1 kHz | Time – 43:45 minutes | 495 MB | Genre: Rock
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Epic – Legacy

Heaven Tonight is rock group Cheap Trick’s third studio album. Critics and fans agree the 1978 release is one of the band’s best albums, the main reason being that the group was able create a perfect mix of pop and rock. Heaven Tonight features singles “Surrender”, “High Roller” and “Heaven Tonight”.

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Cheap Trick – Dream Police (1979/2015)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/44,1 kHz | Time – 45:55 minutes | 517 MB | Genre: Rock
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Epic

Although Cheap Trick’s fourth studio album, „Dream Police“, was ready for release at the beginning of 1979, it was delayed for nearly a year due to the surprise success of their hit single “I Want You To Want Me” and album „At Budokan“. When it did finally come out in September, it became the band’s biggest studio album, peaking at #6 on the charts and going platinum.

There are more than a few Trick classics included on „Dream Police“. The fiercely rocking title track (one of the band’s most renowned compositions), “Way of the World,” and two epics–the nearly ten-minute-long “Gonna Raise Hell” and a seven-and-a-half- minute rendition of “Need Your Love” (originally released as a live version on „At Budokan“) are all standouts. You’ll also find a forgotten ballad, “Voices,” which almost cracked the top 30.

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Cheap Trick – Cheap Trick (1977/2015)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/44,1 kHz | Time – 40:02 minutes | 446 MB | Genre: Rock
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Epic – Legacy

Cheap Trick’s self-titled debut is a ’70s rock masterpiece. Although it doesn’t contain many renowned songs, it does have superbly underrated compositions and electric performances, and a dark undercurrent is encountered throughout. The melodic hard rock has pop leanings at times, but the album was wisely recorded raw (by Aerosmith producer Jack Douglas), and such disturbing topics as pedophilia, serial murderers, suicide and prostitution are touched upon.

‘ELO Kiddies’ starts the album off on an anthemic note (the track would be used steadily in concert to get the crowd going), while ‘Hot Love’ and ‘He’s A Whore’ showed that the band could easily hold their own with the punk rock crowd. ‘Mandocello’ is an absolutely gorgeous acoustic ballad that had hit single written all over it, while ‘Daddy Should Have Stayed In High School,’ ‘The Ballad of TV Violence’ and ‘Speak Now’ are all hard-rocking highlights. Many rightly consider CHEAP TRICK to be the band’s finest album (Cheap Trick released a totally different self-titled album in 1997, which should not be confused with this 1977 debut of the same name).

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Cheap Trick – Busted (1990/2015)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/44,1 kHz | Time – 46:50 minutes | 556 MB | Genre: Rock
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Epic – Legacy

„Surely, Cheap Trick didn’t intend for the title of Busted, their 1990 sequel to their surprise 1988 commercial comeback Lap of Luxury, to be as prophetic as that of its predecessor, but this vacant, radio-ready rocker finds the group at an unquestionable nadir. It’s not just the sound – although the shimmering skyscraper production admittedly does the group no favors, neutering Roy Wood’s “Rock N Roll Tonight,” turning its swing into a stiff martial march – it’s the paucity of material that is so dispiriting, the group either turning in pastiches of their trademarks or surrendering completely to the whims of studio hacks, whose tunefulness eclipses that of Nielsen and Zander, this time around. Like The Doctor before it – the only album to rival this as the band’s worst – Busted captures every bad sonic hallmark of its year; it’s as cavernous as that 1986 disaster, thanks in large part to the gargantuan rhythm section, but at least it’s warmer and less reliant on cold synths than that garish misfire, which does make it an easier listen. Even so, the pounding arena rock of Busted remains a bumpy ride because the hollow sound only magnifies the hollowness of the band’s songs.“ (Stephen Thomas Erlewine, AMG)

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Cheap Trick – At Budokan (Live) (1979/2015)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/44,1 kHz | Time – 42:19 minutes | 487 MB | Genre: Rock
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Epic

While their records were entertaining and full of skillful pop, it wasn’t until At Budokan that Cheap Trick’s vision truly gelled. Many of these songs, like “I Want You to Want Me” and “Big Eyes,” were pleasant in their original form, but seemed more like sketches compared to the roaring versions on this album. With their ear-shatteringly loud guitars and sweet melodies, Cheap Trick unwittingly paved the way for much of the hard rock of the next decade, as well as a surprising amount of alternative rock of the 1990s, and it was At Budokan that captured the band in all of its power. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine

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Cheap Trick – All Shook Up (1980/2015)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 34:15 minutes | 745 MB | Genre: Rock
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Epic – Legacy

All Shook Up is a 1980 album by Cheap Trick. It was their fifth studio album and sixth release overall. It was produced by former Beatles producer George Martin. As such, this was the first album since their debut to be produced by someone other than Tom Werman.

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