I think Nielsen's best songwriting was on CT's first 4 (studio) albums, a 
lot of that material was written when they were still a club band touring 
the Midwest. His decline in quality was pretty slow - good songs here and 
there, plus Robin helped and wrote some fine songs like the excellent "I 
Cant Take It".  Rick hit rock bottom with "The Doctor" with lousy 
electronic percussion, uninspired playing and lame songs. Members of CT 
always hated the mix of "In Color" but its a fine tight sounding mix 
compared to that mess.

CT's problem was not only Epic's demands to write a hit, contract problems 
and their indifferent promotion, but the revolving door of producers after 
Tom Wereman left. The drastically different production approaches to each 
album (Acolytes and Tributes with George Martin - AC/DC Metal with Roy 
Thomas Baker  - back to Power Pop with Todd - Mid 80's Hair Band with Jack 
Douglas) confused radio and fans (including me) and led to their decline. 
After "Lap of Luxury" I thought they had finally sold out and were 
backpeddling on their rep as a goofy live act. There were some good tracks 
but the sense of humor that CT always had was long gone - and the hits 
sounded like they could have been by Loverboy, Heart, Rod Stewart or any 
other faceless hair band.

"Monster" was a fine wake up call - the long dormant songwriting and humor 
started to bounce back, but Warners did shit to promote it.  And then that 
Red Ant CD which unjustly got dumped to the $1.99 bin was a outstanding and 
startling comeback, lots a great songs, but a little moody. I hope the new 
CD keeps it going - they have had PLENTY of time to write/record new stuff, 
so I got my fingers crossed it will be a good one.

Billy



At 04:59 PM 2/15/03 -0600, you wrote:
>I think that the Cheap Trick boxset bears out that Rick Nielsen didn't lose
>his touch, but rather that SONY kept pressuring the band to do what SONY
>felt was commercial - trying to get the "big hit," which they did by
>flinging many hit or miss ideas at the wall.  These ideas included recording
>songs written by outside composers like Diane Warren, doing covers, etc.
>Eventually this led to hit singles like "The Flame" and "Don't Be Cruel,"
>but you'll note that once the SONY contract was up they high-tailed it to
>Warner Bros. and did an album of their own material (which naturally didn't
>do well since their image was thoroughly screwed up by the aforementioned
>hit singles).  Definitely a frustrating situation, as was the circumstance
>of the label which released CT's last studio disc folding shortly after the
>disc streeting.  Six years for a band to get an arrangement in place to
>properly distribute a record that they wanted to do their way is not
>uncommon in this day and age; in fact, it may sadly become more common as
>the majors continue to lose touch with what listeners really want.
>
>Brioohs, having an "enforced" night off due to midwestern snowstorm
>
>NP:  Rocktopus - I Love You! Good Morning!
>
>P.S. - Kelly, the Stalker Hearts went over big time at The Oohs' Valentine
>date, thanks again!
>
>
>on 2/15/03 4:00 PM, audities-owner@smoe.org at audities-owner@smoe.org
>wrote:
>
> >> I know this will sound like a broken record, but Rick Nielsen must've 
> made a
> >> deal with the devil or something.  Will he ever lose his touch?
> >
> > Hey, I love Cheap Trick and all, but don't you think he *kinda* lost his
> > touch in the 1980s and the first half of the 1990s? :) --Jason