THE GREATEST HITS

Cheap Trick includes: Robin Zander, Rick Nielsen (guitar), Tom Petersson, Bun E. Carlos. Producers include: Cheap Trick, Richie Zito, Roy Thomas Baker, Tom Werman, Todd Rundgren. Reissue producer: Bruce Dickinson. Engineers include: Gary Ladinsky, Phil Kaffel, Todd Rundgren. Recorded between 1978 and 1990. All tracks havve been digitally remastered. Recording information: 1978-1990. Photographer: Caroline Greyshock. This is sort of a "greatest hits" package since Cheap Trick has scads more great songs that could easily have made the cut. But if you have to narrow it down to 13 tracks, there's nary a dud in the bunch here (even the much maligned power ballad "The Flame" works in this context). The bottom line is that Cheap Trick's blend of Anglo-influences (Beatles, Move, Who) and American attitude made them one of the most inventive rock bands ever, and in Robin Zander they possessed perhaps the genre's most criminally underrated singer--essentially he's Robert Plant with subtlety and minus the macho posturing. Overlooked gem: a cover of "Magical Mystery Tour" which appends the psychedelic coda the song always deserved (complete with a brief sample from "I Am the Walrus").