Cheap Trick: Next Position Please CD Track Listing

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Cheap Trick Next Position Please (1983)
Originally Released 1983\nCD Edition Released June 1988\n\nAMG EXPERT REVIEW: by Stephen Thomas Erlewine \nPerhaps sensing something was going wrong, Cheap Trick hired superstar producer Todd Rundgren for Next Position Please. Rundgren helped the band return to the appealing pop/rock of their In Color days, albeit stamping it with his heavy-handed production. However, Cheap Trick do benefit from Rundgren's control, since it gives them a sense of focus lacking on All Shook Up and One on One. Though the record was hampered somewhat by Epic's insistence of adding a bad cover of the Motors' terrific "Dancin' the Night Away" and the lightweight "You Say Jump," Next Position Please is effectively a return to form for Cheap Trick, boasting their most consistent set of songs since Heaven Tonight. "I Can't Take It," "Borderline," "Younger Girls," "Heaven's Falling," and "Invaders of the Heart" may not quite reach the heights of the first three albums, but they come within shooting distance, making Next Position Please Cheap Trick's last satisfying record. \n \nAmazon.com Customer Review\nNext Producer Please, February 5, 2003 \nReviewer: Timothy Brough "author and music buff" (Springfield, PA United States)\nTodd Rundgren's underproduction makes "Next Position Please" one of the oddest in the Cheap Trick catolog. This album has absolutely no zip! Some very strong Rick Nielsen songs are given a sound so thin, it's almost sterile. If there was one thing Cheap Trick was never meant to be, it was sterilized. And I may be one of the few men on the planet who thinks that the decision to cover The Motors' "Dancing The Night Away" was a good match for the band, even if the band swore they hated it. Too bad the whole thing sounds like it was meant to be played out of some tinny car AM radio. \n\nOn an up note, the band liked the songs here so much that FIVE of the album's fourteen numbers made it to the "Sex America Cheap Trick" collection, so that may tell you just how good the songwriting for "Next Position Please" was. Maybe if this ever gets a remaster, the band will take the time to fatten up the sound.\n\nAmazon.com Customer Review\nThe pleasant early 80's surprise, April 27, 2004 \nReviewer: William J. Eichelberger "Tainted deity" (Ft. Thomas, KY) \nIn the liner notes to the box set, Rick mentioned that I Can't Take It was a number one hit down under and advised the American public to wake up. It's a sentiment that I wholly agree with on one hand, but also one that worries me on the other hand. After hitting the top 40 with the Dream Police and Voices from the Dream Police album, the band suddenly found themselves in a top 40 slump that lasted until the Lap Of Luxury vomit-fest. Despite four singles that seemed like sure fire hits in the 1980-83 time period (Everything Works If You Let It, Stop This Game, If You Want My Love, and I Can't Take It,) the band couldn't break a song into the top 40. While this doesn't say much for the musical tastes of the top 40 audience, it isn't really a bad thing considering that the next Cheap Trick song to have a chart impact was The Flame. Given the choice between the bowl-swirling nausea of Lap Of Luxury and Busted, I'll take the early 80's near misses in a heartbeat. Next Position Please and Heaven's Falling are two other songs from this album that have made every compilation I've ever made. \n\nAmazon.com Customer Review\nGreat Album For Anyone Who Hated "Lap of Luxury", April 1, 2004 \nReviewer: Bud Sturguess (Seminole, Texas, USA) \nOn VH1's countdown of the 100 Greatest Artists of Hard Rock (Cheap Trick landed at #25), respected sound engineer and recent CT producer Rob Albini described the group's music as having "moments of rage and ugliness and power...but there are also things about it that are genuinely very pretty and elegant." This album is their "elegant" side (or as elegant as a blistering power-pop band can get anyway).