Cheap Trick

Cheap Trick came out of Rockford, Illinois, with a sound that stitched '60s guitar pop, '70s hard rock and the snarl of emerging punk into one gleaming, crunching package, and in doing so helped draw up the blueprint for power pop. Rick Nielsen played guitar, Tom Petersson played bass, Bun E. Carlos kept the beat and Robin Zander completed the four, and the hooks came in bunches.

The self-titled debut arrived in 1977, and In Color followed the same year, and that record made them a sensation in Japan, with "I Want You to Want Me" and "Hello There" among its hooks. Then came "Surrender", all swagger and singalong, with a riff that could level a gymnasium. The triple-platinum live album At Budokan followed in 1979, the concert take of "I Want You to Want Me" going top ten, and Dream Police, the same year, became their best-selling studio album on the back of its title track's nervy gallop.

The '80s were rougher, but the band clawed its way back at the end of the decade with Lap of Luxury, where the power ballad "The Flame" topped the US charts and a cover of Elvis Presley's "Don't Be Cruel" kept the party going. They've played more than 5,000 shows and entered the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2016.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.