Disco de Cheap Trick: “Woke Up With a Monster”

Cheap Trick were always more than a mindless rock/pop group.

WOKE UP WITH A MONSTER is in itself a monster of an album.

LET HER GO,DIDN'T KNOW I HAD IT,and TELL ME EVERTHING are all great songs.The band never sounded better.I call it the clown album because of the cover and the inside photos. Any band that releases an album with a cover like this one is alright in my book.The sound is good,Robin Zander is in great voice, Rick's guitar is clear, sharp and biting, as usual.Petersen's bass and Carlo's drums are wonderful,rich and strong.Listen to the drum intro to LET HER GO. Another great song is GIRLFRIENDS. Zander just screams the song! The band photos are hilarious. I think one vital element missing in today's new bands is a sense of humor.Cheap Trick provides that as well as great writing, singing, and playing. Get this album and enjoy.

Warner Brothers had Cheap Trick for exactly one album, and what a great record they got. Too bad they totally missed the boat on promoting it. "Woke Up With A Monster" rocks harder than either "Lap Of Luxury" or "Busted," and Van Halen producer Ted Templeman knew exactly how to capture the band's sound. Cheap Trick was also obviously emboldened by the freedom from their old contract, because this is a thoroughly unrestrained sounding disc.

The Gary Glitter glam of "My Gang" lays out the statement of purpose here....this is an album for the faithful. "Ride Your Pony" is a great slinky...workout, and "Cry Baby" is as good as anything from the holy trinity of the first three CDs. The possession obsession of "Girlfriend" is a top notch look at the world of relationships through Nielsen's eyes and guitar.

This is also very much a band record! Tom Petersson and Bun E. Carlos are as tight as they were in the glory days, and Robin Zander shows no signs of being a near twenty year veteran of the rock wars. Unfortunately, "Woke Up With A Monster" slipped through the cracks and right into the cut out bins. Don't make the same mistake by ignoring this record twice. It's every bit as strong as their ballyhooed 1997 eponymous album, so drop a few bills and bring this "Monster" home.

The first three songs on this one are just excellent. The rest are decent for sure but the hideous cd cover really hurt sales I would wager. Noone wants to be seen as a rock and roll clown, this is where you say? "whose idea was this bad cover?", it's not as bad as the 1970 free cd though in which you can't see the name free; instead you see 'highway' so it caused alot of confusion, you know this is trick and it's worth owning all the way. All of their music is pretty good I would say and this is enjoyable but not as great as what came before but it's still fun though. And cheap trick made fun music and that's a good thing although it's not clownrock by anystandard.

This album is an underrated, near-classic. It's not that it lacks good songs, it just should have been mixed better. Some tunes need more bass, or more vocals up front in the mix, etc. For some reason the producer Ted Templeman, (Van Halen, Doobie Brothers) and chief engineer Jeff Hendrickson, did not have a clue as to what Cheap Trick sounds like live, because the ultra-heavy sound of Tom Petersson's 12 string bass is hardly evident. Also, I think a couple tracks would have benefited by being trimmed down slightly in length. Technical criticisim aside, this 1994 "comeback" album features some killer rock and roll, like the opening raver "My Gang", the classic power-pop of "You're All I Wanna Do", the vintage AC/DC-meets-Cheap Trick in "Girlfriends". The band's talent and personality really shine on the bittersweet, mid-tempo charmer "Didn't Know I Had It", which features Zander's superb vocal skills. Michael McDonald contributes some lyrics to the excellent "Tell Me Everything", and includes some great bass licks from Petersson. Rick Nielsen's guitar work on this cd is also some of his best stuff in years, especially on "Let Her Go", and the title track. As always, you get top-notch, tasteful drumming from Bun E. Carlos, one of Rock's greatest drummers. If this album would have been mixed/recorded better and maybe if a couple of the songs were a tad more concise, this might have been the hit the band and loyal fans had hoped for, but this is pure Cheap Trick, with the band's chops and songwriting up front, although this is an effort which finds the band pushing the musical part more than the lyrics. I think after the previous two albums on Epic, which were more on the commercial-pop-rock side ("Lap Of Luxury" and "Busted"), the band wanted just to let it all hang out, and rock hard, on "Monster". All in all, it's still a solid effort, with several great songs, which actually sound better live, than on the album. The worst thing about "Woke Up" is the misguided track "Ride The Pony", and the cd cover art, which is really horrible, and probably killed it's chances of selling. Collectors should check out the Japan import version, which adds a smokin' cover of Love Sculpture's "Sabre Dance" as a bonus track. Hopefully when this out-of-print cd is re-issued, they will change the cover art(get rid of that lame clown) add the single version of "You're All I Wanna Do" and the aforementioned "Sabre Dance" as bonus tracks.

Rock Out With A Monster!

-Mike A.

Cheap Trick came back with a vengeance on this one. My Gang rocks, Woke UP is great, Cry Baby is classic. This is a great comeback for them after residing in the "Where are they now files" for several years. I was really worried that they would just become a greatest hits band but Cheap Trick continues to put out great music to this day.