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100 RECORDS IN 2022 CHALLENGE
Cheap Trick- In Color
Record review #8/100
There’s nothing to do in Rockford Illinois. It’s close to lots of places, but just far enough anyway to be in the middle of nowhere. And it is most assuredly NOT Chicago, no matter what the airport is called. Referring to itself as the “Chicago Rockford Airport” is like trying to make “fetch” happen, and requires a special sort of marketing gymnastics.
At any rate, being 85 miles away from the big city leaves you with few options. And so it was in 1973 that the band Cheap trick was formed.
After releasing their self-titled debut in 1977, they followed it up later that year with In Color. With Tom Werman in the production booth, the record took a sharp turn toward power pop. The band didn’t like that more polished sound, and actually re-recorded a still unreleased version of this in 1998 that was truer to what their original ideas of what it should sound like.
But people liked the new sound. The album quickly became a hit in Japan, where “I want you to want me” and “Clock Strikes Ten” both charted as singles. Fully half of the songs on the record were later…
