Disco de Cheap Trick: “Next Position Please”

Had "Heaven's Falling" been the lead single, this record would have returned Cheap Trick to the pop firmament. That's because it's actually a Todd Rundgren record with Robin Zander singing lead, delivering what is probably his greatest vocal performance ever. Pretty much everything else is prime Rundgren: monstrous yet melodic guitar, background choruses that go on for days, and one irresistable hook after another. Pure pop perfection of a type almost never heard these days.

Y.O.Y.O.Y. is both the name of a song on NEXT POSITION PLEASE and the question I'd like producer Todd Rundgren to answer. Why, Todd, did you turn Rick Nielsen's famously nasty guitar down and slap a dumptruck load of schlack all over a batch of nifty Trick tunes??? Can't change the past, of course. But you can pick through the glossy production here and find some gems ... chiefly the title track. What a fabulous song! Sounds like a pop-metal meditation on reincarnation put across with tremendous energy. I CAN'T TAKE IT is another winner. The most maligned track is DANCIN' THE NIGHT AWAY, but it's a bum rap. DANCIN' is a rockin' tune played with winning conviction.

The choice of Todd Rundgren as producer of CT's Next Position Please seemed like an inspired one, as he has worked magic on many other LP's, from Badfinger's Straight Up to XTC's Skylarking, but somehow things didn't quite work out this time around.

Rundgren has stripped Rick's guitar sound of all it's bite. Although the playing is as stellar as ever, the production has effectively neutered their sound, robbing it of any balls that it may have had.

Having said that, all is not lost. There are some very strong songs here, and Rundgren's production works well on a few of them, especially the album's opener "I Can't Take It", "Borderline" and the pure pop delicacy, "Heavens Falling." Many of the other tracks are very good songs that would have benefited from a more aggressive guitar sound that was typical of their earlier albums, but that does not mean that they are a total waste.

So in conclusion, this may not be CT's best album, but it is also not their worst. That distinction goes to The Doctor, which is their only one star effort.

Well, 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.

I give it five stars just for I dont' live here any more. Boy, now that song rocks. Even my sister Caitlyn loves that tune homeys. My uncle Curts got the tape (yeah, he don't have a CD player) and we jam it on in the trans am!!! With the top down, and caitlyn think she brittany spears. My uncle curtis get us into a lot of this old music cause he grew up on it and he think the music of our generation is not any good. Yo, C, hows about some Radiohead or Nirvarna. So grab this one, crank it up and sing "I don't want to live her any more!!" at the top of you're lungs and hopefully you have a relative with no job and a trans am and you spend your weekends cruisin downtown and blare away all the other homeys with some real old schook. And everytime the last song is over all three of us at the same time say next position please and go to the other side and we rock out some more. Hey it beats Bon Govi.