*** Cheap Trick

MUSIC FOR HANGOVERS

(Cheap Trick International)

Cheap Trick's career in a nutshell: four great studio albums, Live at Budokan, and then a load of disappointments. The band more or less agreed with that assessment last year when they played all those early albums from start to finish, while pretty much ignoring their '80s and '90s output. Now comes a live album from that tour, devoted mainly to all the really old songs that weren't already on Budokan ("Surrender" and "I Want You To Want Me" appear on both, but who really wants a Cheap Trick live album without them?). Topping it off are Billy Corgan's liner notes.

Like the tour, Music for Hangovers is more fun than it has any right to be: all the band have to do is show up and sound like themselves, which they manage with ease. Now that the rhythm section has at last recorded properly, one can hear what a bad-ass bassist Tom Petersson is. Robin Zander's voice fails him just once, when he has to move the high bridge of "If You Want My Love" down a key while Smashing Pumpkins' D'arcy spots for him. Once-minor album tracks like "How Are You" and "Taxman, Mr. Thief" sound first-rate nowadays; "Gonna Raise Hell" is much improved without the orchestra, and "I Can't Take It" is here to prove the '80s weren't a total flop.

-- Brett Milano