#332: Cheap Trick - At Budokan (1979)

Zack: I knew Cheap Trick primarily from Guitar Hero 2 and from occasionally asking coworkers who played the generic rock songs that played during work back in my retail days. Apparently, before this album came out, that was a totally appropriate level of knowledge for an American to have. But Japan had a weird thing for Cheap Trick, possibly involving eels or tentacles, which led them to perform a live album there that then was exported out to the wider world. Establishing a home base in Japan then migrating to the Americas may seem like the sort of strategy your friend who pregamed Risk too hard might try, but it evidently worked for Cheap Trick. And I will give them credit for not mimicking the common folly of the live album by making it too long. At just 42 minutes, they get in, play 10 generic-sounding rock songs, and get out. Some of those songs sound very familiar to anyone who has spent time on a classic rock station. Some don’t. None of it is particularly memorable, save for all the screaming in the background that really makes you wonder if Japanese Cheap Trick fans had access to any superior, or just any other, music from the era.

Favorite Tracks: Need Your Love; I Want You to Want Me; Ain’t That a Shame

Emily: In the great movie This Is Spinal Tap, the titular band has a total career meltdown, but ultimately finds success in Japan. The movie shows the band in front of thousands of screaming Japanese fans who embrace them wholeheartedly after their native country had left them for dead. Apparently, Spinal Tap being big in Japan is an homage to Cheap Trick and their Eastern success. With Cheap Trick, though, their following in Japan springboarded them to an international career. And what did it was this album, Cheap Trick at Budokan (Budokan being the name of an arena in Tokyo). It's a collection of power pop-rock songs that sound right at home in an arena, including a few of their most recognizable stateside tracks - particularly I Want You to Want Me and Surrender. Cheap Trick may have never rose to have quite the status in the US as they do in Japan - the Japanese press has even called them "the American Beatles," after all - but this album makes the case for gaining the following they have,

Favorite Tracks: Surrender; I Want You to Want Me; Ain't That A Shame