Classic Rock Bottom

ALBUM OF THE WEEK # 117 CHEAP TRICK - STANDING ON THE EDGE (1985)

Artist: Cheap Trick

Genre: Rock/Power Pop

Country Of Origin: United States

Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame Member: No

Album: Standing On The Edge

Released: October 1985

Producer: Jack Douglas

Singles: Tonight It's You/Little Sister/How About You

Song Of The Week: Standing On The Edge

RIAA Certification: Bismium

Album Cover: 9/10

This week we cover another of my favorite albums.  From 1985, it's Cheap Trick's Standing On The Edge.  This is my favorite Cheap Trick album.  It scorched the charts, reaching all the way up to the 35th spot on the Billboard Hot 100.  Tonight It's You broke the Top 50, but not the Top 40.  Basically, I think it sold about 125 copies, with at least two of those being purchased by me.  

Two things stand out about this album to me.  First, it's good as hell.  There are no bad tracks and Little Sister and Standing On The Edge are two of the band's best songs.  I also totally dig the ballad Love Comes.  The vocal performance on that track by Robin Zander is incredible.  

The second thing that stands out is how I discovered the album.  The only previous CT material that I personally owned was Live At Budokan.  But I did like the band.  So I'm in a hotel room in St. Simons Island, Ga at some point in 1985 (on a job assignment at the time) and instead of being out raising hell and gettin' drunk, I was in the room watching freakin' MTV.  The video for Tonight It's You comes on the TV.  I wasn't really paying attention, but the song grabbed me.  I had no idea who it was, so I actually watched the rest of the video, figuring out along the way that it was Cheap Trick.  I went out the first chance I got and picked up the album (I think it was the CD).  I've loved it since then and nothing has been able to unseat it at the top of the RJhog throne of CT albums.  

You can pick it up relatively easy now, but Wikipedia says the original CD pressing is somewhat of a collectors item because it was out of print for a long time.  So keep your eyes open.  

Next Week:  A totally different and unexpected direction for me.

1. Little Sister

2. Tonight It's You

3. She's Got Motion

4. Love Comes 

5. How About You

6. Standing On The Edge

7. This Time Around

8. Rock All Night

9. Cover Girl

10. Wild Wild Women

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1979 is the "Cheap Trick-year" for me: It was the year I discovered, that the band existed, and the summer, that I bought "At Budokan" and "In Color...". Later that year I bought the "new" album "Dream Police", and a few months in to 1980 I got the debut-album and "Heaven Tonight". Those albums are definitely Cheap Trick's best albums, if you ask me. I bought the other CT-albums released in the beginning of the 80's, and they were really good (Though, I don't really care for NPP). 

"Standing On The Edge" was probably were it went wrong for me. The title-track is in my personal top-5 over CT-songs, but it's the only track that really stands out. I like "Little Sister", "Tonight It's You" and "This Time Around", but they are just okay in my book. They don't sound like CLASSIC Cheap Trick to me. They sound like CT would sound from here and maybe the rest of their career.

I know, most of you, or all of you disagree, but that's how I hear it, and as I've said before, that last really good CT-track is from "Lap Of Luxury", the track called "All We Need Is A Dream" and that's in my opinion. You don't have to tell me, that this or that track is also awesome, because I HAVE heard all the tracks, and I stand by my opinion.

But the title-track to this album is probably the best song from 1985. It brings back good memories from that year.

Oh, and I remember as well, how I got this album: I had a gift-certificate for an album and it was my intention to buy an album with Rick Springfield, but when I got to the record-store, I saw this brand-new CT-album, that I had no idea would exist (remember those days, where you sometimes got surprised, that one of your favorite bands had released an album, you didn't know of?). I never did buy a Rick Springfield-album. Was that my loss?

If the album was Tao, you should've bought both of 'em.

This is the last good Cheap Trick album until "Woke Up With A Monster" which came out 9 years later. Absolutely love this album, so much so that I bought an expensive Japanese import of it years ago. I have the followup, "The Doctor" in my listening queue next week, and when I originally heard it years ago, thought that album sucked. The next two truly sucked so for all intents and purposes, we'll say this is the last good Cheap Trick album from the 80's.

I'll be quick.

Standing on the Edge is a perfect album. I love the album. It was my first Cheap Trick album and remains my all-time favorite.

Ive been waiting for something to really get me into Cheap Trick.  On Vinyl I own Heaven Tonight, Dream Police, Lap Of Luxury, and a mini vinyl EP called Found All The Parts, yet all that only managed to translate to 1 Greatest Hits CD.  Why?  Because I really like a few songs and the deeper cuts have never grabbed by attention.

One of the songs I really love is "Tonight Its You" and Ive heard this album before (cant remember who played it for me) but I didn't end up with it in my collection, I'm interested in finding out why with this listen.

Pretty much like what I'm hearing, She's Got Motion really sounds dated but they seemed to pull it off, and Love Comes did nothing to gran my attention but here again they pull off a nice track out of what seemed to be a simple nothin-to-it tune.  Lots of 80's keyboards to be heard in parts of songs, and not a lot of geetar soloing going on !  Whats up with that?

The album ends with a really cool riff and some geetars!  YES!  The only misstep on the album is Rock All Nite - no one needed another Pour Some Sugar On Me knock off, but the era demanded it! and everyone tried.  Problem still remains for me though, outside of Tonight Its You and Wild Wild Women there is nothing that grabs me, its really good and that's the good news, but its also the bad news, it never gets better than really good.

Pour Some Sugar is actually a Rock All Nite knockoff...this album preceded Hysteria by 2 years.  Dang it Def Leppard!

Uhm, "Pour Some Sugar On Me" is from 1987. This album is from 1985.

I remember in the review of SOTE in Kerrang!, that "Rock All Night" was compared to "Rock Of Ages". What a wierd thing, to remember

OK, then I meant Rock of Ages... Stylistically you guys know what I mean.

I knew, I was just givin' you a hard time.

I deserve it! 

Yeah, but notice something about the geetar in Rock All Night, he pays tribute to someone....

You KNEW, he meant "Rock Of Ages"? Wow, coooooool!!!

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