Review Summary: The album may have gone gold, but it doesn't shine too bright.
At the time of the release of their fifth album,
All Shook Up, the status quo of the Rockford four had changed in the long-desired way. A wider audience started to recognize the name of Cheap Trick, their latest album,
Dream Police, sold like hotcakes, and it simultaneously increased the sales of their previous releases. On the one hand, the band could rejoice at their success, enjoying all kinds of perks and bonuses. On the other, it dramatically elevated the risk of losing one’s footing – a risk magnified to the nth degree by the fleeting, momentary preferences of that wider audience. So what was Cheap Trick’s response to such intense attention focused on their personas?
It is to look at the rating above to realize the response was rather mixed. Why is that, you might ask? Well, let’s not beat about the bush and name the main reason: practically all material on
All Shook Up is inferior to what was on the band’s previous albums. Only three songs can confidently stand with the time-tested hits:
Stop This Game,
World’s Greatest Lover, and
Love Comes A-Tumblin’ Down. The first one is especially effective and wouldn’t feel out of place on
Dream Police. Speaking of which, that indicates one of the major things wrong with this album. The LP feels more like a collection of B-sides that, deservingly or not, couldn’t find a spot on
Dream Police. But please do not think the remaining tracks are a failure – far from it. Many of them are solid, if average, doing what they’re supposed to during playback while leaving no lasting impression. The only exception to this is the closer,
Who D’King, which stands as a singular case of unnecessary filler.
It seems that prior to working on
All Shook Up, the well of the chief songwriter Rick Nielsen started to run dry, which is really unsurprising given his excellent work on the first four albums. In addition to that, another factor impacted the final result. Cheap Trick decided to change horses in midstream: Tom Werman – with whom they had worked since
In Color – was replaced by George Martin, a producer highly respected in certain circles and with an already secured place in pop music history thanks to his collaboration with
The Beatles.
Such a reshuffle yielded a commendable attempt by the band to experiment, shake things up, and present something surprising to a yearning audience (and it set a certain level of expectations for those awaiting practically the second coming of the Liverpool four). But
All Shook Up paints a different picture. One sees humble, uncertain half-steps toward a more experimental sound instead of the firm tread of a band willing to open up their bag of tricks and gimmicks. The progress of the previous two albums, which could have produced the desired effect, was thrown aside, leaving behind an indistinct result. A single rather convincing example of these overtures is
High Priest of Rhythmic Noise, which nicely combines trademark energy and contemporary (for the time, of course) studio technologies.
All of this resulted in
All Shook Up being Cheap Trick’s first miss – one that is nevertheless not devoid of its own somewhat inconspicuous charm.
