Classic Rock Bottom

1. Hello There

2. Big Eyes

3. Downed

4. I Want You To Want Me

5. Your All Talk

6. Oh Caroline

7. Clock Strikes Ten

8. Southern Girls

9. Come On, Come On

10. So Good To See You

 

This week I'm featuring Cheap Trick's 1977 album entitled "In Color".  It's the second album released by the band and it follows the release of
"Cheap Trick" from earlier in the same year.  I feel pretty confident in
saying that Cheap Trick is probably my second favorite band.  But it
didn't start out that way.  I remember hearing CT for the first time on
the radio after "I Want You To Want Me" from the "At Budokan" album was
released.  They really got absolutely no attention before that.  So I
eventually got that album and liked it reasonably well, especially side
two.  Next came "Dream Police".  Again, I liked it, but at the time I
thought that CT was a cool band, but not spectacular.  Skip forward a
few years (to 1985) to the release of  "Standing On The Edge".  I hadn't
even thought about CT for a few
years.  I was in a hotel room on St. Simons Island in south Georgia and
MTV played the video for "Tonight It's You".  The song was so good I
went right out and bought that album and it floored me.  But again, I
lost touch with this band until about a year ago.  I started buying all
of the back catalog, including "In Color".  Since then I have come to
realize how awesome this band is. 

 

This album starts out with the great show opener "Hello There".  It's short, simple, rock and roll music.  "Big Eyes" and "Downed" continue the
rocking tunes and are excellent songs.  The biggest disappointment of
this album is the studio version of "I Want You To Want Me".  It sounds
way to honky tonk and just lacks the overall punch of the live version,
which is most definitely the definitive version.  "Your All Talk" is a
good song, but not great in my opinion.  Now you have to flip the album.

 

Side two starts out with the exceptional song called "Oh Caroline".  Robin Zander's vocals here make an already great song leap in to that
exceptional category.  It's followed up by "Clock Strikes Ten".  This is
another real rock song.  "Southern Girls" is another good song, not
great.  The final two songs, "Come On, Come On" and "So Good To See
You", are again songs that I would put in the excellent category,
especially the final track. 

 

And just like that, the album is finished.  If you are on the fence about CT, I would definitely list this as one of their five best for you to
check out.  You can find it on Amazon with 5 bonus tracks for the low,
low price of $6.99.  Or you can listen to it on the player below before
you spend your hard earned money.  It's up to you. 

 

Producer: Tom Werman

Label: Epic

 

Singles:

 

I Want You To Want Me

Southern Girls

Clock Strikes Ten (Hidden Gem)

So Good To See You  (Hidden Gem)

 

Best Album Cuts:

 

Hello There (Hidden Gem)

Big Eyes (Hidden Gem)

Downed (Hidden Gem)

Oh Caroline (Hidden Gem)

 

PS.   Most of the time if I include a song in the "Best Album Cuts" section, I consider it a hidden gem.  That's not always true because occasionally a
song will not be released as a single but will get enough airplay that
people generally recognize it, so I don't consider it "hidden". 
Also, some songs that are released as singles get no airplay, so any
given "single" can still be considered a hidden gem.

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Sorry the text is so choppy. I'm not sure why it turns out this way, but I would imagine it has something to do with the HTML coding. Again, sorry about that.
I love "In color". Like you, RJhog, my first CheapTrick-album was "At Budokan", and I bought it in the summer of '79. A few weeks later I bought "In Color", and I was amazed that the BEST songs (IMO) from "IC" were "left out" of the "AB"-album ??!! I think that the best songs on the album are "Oh Caroline", "Southern girls" and "So good to see you".

A very cool Album-cover, too.
Nice pick. A hidden gem for me has always been "You're All Talk". And the album cover...the back is just classic.
Yeah, I tried to find a pic of the back cover art, but had no luck. All of my CD cases are packed up so I couldn't scan it in. Maybe someone else can find it and post it.

That's Awesome...thanks Niels. By the way, glad to see you back. Hope your vacation was great.
I love the album as a whole, but I've always really dug that track Come On, Come On.

No comments from me on this one.  not sure how I missed it the first time, but thanks for moving this to podsnack...

 

My Thoughts....

  • Big Eyes is really good!  Love the feel of this one and the driving bass line really made me pay attention
  • I've heard the studio version of I Want You to Want Me sometime ago and my brain is so conditioned to hearing the live version that it sounds really weird!  The snare work isn't as good, but the hand claps are way cool! In other words, there are things I like about this version and things I like about the live version, cool to hear this though! 
  • Liking the tempo of the album!  Never really noticed some of the bass work before, but it really stands out here
  • Wow!  A grandfather clock riff, and it worked!!
  • I totally get the Beatles comparisons of the time.  Didn't Lennon himself call them his favorite new band when they came out?  Or something like that....
  • Cant think of any track I didn't care for...

 

I like this, where the heck have I been!!  (Don't answer that!)

IWYTWM is definitely one of those tracks where the live version rules over the studio version.  The studio version is a bit honky-tonked up.

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