The Doctor

Artist: Cheap Trick
Label: Sony
Category: Music

Average customer rating:

Format: Import
Media: Audio CD
Number Of Discs: 1
EAN: 4562109402919
ASIN: B00009WKXM

Release Date: 2003-08-07

The Doctor

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Tracks:

It's up to You
Rearview Mirror Romance
Doctor
Are You Lonely Tonight
Name of the Game
Kiss Me Red
Take Me to the Top
Good Girls Go to Heaven (Bad Girls Go Everywhere)
Man-U-Lip-U-Lator
It's Only Love

Similar Items:

Standing on the Edge
Next Position Please
Found All the Parts
Busted
Woke Up With a Monster

Album Description

Out of print in the states. 2005 Japanese reissue originally released in 1986.

Customer Reviews:

Cheap Trick: The Doctor.......2007-05-20

I Like this CD! Catchy tunes with driving rhythms make this disc a must for every Cheap Trick fan! It's too bad they mad it an import. It should be available to all hard-rock fans at anytime!

At Least It's Better Than Lap of Luxury!.......2007-05-07

But that's about all you can recommend on this one, a late/mid-eighties offering from the Tricksters that showed the group struggling for new ideas. Any new ideas. They wound up going the new wave/techno front with a heavy (over) reliance on synthesizers. Still, you can't exactly say the album is boring. Actually, it's more strange than anything. But at least at this point CT was still writing (for the most part) their own material, and Rick Neilsen's typically oddball sense of humor lyrically is well evidenced here. That aside, the bottom line is that there is one good song on this entire album, the undeniably catchy "Kiss Me Red". It was, however, written by outside forces...a factor that would lead to their commercial rebirth (and artistic downfall) in the album to follow.

Their worst is still better than most's best!!.......2006-10-17

Cheap Trick hit a low point in '86 with this album. The last of the Post-Ppetterrssonn era albums and part of the great unanswered question concerning those four albums: Could it have been better with Tom?
I suspect not. There's little bass to be found here. There's no room with all the keyboards. Sure, it was the 80's, Cheap Trick were trying new styles, trying to stay relevant. One only wishes they'd stuck to their guns and stayed with the rock element - though having said that, their previous effort (Standing on the Edge) was rock orientated and while superior to this album, suffered similar lack of success and acclaim.

There are however a few highlights to be found here. All is not lost behind the synths and a general corny flavouring. Cheap Trick at their worst are streaks ahead of most bands at their best.

The opener, It's Up To You, is a weak opener. The spoken word before each verse, the forced chorus and the overuse of synths make it one of CT's all time worst tracks. Sure it's pacey and boppy but it hasn't aged well at all.
Rearview Mirror Romance is choppy and overdone. Many of the good elements are lost in the arrangement. It starts well with good guitar work but that gets lost as keyboards take over.
The Doctor is an improvement but still laced with over-synthing. On any other album this song would have rocked.
Are You Lonely Tonight could have been great. As is, the corniness takes over, ruining what interesting melody there is.
Name Of The Game is hit and miss. Parts are great, parts are weak. The verses stand out, as does the chorus intro, but the 'over and over and over again' lets it down. The best track on the first half but hardly memorable.
Kiss Me Red is the albums highlight and 'choice' CT. The keyboards work in this one, balanced well with the guitars which together, drive the song through all its stages. ELO Part 2 do a nice version of this song also.
Take Me To The Top is a favorite among some fans (the 80's lovers), but to me it's one of their lamest tracks. There's nothing to like about it and it's one of the few CT tracks (most of them found on this album) that I wouldn't play publically. It screams adult contempory! It's what you'd expect a band of their vintage to be producing today. Thank god they got this out of their systems in '86 and today focus on what their best at - Rocking!!
Good Girls Go To Heaven is the albums (close) second best track. The chorus is awesome the way it builds, starting with good harmonies and then letting Robin wail (finally!!) finishing with nice harmonies again. One of their all time best chorus efforts - in my opinion.
Man-U-Lip-U-Lator while interesting, isn't great. Very similar to The Doctor with less tempo.
It's Only Love is the 3rd best track and was the first (but mostly overlooked) single. Great finsh to the album. It screams 80's but it's fun and rocky. Almost feels like a left over fron Standing On The Edge.

The Doctor has three standout tracks, a few OK's and a few throw aways. Maybe instead of remaking In Color, CT should remake this one and do it right.

