Cheap Trick - All Washed Up

BMG Records

Originally forming in 1973, but not seeing widespread success until 1978, Cheap Trick were the princes of power pop for all of two years before fading into obscurity in the early 1980s. They had a brief resurgence later in the decade with the stomach-churningly saccharine hit “The Flame”, but apart from that, their time at the top of the rock food chain was effectively over. 

Despite being a fan of the band myself, I wasn’t particularly thrilled to hear they would be releasing new music this year. Their records released after 1979’s “Dream Police” remained unplayed in the rotations of disc jockeys across the country, and I hadn’t so much as thought in indulging in most of their output dated past 1988. What with the way things have been going for so-called legacy acts and the quality of their newer outputs, I wasn’t hedging any bets on “All Washed Up” to begin with. But, hey, at least they’re self aware. 

Taking even a cursory glance at the album cover, we are already being granted a hint as to what treacherous paths lie ahead. It’s just as uninspired as the content within, and playing a washing-machine related pun is dreadfully unoriginal. Why not do something more oceanic? Or was that not obvious enough for you? And as if that wasn’t bad enough, they used AI to create the cover art, when back in the 1970s we hired real live photographers. They mustn’t have felt like hiring any photography talent for this one, because otherwise I don’t see why a self-respecting band of their caliber would stoop to such a low. 

Finally working up the courage to move past the terrible cover, we have the overly bombastic title track. Whether the unnecessary crunch on the guitar work was intentional or not, it remains some of the ugliest guitar work Rick Nielsen has done--all the charisma his instrument used to possess has seeped away. But if that isn’t enough to put you off of this song, than Robin Zander’s vocal performance should do the trick. Old Robin Zander sounds like young Iggy Pop, and coupling that with salacious lyrics Nielsen is surely too old to be writing, instead of something more thematically relevant, turn an already bad song into an even worse one. 

“All Wrong Long Gone” is closer to the stereotypical style of 1980s pop songs, and it has become clear that Cheap Trick are stagnating. They’re stuck in the late 1990s slump of their career, which was merely an extension of the slump of their mid 1980s career, and those musical elements that are so clearly lifted from the better Sammy Hagar songs aren’t fooling anybody. Why they would follow up a tune about promiscuity with one about defending the honor of your wife I have no idea, but they keep flip-flopping between that and typical rockstar woes with no clear tether between the two, and I’m beginning to suspect they just haphazardly taped some unfinished songs together and hoped for the best. 

The closest we’ve gotten to classic Cheap Trick so far is “The Riff That Won’t Quit”, but it’s still a pretty big hop, skip and jump away. The ghost of Sammy Hagar continues to linger, and the lyrics remain embarrassing as ever, like the poetry a high school freshman submits for a local competition, but cringes to remember years later. At least it’s mercifully short. 

Cheap Trick are now recycling some musical patterns from their old live renditions of "Can't Hold On", but unfortunately they’re never going to achieve that kind of raw power ever again. While “Bet it All” is one of the more tolerable songs on the record, there’s nothing really worth revisiting unless you want to hear a tinny guitar part that sounds more on par with shaking a metal garbage can around than playing an instrument. “Bet it All” is also a very low-stakes songs--an attempt has been made to harness the sinister energy of 1978’s "Heaven Tonight", but I can’t really take it seriously, because gambling is worlds away from overdosing. 

“The Best Thing” is a sentimental snooze-fest filled with cliche lyrics and bogus nothing statements. It’s schmaltzier than a solo Rod Stewart song, and with absolutely none of the class. And is “you’re the best thing that ever happened to me/in the future of what we’ve got” really supposed to pass as good songwriting? 

Continuing with more nothing statements is “Twelve Gates”. This was released as the lead single from the album, and the band have certainly come a long way from their early days, when they had the gall to release songs about suicide as lead singles instead of peddling this meaningless, hard-to-listen-to drivel to their fans. It sounds like it was ripped straight from 2001, and comes across as so preachy that it might as well be a Protestant pastor. 

Sandwiched between two love songs so similar they might as well be the same tune (“Bad Blood” and “Love Gone”) is “Dancing with the Band”, a minimal-energy attempt at recreating the sleazy regalia worn by bands more forthcoming with their groupie songs. That never was Cheap Trick’s style, though, and the song suffers for it. It’s been drenched with disinfectant, like something out of the soundtrack to a PG rated Disney Channel movie. 

“A Long Way to Worcester” has nothing going for it save for the clumsy, plodding, barely-audible bass line, and “Wham Boom Bang” is possibly the worst album closer I’ve ever heard. It is disgustingly out of place, emulating the twee “quirkiness” of 2010s pop made by Meghan Trainor and others of that ilk, and the tune ends so unsatisfyingly it’s as if the band doesn’t even know their own record finished playing. 

With Producer Julian Raymond having worked on several of Cheap Trick’s previous albums, it’s surprising to see his work on this record come out sounding so amateur. Throughout the record, guitars are improperly layered, vocals tower over all instrumentation and the bass is so inaudible it’s a surprise they even bothered to let Tom Petersson into the studio. 

If Daxx Nielsen’s drum work is any better than that of Trick’s former drummer, Bun E. Carlos, then Raymond certainly did not do a good job showing it. Producers used to know how to augment the personalities of bands through their work, so either Trick has run out of personality or Raymond slept through that part of class. Tom Werman did a better job producing 1977’s “In Color”. 

“All Washed Up” also makes it clear that Rick Nielsen’s songwriting muscles have atrophied near completely. Cheap Trick, in their heyday, were proof that you didn’t need to be a walking dictionary to write good songs, but these are so offensively simple they’re practically brain-dead. Unique instrumentation could’ve been the saving grace of this album, but all the songs sound so uninspired, unoriginal and downright boring that it’s not even worth anything anymore. And while further efforts could warrant a decent, if not good album from the band in future years, it wouldn’t be fun or economic for the band, nor their fans, to figure out just how long that would take. 

Rating: 2/5