Sunday
Dec202015
Cheap Trick, 'No Direction Home' -- New Track
Sunday, December 20, 2015 at 12:01AM To celebrate their upcoming induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Cheap Trick is giving fans a new track, for free! Click to download the song called "No Direction Home." If you just want to listen without downloading, click the YouTube below. This is great stuff. The band will be releasing a new album in a few months.
Reader Comments (9)
I used every cheap trick in the book. You would've been impressed.
Final score:
Dad=1
Son=0
I think he's learning.
Cool song above. thanks for posting
Have a rock-n-roll Holiday season everyone!
My all time favorite Cheap Trick tunes still remain for the most part unreleased...
"Need A Little Girl Just Like You" & "It Must Be Love".... Thankfully Rick Derringer (who also deserves some Hall of Fame recognition & love) covered 'em on the brilliant "Guitars & Women" LP.
BUT...
This song just doesn't come anywhere close to anything on those records. Unfortunately nothing has since they completely jumped the shark after 1980's "All Shook Up", never really getting back on track, with only a handful of hit worthy songs popping up here and there since, the last being "When The Lights Are Out", which probably has something to do with the fact that song was pulled from the vaults.
Part of what made Cheap Trick such a great "cheap trick" is the way they could take bits and pieces of classic Beatles, Beach Boys, Who, Zeppelin, Aerosmith, Move and other artists' songs and turn them into something fresh with clever lyrics to boot.
Yes, "No Direction Home" is a hodgepodge of many bits and pieces of other's songs but it's too many. And though, I do agree, it is catchy, Gary, it's too chock-a-block with musical ideas yet ultimately missing that one great guitar hook or riff so critical to any unforgettable Rock song, i.e. from their own catalog, "Hot Love", "Big Eyes", "Surrender", or "Stiff Competition", etc.
Though, it is a nice gesture of Cheap Trick to gives us a free download, let's hope their new album's better. Still, it's great to see them nominated into The Rock & Roll of Fame. No band is more deserving!
p.s. Thanks for the tip, Ace! Based on your assessment, it's too bad Cheap Trick didn't realize to put out those songs themselves instead of giving them to Derringer. They should have taken a cue from Bruce Springsteen, who revealed in his interview with Jimmy Fallon on "The a Tonight Show" last week he wrote "Hungry Heart" for The Ramones but was convinced by John Hammond to keep it. By the way, The Roots made a comical attempt at performing the song a la The Ramones, and though it was halfhearted at best, it did show just how KILLER that song would have been had The Ramones been the ones to release it. It would have been SO much more Rockin', rather than the annoyingly overplayed piece of crap it became.
Dad: 0
It is sad to hear Bun E. Carlos talk about Cheap Trick these days. And I think he has something to do with why this song sounds a bit less than Cheap Trick while still rocking nonetheless.
I don't necessarily buy into all the "when they leave, the band suffers" arguments. True, I buy into a lot of them (Clark in Lep, Burton and Mustaine in 'Tallica, DLR in Halen. etc.). But there is something to be said for a band losing a member to the business end of things while still retaining him as a full corporate member. That ain't rock. But it is life.
I know Bun E. Carlos isn't the main voice in the band in terms of creativity or output. I just wish, while they are still able, that they could put aside grievances and find a way to be willing again. Not at the RaRHoF ceremony. I could care less. But in a way that does tribute to their legacy while nodding to the fact that they are very well past it. On record, if not on tour, given that Nielsen holds the mic and his son pounds the skins these days.