Cheap Trick Dream Police on LP

When Cheap Trick burst onto the music scene in the 1970s, they broke new ground with a punkish, hard-edged brand of literate garage rock that was the perfect antidote to what ailed weary FM radio listeners worldwide. Their uniquely midwestern sensibilities have been deftly recorded in over 25 albums and laid bare in thousands upon thousands of performances worldwide. With walls of gold and platinum records to their credit, Cheap Trick and its pick-flinging, checkerboard-bedecked dynamo, melody machine Rick Nielsen, are without a doubt a musical institution and long running progenitor of the power pop genre.

Between 1974 and the band's first album in 1977, Cheap Trick toured constantly, playing over 200 concerts a year, including opening slots for Queen, the Kinks, Kiss, and Santana. During this time, the band built up a solid catalog of original songs that would eventually comprise their first three albums; they also perfected their kinetic live show. Cheap Trick signed with Epic Records in 1976, releasing their brilliant self-titled debut in early 1977. Later that year, the band released their second album, In Color followed by third album Heaven Tonight and first Top 100 single, "Surrender," in 1978.

In the wake of their commercial breakthrough with the all-time live classic At Budokan Cheap Trick released their fourth and most successful studio album, Dream Police in late 1979. Featuring the same stylistic approach as Heaven Tonight, the record also followed At Budokan right into the Top Ten, selling over a million copies and launching the Top 40 hit singles "Voices" and "Dream Police."