Their 'comeback' after this effort was Lap Of Luxury and unfortunately, that wasn't much of an improvement - though sold much better.

Cheap Trick lost in the 80's..........2005-12-26

As far as Cheap Trick cd's go this one is no where near the best, but I would say it is no where near the worst as well. Underneath all the bad sounding 80's synths, is the heart of a pretty solid cd. The songs themselves are not bad. I know it sounds like a broken record (no pun intended), but I can think of no other band that suffered from lousy studio production more than Cheap Trick. If you were to take away the overbearing 80'e synths, and other stupid 80's sounds, and just strip the cd down to its essentials, what you would have hear is a pretty cool power pop record. It's Only Love I would say is one of the best song's from their 80's era (and it is the only song on here that escaped the synths and other useless sound effects and what-not). Name of the Game, has the same drum sound as their version of Terry Reid's Speak Now, from their first album. It is a song about how repetitive love is over time. The people are different, but it is all the same, and it never really changes.
Having seen live concert video's from this era, you see how well these songs sound if it was just the band playing and no gimmicky production. I heard a live version of It's Only Love, and when they hit the chrous close your eyes and you hear Nirvana. It is what it is. It is proof that if the band had the proper people on their label in place they never would have sank into the nether regions of the 80's.
Cheap Trick went back in the studio a few years ago with record producer Steve Albini, and re-recorded thier 2nd album In Color. I think they should leave In Color alone, and Redo this album, only with Tom Petersson's 12 string bass giving it that much needed low end. Some people might scoff, go ahead scoff. I suggest if you can play guitar, learn these songs, play these songs, and then you tell me they are bad songs. I would agree bad production, yep it sure is, but there is nothing on here as insipid as Wild Wild Women or Rock All Night. Nothing against Jon Brant, good bass player, nice guy, but he brought nothing to the band musically. I would really like to hear how this would have sounded with Petersson playing his 12 string monster on this. What this album really lacks is a low end. I think all post Tom Petersson cd's lacked that low end sound that he brought to the table. That and he could write songs as well, which made his contribution to the band more vital then just being a mere "hired hand." Re-record this straight-up raw live in the studio and I promise you the musically illiterate will sit down and shut up. Oh, and their worst CD...Busted.

The Doctor - The most underrated Cheap Trick LP of all time!!!!!!!.......2005-12-20

Since MY 'RATING SCALE' is actually 4 stars tops, this album comes close, but I have to rate it at 3.5 stars out of 4. It's not quite as good as Next Position Please, or Standing on the Edge, but ANYTHING with Jon Brant in the studio (or for that matter live) beats anything the 'Tricksters did with what's his name on Bass.

The album starts with a flourish as the first three songs are better than any 'first three songs' CHEAP TRICK WILL EVER do on an LP. Then the too slow and boring 'Are You Lonely Tonight' one of the least best 'first album side' [back in the days of vinyl,
kids] songs in Trick's long (mostly) solid history of recordings, dulls things down.

Then it picks back up the outstanding 'Name of the Game'. The second side is better than any second side in Cheap Trick recording history (except for the dopey, 'Good Girls go to Heaven,Bad Girls go Everywhere'). The last cut, "It's Only Love"
not only is a very good song (not as good though as Take Me to the Top, Borderline, I Don't Love Here Anymore, Tonight It's You,
or Saturday At Midnight, though), but the BEST VIDEO CHEAP TRICK EVER WILL DO! Being a Bassist in Washington, D.C. area bands in
the middle and late '80's, we covered a lot of Police/Sting songs,Jason & the Scorchers and ALL CHEAP TRICK FROM 1981-1987,
INCLUDING Robin and other solo stuff (Bun E. Carlos Experience,
but pls., not Rebe Jackson and Rob Zander, "You Send the Rain Away" - too much like the candy(ass?)/floss stuff on Busted and Lack of Luxury (except Don't Be Cruel & Back in Blue, of course!)

Jon's Bass work meshes perfectly with Bun E.'s power style drumming on 90% of the material here. No heavy-handed, two-left
thumb-like 12-string Bass crap either! Jonny B Good used 4, 6, and 8 stringers here, kids! Some of the Pre-Jon stuff sounded awesome in concert too, once Jon ptiched the 12-string Bass, originated by Rick. God, they were so good when Jon was in the band! I miss those days like I don't know what...Bring Back Brant! Complaints, Brickbats, Boquets, Compliments to:

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