Is Cheap Trick a power pop band?
It’s a simple “yes” or “no” question that quickly becomes a Pandora’s box.
Most casual (aka “sane”) music fans would likely respond with, “um…what’s power pop again?” But for genre addicts who, like me, spend their precious time on Earth scanning playlists and reading niche blogs, it can feel like an existential crisis.
There’s no doubt that Cheap Trick has released some of the best power pop songs of all time—I’d include “Surrender,” “I Want You To Want Me,” “Southern Girls,” “I Can’t Take It,” “On Top Of the World,” and their cover of “California Man”—but that doesn’t necessarily mean they’re a power pop band through and through, which I believe says a lot about the genre as a whole.
I think of this as The Cheap Trick Paradox™.
In my mind, taking the time to seriously (seriously?!) consider if Cheap Trick is a power pop band leads to the inevitable conclusion—proof?—that power pop is a subjective “singles genre” best considered on a song-by-song basis. (If Cheap Trick can’t easily be considered a power pop band, well…let’s just say it’s a slippery slope from there.)
My theory is partially based on The Paradox of Theseus' Ship, a thought experiment exploring whether or not an object remains the same if all of its components change:
In a nutshell: Theseus notices one of the ships’ planks is rotten after setting sail, so he replaces it. Is it the same ship at that point? Most people would say yes. Now imagine that every piece of the ship is replaced over the long journey. Is it the same ship that pulls into its home port a few years later, or a totally new ship?
Likewise, if an artist sets out to write a power pop song while adding other stylistic elements and influences, at what point does it stop being power pop? I keep landing in the same place (plus a couple connected thoughts): 1. You know it when hear it; (1b. Genre debates are mostly pointless; 1c. I need to get a new hobby.)
Jeff Rougvie explored Cheap Trick’s power pop merits in his essay for the collection Go All The Way.
“Cheap Trick is truly magnificent, though they didn’t set out to be a power pop band. In reality, they were (and still are) America’s greatest rock band. But they are also the original ambassadors of power pop, unwittingly masquerading as a mainstream rock band. These things are not binary,” writes Rougvie, a music industry veteran and self-described power pop fanatic who is writing a book about the history of RykoDisc.
Specifically pointing to Cheap Trick’s four album run in ‘77 and ‘78—Cheap Trick, In Color, Heaven Tonight, and Cheap Trick at Boudokan—Rougvie credits the band with not only bringing power pop to the masses, but doing it in a way that made suburban nerds feel seen (in large part thanks to baseball cap, bowtie, and sweater clad, multi-neck guitar-slinging songwriter Rick Nielsen).
“Cheap Trick was inspired by super cool, but often weird, British bands. And not the ones every band cites, like The Beatles and The Who,” Rougvie wrote. “What makes Cheap Trick different is that Rick read about weird bands in the NME (he had a subscription when practically no one else in America did). He found records by acts like The Move (and their leader Roy Wood), Terry Reid, and Love Sculpture (with Dave Edmunds), many of which weren’t released in the States. So it’s no surprise Cheap Trick caused some confusion when they arrived in the mainstream.”
Rougvie points out that Cheap Trick’s self-titled debut arrived a year after the first Ramones album and the same year as Never Mind The Bollocks—timing that often landed their releases in record store “punk” bins back then. Fast forward to the late ‘80s when Cheap Trick briefly transformed into mainstream power balladeers, reviving a stalled career with their only #1 hit, “The Flame” (written by Bob Mitchell and Nick Graham), from 1988’s Lap of Luxury.
Those are just a couple of the stylistic extremes from Cheap Trick’s catalog, including countless Beatles nods. (It’s worth noting that members of the band once recorded with John Lennon, and they made the 1980 album All Shook Up with George Martin.) To complicate matters, Cheap Trick often explores heavier, late ‘60s Beatles territory on tracks like “Need Your Love” and “If You Want My Love,” the wrong inspiration according to power poppers who prefer the Fab Four’s pre-1966 output.
Taken all together, it makes Cheap Trick hard to pigeonhole as a power pop band.
I recently posed this burning question to Paul Myers, my Go All The Way co-editor, host of the Record Store Day Podcast, and the Paul Myers Overshare newsletter
“I would argue that Cheap Trick mostly fit within the Venn diagram of power pop, mixed with Midwestern rock and roll, which, of course, is a building block of power pop,” Myers said.
He points to the tracks “Oh, Candy,” “Surrender,” “I Can’t Take It,” “Heaven’s Falling,” “Dream Police,” “Voices,” “Everything Works If You Let It,” and “So Good To See You” as examples of Cheap Trick at their power poppingist.
“One of my personal definitions of power pop leans toward it being merely a sub-genre within rock—a style a band can wear on a song-by-song basis. For instance, I argue, Queen was not a ‘rockabilly’ band, but ‘Crazy Little Thing Called Love’ was a rockabilly song. In the music of Cheap Trick, we hear frequent touchstones of foundational power pop: the driving eighth notes, soaring pop melodies and high-pitched lead vocals, gang harmonies, four on the floor drumming over lyrics that blend an innate sense of fun with a recurring sadness—all at the same time. I feel that other pop building blocks such as The Beatles, Roy Wood, and even Raspberries, are represented in their sound.”
I was relieved that Myers’ thoughts on Cheap Trick somewhat aligned with mine, but I decided to avoid confirmation bias by reaching out to a few other music writer friends. None of them—including Myers—knew about my pet theory in advance, they were simply (and generously) responding to the one question “interview” I sent them.
