Sat Eye Candy: Cheap Trick

MAMMY’S ALRIGHT, DADDY’S ALRIGHT, THEY JUST SEEM A LITTLE WEIRD

Happy 57th birthday to Mr. Robin Zander, the platinum voice of Cheap Trick for the past 38 years! Considered by many to be one of the finest rock singers of all-time, Zander can be candy sweet or sandpaper raw, often in the space of a few bars. A bold voice that’s also catnip to comely groupies, Zander is hard enough for boys AND girls, and he’s backed by one of the tightest, no bullshit units ever. “Just plain ol’ good rock ‘n’ roll” seems like too small a compliment but when you’ve been knocking the stuff out for close to four decades it carries a bit more weight. For establishing the Dream Police, making young men fantasize about Budokan, giving us the theme to The Colbert Report, and much more we give thanks for Cheap Trick and especially their bloody great vocalist this day. We’ll surrender to you fellas anytime!

Seriously, is there a better time to be had in pop-rock than this?

One of the pleasures of Cheap Trick is how they draw a direct line back to rock’s originators, including nifty updates of their work like this.

Cheap Trick at Spring Break: A Rodney Dangerfield-esque sex comedy waiting to happen? An inducement to drink prodigiously and grope strangers? Yes and yes.

What a fantastically rough-edged bunch!

CT knows their touchstones, hence this Slade cover off their cheekily titled The Latest released last year.

Despite their considerable pop punch, Cheap Trick is often most formidable with moody material like “Downed,” reportedly a Kurt Cobain favorite – and it isn’t hard to pick out CT’s fingerprints on parts of Nirvana’s catalog.

The definition of a power ballad, “The Flame” is overwrought in a very Queen way that sidles up to the 13-year-old who fell in love for the first time inside all of us.

Ahh, some of the first German any Trouser Press junkie ever learned!

And we end as we must. Sing along, you know you want to!