\nLike all of their string of commercially-failed 80s albums, "Next Position Please" is a real gem, and a worthwhile reward for anyone who gives panned albums a chance. Renowned pop producing expert Todd Rundgren was brought on board to man the switches, a move that many say is to be given credit for the album's accessibility. On Cheap Trick's previous "failed" album, "One On One," there were subtle hints that their commercial slide was interfering with the confidence in their music, but that's certainly not the case with "Next Position Please." Cheap Trick sounds determined and focused, despite what shows up in many CT bios. The title track sounds like it was written during the band's glory days of the late 70s, and Rundgren's glossy production actually works on 'Y.O.Y.O.Y.', 'I Can't Take It' (Trick at their most sincere), and the album's best track, 'I Don't Love Here Anymore' (which is complete with Beatles-like backing vocals). It's also obvious that the group were trying to regain a younger, modern audience with songs like 'You Talk To Much' and 'Heaven's Falling.' A wildly left-center version of 'Dancing the Night Away' meanwhile, can be seen as only Cheap Trick being their erratic, oddball selves.\nMany complain that "Next Position Please" is much too pop-oriented to sound like vintage Cheap Trick; but whoever thinks that can compare this record to their 1988 'comeback' "Lap of Luxury," an album the band members themselves criticize, in which the group was forced to bring in outside songwriters. So in that light, "Next Position Please" is the more Cheap Trick-sounding substitute for "Lap of Luxury." As for this album's commercial stance, the next position for Cheap Trick would be a disappointing peak at number 61. \n\nAmazon.com Customer Review\nNext Position....... Please?, November 26, 2003 \nReviewer: Timothy N. Knight (Knoxville, TN United States)\nWell, you would think that this was a match made in musical heaven. On hindsight, given the excellent production that Rundgren afforded such pop/metal exports as The Purssuit of Happiness the question mark grows even larger. Being a big fan of Rockford's best export, upon release I was hoping for the best. However, there was much trepidation since the band had released the woefully compromised affairs since their departure with producer Tom Werman; George Martin (The Beatles)and Roy Thomas Baker (Queen). Who knows who's to blame here, but Next Position Please sounds like a warm up to the real affair. "I Can't Take It" jumps off the record with warmth, but lacks the punch that Cheap Trick is known for. From there the band grinds through some fine tunes, none of which really ever seem to get going. Fortunately, the band does leap off the album for one very fine, penned by Todd song, "Heaven's Falling". Even though the chord structures are atypical of Nielsen, the Cheap Trick sound makes the song among one of the best they ever committed to tape (What happened on the box set...that is another story). Go buy it if you have everything Cheap Trick recorded up to Dream Police, and may have stumbled on their last two studio relases, Cheap Trick and Special One. \n\nAmazon.com Customer Review\nThe Trick's Last (to Date) Great Album, August 26, 2003\nReviewer: "jd2002" (Seven Hills, OH United States) \nAs an avid collector of all of Cheap Trick's CD's, and having seen them live over a dozen times...I believe I can consider myself a fairly hardcore Trick fan. That said, this (as of Aug 2003, anyway)is the last work from the group that can honestly be enjoyed all the way through. The frequently maligned production by Rungren is different for the Trick, but works well...giving them an even more Beatlesque sound than on previous efforts. More to the point, almost every song on this album is different, fun and blessed with great hooks. Best of the lot are (oddly) a remake of The Motor's "Dancing the Night Away" and "Heaven's Falling", a shimmering tune straight out of pop-rock heaven.\nIf you are fairly slim on your Cheap Trick collection, this CD and anything else they put out before would make fine selections. After that, the group would drift aimlessly through the late eighties and nineties with sellouts like "Lap of Luxury" (much of it written by outside songwriting hacks like Diane "Syrup of Ipecac" Warren). \n\nWhen they finally realized that they had sold their souls, CT went back in 1997 for a self-titled effort that crashed and burned on release. Sadly, the songwriting inspiration that began in the late seventies ended after Next Position Please.\n\nAmazon.com Customer Review\nGreat songs Produced All Wrong., July 19, 2002\nReviewer: Kevin OConnor (Florida) \n"Next Position Please" is an interesting album. As far as songs go there are some great ones on here. However, as far as production goes, it is not so good. Todd Rundgren, who produced the album wanted to get Cheap Trick away from Whoish-bomb-bast, and strip them down to barebones. There are some moments where this works, like on, "Won't Take No For an Answer," Invaders of the Heart," and the title track but most of the time it just falls flat on it's face. What "Next Postion Please" needed was stronger production, dare I say fuzzy guitars, and fat walking basslines Instead we get washed out guitar sounds, and tiney sounding bass lines. Having heard the majority of these songs live I can say that they were made to be played loud, and fast, not slow and restrained.