I also contacted John Borack, author of Shake Some Action: The Ultimate Power Pop Guide and Shake Some Action 2.0: The Updated Guide To The 200 Greatest Power Pop Albums 1970-2017. Borack also has essays in Go All The Way and the sequel, Go Further. His response was a bit more direct.
“Is Cheap Trick a power pop band? Does a bear sh*t in the woods?” Borack said, recalling a colorful phrase his father often used. He points to the tracks “Southern Girls,” “Had to Make You Mine,” “I Can’t Take It,” “He’s a Whore,” “Dream Police” and “She’s Tight” to make his case.
“Let’s see…power? Check. Pop? Check. A lead singer who pulls off the nifty trick of being able to sound like Lennon AND McCartney. Check. …So yeah, Cheap Trick is power pop for certain.”
Music journalist/author
agrees with Borack (minus the bear references). Her books include Taylor Swift: The Stories Behind the Songs, I Got You Babe: A Celebration of Cher, and the 33 1/3 entry Duran Duran’s Rio. She also contributed an essay about Jellyfish to Go All The Way and writes Annie’s Newsletter on Substack.“Cheap Trick are absolutely a power pop band! To me, power pop songs are distinguished by a chorus that's punchy, buoyant and full of harmonies. All of the best Cheap Trick songs fit this approach to a tee,” Zaleski said.
I got a slightly different perspective from
, co-author of Now You’re One of Us: The Incredible Story of Redd Kross and captain of Jagged Time Lapse on Substack.“Hell yes, Cheap Trick is a power pop band! But what I love most about them is that—at least on their first four or five studio albums—their lyrical vision was far more quirky, perverse and compelling than that of your typical late-‘70s power pop combo,” Epstein said.
“Instead of applying their fat guitar chords, ringing melodies, and heart-stopping harmonies to the vagaries of teenage romance, some of Cheap Trick's power-poppiest songs dealt with things like suicide (‘Heaven Tonight,’ ‘Auf Wiedersehen’), male prostitution (‘He’s a Whore’), paranoia (‘Dream Police’), and venereal disease (‘Surrender’), drawing a straight line back to Pete Townshend's oddball lyrical concerns circa 1966-67, the height of The Who's power pop phase,” Epstein said.
Mention of The Who brings us full circle since guitarist Pete Townshend coined the term “power pop” in 1967.
"Power pop is what we play—what the Small Faces used to play, and the kind of pop The Beach Boys played in the days of 'Fun, Fun, Fun' which I preferred.”
That throwaway quote—used to describe their single, “Pictures of Lily” which, to Epstein’s earlier point, explores themes of masturbation and infatuation—unwittingly launched the power pop genre and decades of ensuing fan debates.
And here I am 60 years later fueling those familiar (ahem) flames with a TL;DR post about Cheap Trick’s power pop prowess. I’ll admit that I didn’t definitively prove Cheap Trick are purveyors of many fine power pop songs and not a power pop band. I did, however, connect with some smart music lovers to discuss a band we all love.
I surrender, but I’m not giving up on the Cheap Trick Paradox™ just yet…
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Love this--having grown up in the western exurbia of Chicago about 30 miles from Cheap Trick's home base in Rockford while the band was in its pre-Epic Records wilderness, I tend towards Paul Meyers' assessment that the band was a midwestern rock and roll band first with inclinations toward Power Pop second. The Jack Douglas-produced first album, dominated by Rick Nielsen's unhinged guitar and raw feel, is really closest to what they were (and are, live at least, these days.) Ditto for suburban Chicago cohorts Pez Band and its spawn, with singer Cliff Johnson, Off Broadway. That said, when CT go power pop, they do it with unmatched verve and style; to me, their power poppiest is "Come On, Come On," from In Color. I really think they are their own city state, stylistically, like Hong Kong or the District of Columbia. BTW: a great primer on Midwestern Power Pop (and PP adjacent) bands of the era is this compilation, which includes Shoes, The Kind and much more. https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_lopky2-dWYV_v59d_yJX5p2CmVyVHtpn0
Great read, Steve!
I'm born and raised in Chicago - the Mecca of midwestern power pop, and although we claim
Cheap Trick - they're actually from Rockford, IL., a small city of its own about 90 minutes west of Chicago. Cheap Trick has always been a bit of a conundrum!
They absolutely released great power pop songs,(some mentioned in the article), like "Come On, Come On", which is a perfect power pop tune!
Then there are others that drift into midwestern rock,("The Flame" "Voices").
One of my fav Trick songs is "He's a Whore", but I don't agree with John Borack's assessment that it's a "power pop" song! To me - that one was a bit more punky/rock...
Unlike most other late '70s-early '80s straight-up power pop bands,(Pezband, Off Broadway, Shoes, etc.)- there's a reason why Cheap Trick hit the mainstream level!
They found a way,(I believe unintended), to straddle the line between rock and power pop - with juuust enough rock, a zany enough look and sound to smack a bit of new wave, and (in their hey-day,),with just the right timing for mainstream rock radio program directors to pick them up for the world to be exposed to.
As we know - for whatever reason, the power pop genre seems to be more favored by dudes, so, it also didn't hurt that Cheap Trick differed by having a front man and bass player with "Tiger Beat looks" to also get them noticed by women!
The mix of all of those elements is what has made it tougher to pigeonhole them!