my power pop addiction, no. 123 (195)

With Cheap Trick you've gotta take the bad with the good. The bad, in my opinion, is that they've always been kind of a bar band with arena rock aspirations, which often results in music that's a bit too meat headed for my genteel sensibilities. They are widely viewed as one of the great American power pop bands, but even on their first few albums the material already crosses over from pop into rock with the subtlety of a jackhammer. Also, the lyrics to a handful of songs from their classic period - tunes like Elo Kiddies and Taxman Mr. Thief, for example - reveal a shallowness of spirit that I find to be a distasteful harbinger of the Reagan era's ethos of greed and narrowly defined self-interest. There's no question in my mind that Cheap Trick were mostly in it for the money, and while there's nothing wrong with that, why not just go work at a bank if your motivation is 90 percent mercenary? On the good side, even when the songs are more hard rocking than what I would prefer, there's no denying Cheap Trick's excellent feel for melodies and hooks. And while it's fairly obvious that they yearn above all else to be well heeled rock stars, there is a power pop band hidden beneath the bloat and unseemly ambition. Another thing is that drummer Bun E. Carlos strikes me as one of the most iconic figures in rock 'n roll. In fact, the juxtaposition between the two dream boats in the band and the two guys who look like they'd be more at home doing your taxes is pretty damn hilarious...