(To see, or rather hear, what I mean listen to the live version of "I Can't Take It, for 1999's Music for Hangovers). \nAlso their label, Epic, started to flex their muscles on the creative control aspects of things by forcing the band to cover The Motors' "Dancing the Night Away." I believe it was either "record this song or we shelve the album". I have heard the songs that were thrown off this album for "Dancing the Night Away", and it just goes to prove that at that time, and probably now, record execs have not a clue about what is good and bad, only what they think will sell -- and most of the time they are well off the mark on both. Maybe if record companies like Epic nutured bands and tried to develop them instead of using the assembly line approach with them, then the record industry would not be in the sad and sorry state they it is in now. Anyhoo, this could have been a classic, right up there with anything that the Rolling Stones or the Beatles did if produced right, instead it is a mixed bag of great songs produced wrong. I have always said that if Cheap Trick could come out with an album of songs as good as the ones on Next Position Please, with the strong production of All Shook Up, it would be a wonder to behold, well check out their self titled album from 1997 to see what I mean.\n\nAmazon.com Customer Review\nThis album lacks the cohesiveness of most Cheap Trick Albums, July 23, 1998\nReviewer: Mark Ostendorf (Ismay, MT USA) \nThis album is all over the place, and for that reason misses the mark. A number of the punkish songs seem to be afterthoughts that were never even finished, and should have been left in the studio. Y.O.Y.O.Y., a very sappy ballad is an example of one of the bands ill-advised realeases, that while it may show a little move on the charts, adds to the public perception that the band lacks depth and songwriting ability. As a result, a few excellent efforts were lost in the mess. A small hit, "I Can't Take It" is one of the bands most unusual, and talented songwriting efforts (attempt to play it yourself and see), and has an addictive, dreamy and hypnotic sound. "Borderline" is a lost gem, and I would rank it in my top 5 favorites by Cheap Trick. It is filled with the same tremendous rhythmic guitar work as found in "Can't Take It", filled with clever bridges that culminate in a guitar solo that can only be described as "beautiful"! ;, and constitutes some of Robin Zander's most challenging vocal work ever, from the beginning to the very end. "Heaven's Falling", though predictable, is a very pleasant pop song. Carlos as always, provides Cheap Trick's signature steady, driving and leading drum work, which is solid even on the numerous "half songs" on this scattered effort. This is likely one of the records that critics refer to as "Cheap Trick's 10 years of bad albums" My advice? Give it a listen, and like most of Cheap Trick's albums, you'll find yourself liking something about it for years to come.\n\nHalf.com Album Credits\nPaul Klingberg, Engineer\nTodd Rundgren, Engineer\n\nAlbum Notes\nCheap Trick: Robin Zander (vocals); Rick Nielsen (guitar, keyboards); John Brant (bass); Bun E. Carlos (drums, cymbals).\n\nProducers: Todd Rundgren, Cheap Trick, Ian Taylor.\nRecorded at Utopia Sound Studio, Woodstock, New York.\n\nThis was Cheap Trick's third album in a row made with a high profile producer identified with a specific sound--here it's Todd Rundgren, previously it was George Martin, and before that Roy Thomas Baker. And yet, the band sounds resolutely consistent. This is vintage Cheap Trick and stylistically identical with classics like HEAVEN TONIGHT.Granted, there are a few new wrinkles, notably Rick Neilsen's guitar work on the opening "I Can't Take It," which appears to have absorbed the influence of the Police's Andy Summers. Elsewhere, however, it's melodic pop-rock business as usual, with "Y.O.Y.O.Y." (perhaps the band's most breathtakingly ironic ballad), and the melodically exquisite "Heaven's Falling" being particular standouts.
This rock cd contains 14 tracks and runs 50min 21sec.
Freedb: b10bcb0e
Buy: from Amazon.com

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