446. Cheap Trick - At Budokan (1979)
















Track Listing

1. Hello There
2. Come on, Come On
3. Lookout
4. Big Eyes
5. Need Your Love
6. Ain't That a Shame
7. I Want You to Want Me
8. Surrender
9. Goodnight
10. Clock Strikes Ten

Review

This is the famous Cheap Trick live album, and it it decidedly meh. It just goes to show that Japan has an insane market for any old poop flung their way. Still there are a couple of good songs here, none of them justifying the mass hysteria of girls on the background.

So this is pop-rock at its blandest for most part, not offensive, original, inspired or interesting, just quite competent and slightly mediocre. Then there's the two jewels at the core of this album, I Want You To Want Me and Surrender, none of the two is particularly good, but they are both great fun.

So if this is your kind of thing, good for you, but it definitely eludes me why they were so popular, or particularly deserve to be in this list.

Track Highlights

1. Surrender
2. I Want You To Want Me
3. Ain't That A Shame
4. Need Your Love

Final Grade

7/10

Trivia

From Wikipedia:

Illinois rock band Cheap Trick found early success in Japan, and capitalized on this popularity by recording At Budokan in Japan on April 28, 1978 (see 1978 in music) with hordes of screaming young Japanese girls nearly drowning out the band at times. This album (which appeared in Japan many months before being issued in the U. S. where it had sold briskly as a Japanese import, and which was issued with a concert program in both English and Japanese) broke the band into global pop stardom with their first hits.

Surrender: